I have been trying to photograph some acrylic paintings, but having difficulty capturing a true purple color in one of the paintings. Even after processing, it looks too blueish. Photos taken with a Nikon D40x, standard kit lens at about 30 - 35 mm, iso 100, f5.6, on tripod outdoors with indirect sunlight. Using MacBook Pro stock Photos program for processing. Is it my camera, my lighting, my processing program, or my inexperience - or any combination of the above? Any tips appreciated! Oh, and it’s the mountains in the front that are supposed to look more like a light purple, back ones to left side are actually blue.

Thanks, artBob. Yup, I'm just a novice artist (and even more novice photographer) looking for an inexpensive way to photograph my work; some for online posting, some for judging, some for prints. I am thankful for all the helpful advice from all the people here on this forum - lots of things for me to try to correct this. I never even considered that the problem could be in the calibration of my monitor, and I will be purchasing a ColorChecker Passport or some other type of white balance card to try that, too. Thank you for the tips on the indoor lighting configuration - I will try that, also. And thanks for your kind critique of my artwork - just a novice, trying out a new style - but luckily, I'm pretty thick skinned, lol.

Lots of blind leading the blind.

The only way to get this right is to use real software and a camera calibration target and editing your images on a color profiled display. By this I am referring to an Xrite ColorChecker Passport and Lightroom, and more than likely an Xrite i1 Display Pro, calibration tool at the minimum.

To answer your question - the least of your problem is the camera. On the other hand, you need to be working on a color accurate display. If you haven't profiled it there is a good chance it is not accurately displaying colors. Calibrating your camera/lens combo for the correct color is critical for artwork. Every camera has a slightly different color response curve, and colors can be recorded incorrectly. A ColorChecker Passport will address that. Using Photos will not give you the control you need, and the last time I looked at it there was no provision for a camera profile. Adjusting individual colors without a color accurate display and relying on how things "look" to you is hit or miss at best. And so is dialing in a color temperature setting, which only affects white balance and not green-magenta tint. In addition, your editing environment is critical - it needs to be dark and contribute no color influence. Your lighting would not be my choice, but it can work. And finally, your lack of experience isn't that bad, you know enough to ask the questions that hopefully will get you to your goal.

You don't have to get 100% of the above correct. But the more checkboxes you can tick the better your results will be.

Here is a short video on the ColorChecker Passport and you can see how the question of color accuracy is handled correctly. The software used is Lightroom, which does have the capacity to use a camera profile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDtebpvATzc

Indoor setup:

Dimly lit room

40mm Micro Nikkor lens

Camera on tripod or copy stand with lens centered on art, and art plano-parallel to sensor.

Two 20-24 inch soft boxes with multiple photo grade, flicker-free, 5000K to 5600K CFL or LED lamps on low adjustable stands

Lights at 37.5 to 45 degrees up from art surface

Adjust (feather) lights so exposure is within 1/6 f/stop in center, at center edges, and all four corners.

Use Preset (custom, manual) White Balance in reference to a calibration target. OR, use a Color Checker Passport and its Lightroom plug-in.

Open shade is too blue. Sunlight is very difficult to control for copying artwork.

Calibrate and profile a desktop monitor for accurate color adjustment. Use a kit from X-Rite or Datacolor.

I have been trying to photograph some acrylic paintings, but having difficulty capturing a true purple color in one of the paintings. Even after processing, it looks too blueish. Photos taken with a Nikon D40x, standard kit lens at about 30 - 35 mm, iso 100, f5.6, on tripod outdoors with indirect sunlight. Using MacBook Pro stock Photos program for processing. Is it my camera, my lighting, my processing program, or my inexperience - or any combination of the above? Any tips appreciated! Oh, and it’s the mountains in the front that are supposed to look more like a light purple, back ones to left side are actually blue.