How To Turn Your Physical Art Into An NFT
How To Turn Your Physical Art Into An NFT
CAN I MAKE AN NFT FROM MY PHYSICAL ART, OR PHOTO?
Yes you can! I see this question being asked online so often, it makes my head spin. It may seem obvious to me, but it probably isn’t to those who aren’t savvy with digital art tools (which I assume is most people).
The quick answer is- All you have to do is “digitize” your real-world art, which means taking a (digital) photo of it, or using a digital photo scanner. A photo scanner is a device that allows you to lay a piece of paper flat on a glass surface (like a photocopy machine) and “scan” it, effectively creating an evenly lit, detailed, digital photo of the document. Assuming your art is in a piece of paper (like a drawing or photo), this is your best option. Photo scanners range in price from under $100 on up to thousands for commercial models. Most consumer grade scanners will do the job, even ones in the “cheap” price range. However, cheaper scanners often are built to handle smaller documents. Keep this in mind particularly if your art pieces are larger than the 8”x10”.
If you’re on a budget and want the cheapest scanner available, it’s probably a good idea to read online reviews and lean towards a model with the highest resolution. Some scanners are designed for text documents and don’t scan in color, while “photo scanners” are able to handle color very accurately. Most scanners available today are photo scanners, but it’s important to be aware of this distinction. The Epson V600, for example, is a reasonably priced scanner that is marketed towards artists and photographers. It also scans photo negatives. The Epson V39 is more affordable, but still suitable for most small to medium sized pieces.
The other option is to take a digital photo. This is viable in place of scanning, but takes a little more skill to get a clean, stable picture. This actually isn’t too hard with some attention to detail, but scanning is definitely easier. If your original artwork is something that can’t lay flat on a scanning bed (like a large painting, mural, or sculpture, then you will probably have to take a digital photo. You can use any digital camera for this, even a phone camera, but you’ll want to use the best equipment that is available to you. Ideally, you’ll want to use a DSLR or otherwise high-end, high-resolution camera in order to catch a quality image. These days, for many situations, a phone camera will probably get the job done. In all cases (and especially with a camera phone), it’s a good idea to take test shots to see how well your camera performs. If you do end up using a camera to photo a “flat” piece of art such as a painting, it’s important to make sure that the camera lens is exactly parallel with the art work. This can be arranged shooting down (with the artwork laying flat on the floor or a table), or shooting horizontally (with the artwork mounted against a wall). Make sure the photo’s subject is evenly lit, and of course, use a tripod to ensure you don’t shake or tilt the camera.
There are a couple of other outlying situations that are also worth mentioning. The most likely being, if your creation happens to be Audio/Visual and only exists on a video tape, film reel, or some other form of physical media, then this too must be converted to a digital file. This can be done by playing the video into a computer equipped with analog video inputs. Video capture devices that adapt RCA inputs through your USB drive can be bought on amazon for under $10. This is a great solution if you have the necessary playback device handy. If not, Then your best bet is finding a reputable transfer service (audio or video), that can transfer your old reel-to-reel, DAT, or DVC tapes to a digital file. This isn’t very expensive, and is definitely worth doing, even if just to archive your past work. These USB audio/video converters work just as well for audio sources (they are RCA inputs after all), so you can use the same device to digitize music/audio you have living on physical formats like cassette, vinyl, etc. Again, this is assuming your playback device has RCA audio outputs.
Another example of a unique situation would be if you had a physical object, like a sculpture or antique, and you wanted to sell it as a 3D virtual object. This could ultimately be an in-game object, or even sold as a raw 3D file. In this case, you essentially need to re-create the objects exact geometry in a 3D modeling program (like Blender). One way to accurately achieve this is by through photogrammetry, which is essentially a process that uses photos takes from every angle to calculate and re-create the exact geometry digitally in three dimensions. You can also use the same photos to “texture” your new virtual model to complete the look. It should be noted that creating 3D objects, or “assets”, is a very involved process that requires skill with specialized software. If you want professional results, you’re probably not going to get those right away if you do it yourself.
One last thing to consider, are file formats and sizes. The important thing here is to know what formats are accepted by the marketplace you plan to upload to, and to make sure that your NFT’s media content is in a compatible file format. If someone else is doing the digitization work for you, make sure you specify beforehand what kind of file you need.
Just as important as file format, is file size. This is the maximum file size that your content file can be. Like acceptable formats, the individual NFT markets make their own rules here. The file size also directly relates to the quality/resolution your NFT will display at. Obviously, higher quality results in a bigger file. A lot of NFT graphic art is small enough to never have to worry about this, but bigger pieces of media like full length films and musical albums will have to consider these limitations.
File format, resolution, and size should all be taken into consideration before creating your NFT and/or before deciding on an NFT market. Opensea has a 100MB upload limit, while the average limit for most markets is around 25-30 MB. You can also offer bigger files through the “unlockable content” option available at most markets, but if you need the NFT itself to contain a high res or long playing piece of content, then you certainly want to consider this.
That’s really all there is to it. After deciding what file size, format, and resolution you need for your particular market, get your physical media transferred to a digital file format. Once you do that, you’re ready to upload it to your chosen NFT marketplace.