Do you have a Scanner? A digital camera? Any camera? Do you know anyone who has any of these? Then we're in business!

Before you can set up your gallery you have to get your drawings into your computer - and in a way that keeps your masterpieces looking their best.

A SCANNER is the best means as it is unaffected by lighting conditions, the budgie kicking sand on your drawing... or your finger getting in front of the camera lens!  If your drawing is too big to scan in one piece then scan it in bits and join them together again in your computer.  How?  Click here to take a look at my "How to" article at SibleyFineArt.com or (if you are really having problems) send me the bits and I'll try to piece it back together.

A DIGITAL CAMERA can work quite well and is certainly better than nothing but you will probably have to experiment to get a good photo.  Take a lot with different lighting conditions - outside in natural light is best, try to keep it flat and watch out for glare from the sun.   You might like to try placing your drawing on the ground to photograph it as you stand over it.  Try to keep it square with the sides of the viewfinder and don't let your own shadow fall across it!

A CAMERA (preferably a 35mm SLR) can be just as good and is often better than a digital one.  Follow the same advice as above and then mail me your photograph.  Of course I can only guess at what it really looks like, but I'll have a good try at making it look just like your drawing.  If you don't like the result, just say so and we can try again.

OK, so you have your drawing in the scanner... now what? Well that rather depends on whether or not you used colour in your drawing. The idea here is to keep the size of the file as small as possible without losing too much quality. So try the following:

If your scanner allows it, don't save your scan as a JPEG (JPG) or GIF. JPGs in particular lose tiny bits of your drawing every time you save so, if you can, save it as a TIFF, PSD, BMP or anything else on offer. As you are going to show your drawing on the Web it's not necessary to set a high resolution level. Eh? Well, the web will display your work at 72 pixels per inch (ppi) so you are just wasting time and file size by choosing to scan at say 300 ppi. However I suggest you scan at 100 ppi in colour for the actual scan then cut it down later.

*Tip* - If your scanner won't allow you to send your scanned image directly to your favoured imaging application then instead open the application and look under "File" for "Open Special", "Import" or similar. This should enable you to select the scanner from the application itself and link directly to it.

Now that you have your scan opened in your favourite imaging program (I prefer Adobe Photoshop) you need to set about getting it ready for sending to Starving Artists.

For graphite pencil drawings and charcoal (or anything else without visible colour) alter your picture to the following:

• 72 ppi
• No larger than 600 pixels wide or high
• Find the option that controls the colour settings and choose "grayscale". This will drastically reduce your file size as it drops all knowledge of colour
• Unless your drawing is a simple line drawing, save it as a JPG rather than a GIF.  GIFs are good for solid blocks of colours but not graduated tones. When saving as a JPG you may have the option of choosing a level of quality - low, medium, high or 15,50,100 for example - use the highest setting necessary to maintain the quality of your drawing.

For colour work, be particularly careful of file size and choose a lower JPG quality if necessary. Try to get your file size below 150KB if you can but no more than 400KB or our system will refuse it.

And please DON'T load your image into a document such as a Word .DOC file before you send it!  You will just create a nightmare document that can take up to 90 minutes to download (as we know from experience!) and which we probably can't use....  Just save your file to your Desktop as a JPG so it's easily found later when you need to send it to us in step 3.

As this is your first submission to Starving Artists we need all your details.  All the information is safe with us — we will never divulge anything to anyone at any time.  If you close your gallery at some later date all your details will be erased from our system.  OK?  Good - So please complete the form and give details of the first image you want to put into your gallery.  We can change the order of images in your gallery — just email us your requirements.

All boxes marked * must be completed.  When you've completed the form just click the submit now button and your gallery is on its way to being created.