My photos always look like crap; I have resigned in that respect. Even if I put my hubby @wulff-media to task, who has a much better hand with a camera, my paintings NEVER come out like they are in life. Same goes for his art. We have tried everything reasonable, other than investing in specialized lighting/camera equipment. I guess there is a reason why photographer is a profession in its own right.

Apart from me being terrible with a camera, I really think it has to do with the way consumer cameras are made. Their color gamut and contrast range is geared towards typical situations a consumer might shoot; family, pets, holidays and such.

Folker has tried photographing art in RAW with his expensive camera. The result was quite acceptable, albeit at the cost of processing and color matching the image so much, that the time required got close to the time it took to do the actual painting. That's simply not worth it for social media like Hive unless one seeks to advertise the work to high-paying art buyers.

A great little tool for QUICKLY improving art photos is the Snapseed app. Especially the perspective tool lets you straighten botched angles almost every time, a selective improvement tool lets you even out lighting, and the detail tool helps with sharpening and softening. This particular tool can deal well with canvas textures. It can soften the canvas texture while simultaneously sharpening the edges of the painting. At least you get an approximation of your actual painting that way, without breaking the bank.