Share And Discuss Photo Paintings

This is exactly what we were hoping we would get :)

I only have two I think



The origin of this was a dog walk LOL I took a photo of a rider that had just gone past and my dog of the time, Max, decided to photo bomb it.

About a year later I found the photo whilst I was working on my off world series of art. I had created a load of backgrounds for that series and wondered what would happen if I added one to my photograph

The image was a little grainy so I digitally hand painted over it and this was the outcome. I really like it. Is it true art? To be honest I do not know. As a traditional painter I still find it hard to use a computer in the same way as oils and canvas

Not sure if this is what you are looking for but here are two "paintings" that started out as photos.

The first one is an as close as possible to the original photograph, watercolor rendition, and the second one has a bit more of a funky look to it.

Abbie, that's an interesting fantasy twist on the theme, shows what you can do with a bit of raw material.

Floyd, I think the category of "photo painting" can be a broad one, while those images don't look exactly like paintings they are along those lines, I think they fit the theme.

Here is the embedded image from my OP.



I was testing out my new D5200 trying to get the hang of using a DSLR in manual modes out in a remote rural area of central western Utah but due to my technical ignorance many of the photos I took that day turned out noisy. I really liked the composition of this photograph but it was just too noisy to save as a photo, so I just did what I could to remove as much noise as possible then smoothed things out where needed, tweaked some colors, added some other color interest, cloned some unwanted items out and then ran it through the oil painting filter of Foto Sketcher.

David what a great topic. Thank you!

Valerie, I see you have a couple photos that you converted to your minimalist style, why don't you share those?

OK Thank you I can but I am actually more interested in how you did yours! It is very beautiful!

I did a series of these some time ago with Topaz Impression. It was during the winter and I didn't have much to shoot at the time. I looked for photos that I found compositionally interesting but perhaps didn't have the pop just as a photograph. I've always been fond of impressionist styles so I found this rewarding (since I can't draw at all with traditional means).

I think I've just sold one image, and that as a card. But I haven't promoted them like I do my normal photography since it obviously diverges from my established style and I thought those who keep up with my work might find it confusing. Maybe I should promote it more, or maybe just let it be for me.

This one is so far from the original photograph, it's not even funny. I kind of like how it turned out. I took a photo of bare tree tops, added a moon shape, then ran it through DAP a few times, then recolored it and messed with it some more using curves, if I recall. I could never repeat the procedure. I'm finding the hit-or-miss aspect of using a painting program a bit unsatisfying. I've spent hours just trying out different painting settings to come away with nothing.

Valerie, I explain underneath the image how I made it, do you still have questions?

Greg, I really like that style, I might have to download the Topaz free trial and give it whirl.

Patricia, I like how that one turned out. I understand what you mean about "unsatisfying". I played with the free version of DAP quite a bit and mostly didn't care for the results, constant trial and error can get rather tedious. That's why I use Fotosketcher now, the results are different and still not quite what I'd like but it's faster, simpler, easier and gives me results more to my liking.

LOL David I have a million questions!

All of these are so great!

I have Tried only a few programs to do this but the results I didn't like...mostly because the brush strokes had too much pattern in them. I did this, but it is really just a photograph on the bottom and a completely painted hills and sky.

I don't know how to paint, I always end up looking like those babies with spaghetti all over their faces, and on me it's not a good look.

I really do like how the paintings look that are done from photographs, are those considered reference photos that you start from, or do I have my definitions wrong?

I have read that they believe that Vermeer (Girl With A Pearl Earring) may have used a form of Camera Obscura to create his interior paintings. In effect, he was using an early form / precursor of a photograph to create his images.

-YoPedro
Twitter@YoPedro

Pedro, in my mind photo painting is a digital process where you start with a photo and alter it to make it look like a painting. That's different than using a photograph as a reference for an actual painting, (even a digital one) even if you trace over it. In other words, the basic content is supplied by the photo and then you maybe tweak it manually then run it through a filter.

Val Arie, which parts are photograph exactly in that image? In your description it seems you say only the sky is from scratch. I agree with the pattern of brush strokes produced by programs not being random enough, Fotosketcher is the best one I've used but Topaz Impressions looks like it might be a winner.

David yes I painted over the entire top half of the photograph using paint...the Microsoft kind so nothing of the original photograph remains. The hill contours I followed ( not that exactly) and painted out everything on the top...like this other one...nothing of the top photograph remains...there was a bridge and buildings in the photograph... I painted them out.
Not a blank canvas exactly but not filters either.



Edit ...But is that really considered a digital painting?

These are interesting. I'm generally a straight photographer, but once in a while I'll stray off the path and play with something. I haven't come up with anything as nice as you guys have posted here, but I had a photograph that was a scanned film shot that I really liked but the quality was crummy so I threw every filter in Photoshop at it and came up with this:



I don't have any painting programs - just Photoshop Elements with the Nik collection (with which I have not experimented that much yet), so I'm confined to whatever I can do with that. I have no clue what I did to this one, I posted it in 2010 and it's only got like 35 views, so I guess it's not that exciting LOL. I think I threw on a watercolor filter, then a few more filters, but heaven only knows.

I don't know if this counts

I would call it "Photo Tracing"


First I took this photo (of me, of course) with some photoshop work I did on the background



And then using the challenging digital program, Scribbler II

On a 2nd layer, I kinda traced the original photograph



Since I found it difficult to stay within the lines, using only my forefinger on the touchpad of a laptop

I convinced myself that I was taking Artistic Liberties with my creation

While this image isn't a photo-painting, It was digitally enhanced using the same methods that one would use to create a photo-painting

it is of a pen and ink, mirrored, colorized, and another pen and ink altered and colorized to create transparent wings.

David, is this what you mean? I like when any of my own images induces me to re-create anew , because, I'm creative.......and it's thrilling to discover the distance away from the original photo one can go, and, why not?

The photo-painting: and/but, in honesty, I loaded it as 'photograph' because it didn't occur to me to call it a 'painting-digital from
enhanced-photo",omg.










The photo:

Mary I see you used a painting filter to help save a marginal photo, I can see the watercolor filter.

Roger, what you did is really using a photo for reference for a digital drawing, not quite what we are talking about here, but I like the result.

Drew, if I understand you correctly what you have done is basically colorize and modify an artwork made with traditional materials. I've done the same with some of my charcoal drawings and the steps I take are pretty much the same I take with a vintage black and white photo.

Viva, that is an interesting effect but I'm not sure it could be called a photo painting, what traditional media is it supposed to be mimicking?

Yes David, that is exactly right. I have done quite a few works this way and incorporated them into my animations as well.

I have three versions of this photograph and only uploaded the original untouched version just now because a potential customer asked to see it without the digital overlay.

So here's the original image of pink poppies growing in my neighbour's garden:



I like the original photograph just fine but I wanted to add a painterly feel to it. Awhile back I started Sebastian Michael's Photoartistry course and he had a technique that added a watercolor effect to photographs. To be honest, I can't even remember how I did this...there were a lot of steps to it that involved brushes in Photoshop and I ended up playing around further with the end results by adding some textures. There have been many times where I wish I'd slowed down a little and written down the steps I took to achieve a look so that I could recreate them in the future but when I'm in this mode, I'm like a kid with finger paints.

So here's the image with a watercolor look:



I also did a third version of the poppies using some textures and floral brushes in Photoshop. I believe I also played with the image's coloring in Topaz for this version.



This is one of my favorite things to do...begin with a straight photograph and embellish it in a painterly way.

Oh, I see.............I'm mimiking the broader methods included nowadays as 'digital' media........not watercolour,etc.......more modern, lolllllllllllllllllllll.....digital Art...a stand-alone method, based on my own photo..........enhanced. oh well.

So, what I'm surmising here, is that :: once a photo, always a photo, but also can be a photo-painting, omg.

I don't have many uploaded yet, but I really love playing with the Topaz programs. This one was a photograph taken on a dreary gray day last fall. Since the sky was pretty uninteresting, with the sun shining through the haze, I decided to use Topaz Impressions to create a more interesting image.

Drew, Interesting how you combine traditional techniques with modern tools to create art with a contemporary look.

Peggy, this is interesting to see the original photo plus two photo painting versions, the options are limitless!

Viva, yes this subject can get quite philosophical, there's definitely a blurry gray area to the definition.

Lindley, that one appears to have a subtle effect, though I can't tell for sure because I can't get the loupe to work but I do see brush strokes in the grass, I guess this one could be considered a "realism" photo painting, talk about blurring definitions!

I discover a box of old photos I took at least ten years ago and decided to scan them in to play with. This one is on the small side so I guess I am scanning them wrong. I'll sort that out later if I continue with it.

So far I like this one best but what I am having trouble with is my mindset of just seeing a blurry photo once the piece is finished.. The original is not blurry but once painted it is what I see. I know when I look at others work I don't have the feeling of looking at a blurry photo so maybe it is just for my own photos I feel that way?

Origin: A scene from an area I hike in the SOuthern Green Mountains
Process: A combination of photo to Photoshop express and then the GIMP.
Details: A set of contigous beaver ponds and pine forest/meadows

I started with this 59 year old snap shot, I took of our little baby



And then a couple of years ago, with the minimum of digital knowledge,I pulled the color dot by dot, enhanced that color, and then smudged the color, deleted the background, and replaced it with a gradated uniform grey, creating the following



Some might feel that it was fool-hearty to take so much time, doing it the way I did it, where there are programs that can do it more readily and better.

But is it as satisfying?

"maybe it is just for my own photos I feel that way? "

Val, are you using Impression? it looks like it. Check the smudge setting, turn it down to like .02 or less if it's higher.

I am a Gimp user and many of my pieces are photo paintings. One of my favorite things about Gimp is how many ways you can manipulate a photograph.

This is one of my more extreme edits in photo painting starting with a colorful photo of a hometown carnival I was originally going to go for a comic book style when I started playing with the distort tools, warp and whirl and pinch and I was liking the look of it. When it started looking "done" I added some white dots of light for good measure and signed it. This is a fun method of creating abstract art!

I've been experimenting with compositing, something I've never done. Just basic stuff, combining old petroleum brand signs with vintage cars and giving them the painterly look.

First a '54 Chevy with a 50's era Phillips 66 shield.



1957 Ford with a Texaco Sky Chief sign.



And just tonight I whipped up this 1932 Ford roadster hot rod with a Texaco filling station sign.

David -

I knew it, it looks blurry to you too. I did a combination of stuff to this but the last is a program by Stoik Imaging. I should probably learn to use something else as I am guessing there was a reason it was $19.99. What I see also wrong with it now is the absence of any straight lines. Not something you normally see in paintings. No where for your eye to anchor?

I'll mess around with it some more. Should probably instead look for that thread I saw a while back about wasting time with ruined images or something like that :)

edit I didn't see the cars when I typed this...they are great! It that what you used Impression?

"they are great! It that what you used Impression? "

Thanks Val. The final process on those images is using Topaz Impression to get all the "brush strokes" but I do a lot of manual editing using ArtRage first, though the compositing was done in Corel Paintshop Pro.

I've never heard of Stoik. I've produced some interesting photo paintings using Fotosketcher and it's free. I wouldn't call the oil painting preset on it all that realistic but it produces an interesting effect that works for some images, (the image in the OP was done using the oil painting preset in Fotosketcher). I use the watercolor preset in Fotosketcher quite a bit, it produces a fairly credible result.

About wasting time with ruined images, well many of the images I'm turning into photo paintings started out as low resolution and sometimes even a bit out of focus. I've started with images that were nearly down to 1000 px after cropping and turned them into decent photo paintings at 4800 px. Of course if the photo is especially mushy there's probably nothing to do with it except maybe make an abstract like Shelli's, I've done that too.

Edit: Looking closer at your image I don't think it's bad at all, not exactly a realistic painting effect, (none of them really are for that matter) due mainly to the uniform size and shape of the strokes, but if anything the strokes are rather hard edged. The blurry is just an optical illusion from a distance, when you look closer it's really not blurry. A good painting will have some hard edges though, and that's one area all the auto painter programs fall down on most of the time, the look is usually too uniform. Impression however allows you to apply a "mask" over areas after your done to adjust the opacity of the painter effect, this is actually a powerful tool, one I probably don't use enough. I have used it to expose more detail in the area I want to be a focal point.

Thank you David. I actually have an art rage download, but haven't used it yet. Maybe I'll download Fotosketcher since it is free and play with it too.

It seems to be a lot of trial and error and the remembering what you did part. I should probably work on what works for me, but It is really fun to play around with photos you don't know what else to do with. I even find the bad ones fun ...it's like if you look at it long enough you can see why.

My latest...

I incorporated a painting effect on this one because I thought it could have more appeal than as a straight photograph as a result of the composition.
My personal conundrum however is I often find myself split between trying to create an oil painting or watercolor effect. I believe the watercolor (as produced the "freeware" I use) has more artistic presence but many times I still add a bit of oil painting effect as well resulting in a kind of mixing of the two.

Do you have an opinion? Can you identify with what I wrote. Do I worry too much about it? Should I choose one or the other? Your thoughts?

David, Wow! I love the Automobile vintage signs combos! those should sell like hotcakes~

Brian, I can relate...this is one I struggled with that decision and opted for the more watercolor look...

Val, this is an example of a photo I was disappointed in the clarity of, I loved the pose of the bird but he was bleary on the straight photo so here is what I could do with him and still salvage him as an artwork.

I did this in Gimp2.8 by stacking effects of oil painting, un-sharp masking and cartoon filter to add a slight threshold then finished it with a very light canvas effect.

I occasionally try to convert my photos into something that looks somewhat like a painting, the effect I decide to use will differ from photo to photo.

This is one of the latest ones I messed around with:



I really like the way winter/snowy photos look with a painterly effect of some kind applied to them.

"I love the Automobile vintage signs combos! those should sell like hotcakes~ "

Thanks, but I'll believe it when I see it. lol

One of the things I like to do is make photo paintings from vintage photos featuring automobiles.

This one is a scene in France in Chateau de Thierry featuring a cathedral and a circa 1920 Model T Ford box van.



Opera Singer Carolina Lazzari poses next to her new 1915 Cadillac sedan.



I make these doing basic edits in PSP such as cropping then import into ArtRage where I'll do some clean up, repairs and simplify areas then colorize it. Then I process it using Fotosketcher, usually using the watercolor preset, it seems to work well with these vintage images.

@ Toby McGuire - I like the result of your snow scene. I've done a couple. Here is one of my outside lamp after some snow. A kind of "Before and After"...

An image of an outside lamppost with a glowing light within and thick snow-covered conditions outdoors. I've added a frost-like border vignette to enhance the feeling of the season. The lamp is real but the glow was added digitally. The second version has been treated and processed as a Paint Effect.

.

Here's one of my outside deck after some snow and with a paint effect added...



It's interesting to see the painting effect close up on some of these so I recommend taking the time to go to the image page and use the "green box" on parts of the image to see the effect at 100%. For instance, this one has a canvas texture that adds a lot to the effect but you can't see it unless you use the green box within FAA.

I infused the heron from one photograph into another photograph I had taken in the Everglades and added a painted effect.

In lieu of un-activity for several days, I'll compliment Judy's contribution with a similar heron image of my own.
I captured the heron but digitally added everything else via Photoshop brushes...

Hi all!
I've been doing lots of digital rework (painting) recently. It's kind of like working on a puzzle - how can I take this photograph, which is okay "structurally" and make it better? I'm very eclectic in my approach. Since every photo is different, what might come of each one will be different. I first try to make the photo itself the best that it can be - cropping, lighting and color adjustments, cloning out what I don't want seen, etc. Then I start to play. Sometimes I'll find an effect that I like, but something is "off"...it might be an area that needs to pop more, or something showing up that I discover I don't like. Back to the original for more editing, darker here, lighter there. When applying effects, I like to stay pretty close to a style I would likely paint were I not harnessed to this computer (I do much of my work during boring times at my day job). Truth be told, some of my digital stuff takes nearly as long as an actual painting, excluding the drying time for oils.
Samples:

DK,

There maybe trademarks on those gasoline signs.

Dave

"There maybe trademarks on those gasoline signs. "

Trademarks can be used in fine art, no one will confuse me as representing Texaco. I do understand Texaco may not agree and may tell me to stop, I won't argue even though they could be wrong, I'm not going to test it in court. There are literally tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of images on FAA that have trademarks in them (and many of them get sold every day here) and are not licensed. Though I admit I probably should remove the products from those images.

Your choices are yours not mine.

The trademarks that are not licensed do not get a special pass when painted. Not that I have ever heard of.

Basic thing, if your friends all jump off a bridge do you jump off a bridge?

We each cut our own paths in life. We can all be friends out of respect anyway.

Dave

Glad to see this thread coming up again! Here is one I used painting effects on, as well as other digital effects.



Judy, I like your heron and tried to give it a thumbs up, but I am logged into Pixels. It asked me to re-log in, so you must only be on FAA. When I see that, I go no further. But I wanted you to know I think it's awesomely gorgeous.

Everyone's work here is very inspiring!

A frisky horse kicking up dust on the farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

A photo of "Old Point" boat docked at Saint Michaels, a waterfront town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The area depicted is now known as CBMM or Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. I've digitally added a watercolor painting effect for a more artistic and picturesque appeal.



I've done many artistic effects for this photo captured back in 2013 including grayscale, sepia, another stronger watercolor effect, pencil, and oil. Also of course, a straight photograph which I also really like. It's just that the seen and subject begged for an artistic flare. I would never get rid of any version I liked. I love variety and I know that different people have different tastes.

Old Point is an old crab dredging boat, Old Point was built in 1909 in Virginia. Today she spends time at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, MD.

The river in this photograph is one of my favorite photograph spots in the Everglades, It is always abundant with wildlife,,,I always wanted to get a photograph of a bird flying over this river but could never time it so I infused the egret from another photograph into this scene,
Patricia, thank you for your compliment on my "Dancing in the Glades" photo!

My latest photo with watercolor and texture effects. To see the effects, go to the image page and use the green enlarge box...

I have developed several methods to create digital paintings from my photos, here some examples. They need different touch-up work, but I think the result is excellent, they are even more sold than the photos themselves.