pixlart
11-10-2006, 07:41 PM
Recently, I was asked how I go about painting an interpreted photograph. This lesson goes through the "Boys of Summer" painting step-by-step and describes the process.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/650/boys1ew9.jpg
The original photograph by Dustine Wallace.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/4158/boys2ev0.jpg
The original photograph was shot on film. I prep the image in Photoshop. I generally use the Shadow/Highlight adjustment to open shadows and pull in the highlights. The image appeared slightly crooked, so I used the tree trunk and weeds in the background to rotate the image a couple degrees to straighten things. I added some additional blue sky peeking in from between the trees and leaves. I slightly cropped the image to make the subjects a bit larger and remove unimportant peripheral elements.
In evaluating the adjusted image, I decided that the blue sky in the background was distacting the eye away from the real subject: the boys. I could have cloned out the sky with existing leaf texture, but I wanted to give this image a bit more of an illustrated look, so I decided to create my own leaves, then paint them along with the rest of the image.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8522/boys3ku4.jpg
Painter has a tool called the Image Hose. This brush works in concert with Nozzle files. Using these tools, imagery (Nozzle files) can be sprayed in a variety of fashions from the Image Hose.
Using a quick scan of a maple leaf, I traced it using Painter's Pen Tool. This produces a vector-based silhouette of the leaf shape. I can then produce distorted copies of the original to create variations of the leaf at an angle similar to the examples in the photograph. I colored them by sampling from the photo and added a drop shadow similar to what appears in the photo. The resulting layers are grouped and saved as a Nozzle file.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6692/boys4uq3.jpg
I adjusted the Image Hose to spray the leaf elements within a narrow angle range. As the leaf elements are added on top of the already-applied elements, the drop shadow provides a shallow 3D effect similar to the leaves in the photograph.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3000/boys5xi7.jpg
I applied the leaf elements on a layer. This enabled me to go back and select and eliminate any leaves that were painted in front of the truck. I added some soft shadows to give the leaves a bit of depth. I also added a bit of noise to the leaves layer in order to match the grain already present in the photograph. This wasn't necessary, but it does help the artificial leaves and grainy background smear in a similar manner when painting over the imagery.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9848/boys6kv9.jpg
I don't use a lot of different brushes within an image. Fewer brushes tend to help provide an overall consistent look. The primary brush I use for oil-style painting is my customized brush, John's Photo Blender. This brush has a very realistic smearing quality similar to brushes interacting with wet paint.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8493/boys7if1.jpg
I tend to use a very loose, spontaneous action when stroking with a brush. I feel that this gives the resulting image more energy. When stroking over supporting imagery (backgrounds, non-subject areas, etc.) I don't spend a lot of time painstakingly modeling the photographic elements. When this is done, the resulting imagery does not look very different from the original photograph. You have to be willing to decimate a lot of photographic detail in order to make a photograph look like a painting.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/3483/boys8gm9.jpg
Non-subject areas—like grass—can be expressively stroked quite a bit. It is this loose type of stroking that tells the viewer's eye that this is a painting, rather than a photograph. Tight, small strokes are reserved for the subjects.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/7949/boys9aa6.jpg
I do all of my painting on layers. This enables me to erase back to the original photograph when needed. It additionally encourages experiemntation since you are not altering the original image. Painter is very adept at picking up any underlying color in the layers and base image below the current painting layer. As a result, building up a painting with multiple layers provides a variety of options.
When painting on a layer, it is easy to miss some areas, leaving a bit of telltale photographic imagery in the image. A trick I've developed is to create a layer underneath a recently painted area, using a larger version of the same brush to quickly smear the base layer on my underpainting layer. The original photograph is left untouched, but the intermediate underpainting layer gets smeared, thereby decimating any photographic texture peeking through the primary painting layer above. If needed, these layers can then be merged together.
(Continued in Part 2)
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/650/boys1ew9.jpg
The original photograph by Dustine Wallace.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/4158/boys2ev0.jpg
The original photograph was shot on film. I prep the image in Photoshop. I generally use the Shadow/Highlight adjustment to open shadows and pull in the highlights. The image appeared slightly crooked, so I used the tree trunk and weeds in the background to rotate the image a couple degrees to straighten things. I added some additional blue sky peeking in from between the trees and leaves. I slightly cropped the image to make the subjects a bit larger and remove unimportant peripheral elements.
In evaluating the adjusted image, I decided that the blue sky in the background was distacting the eye away from the real subject: the boys. I could have cloned out the sky with existing leaf texture, but I wanted to give this image a bit more of an illustrated look, so I decided to create my own leaves, then paint them along with the rest of the image.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8522/boys3ku4.jpg
Painter has a tool called the Image Hose. This brush works in concert with Nozzle files. Using these tools, imagery (Nozzle files) can be sprayed in a variety of fashions from the Image Hose.
Using a quick scan of a maple leaf, I traced it using Painter's Pen Tool. This produces a vector-based silhouette of the leaf shape. I can then produce distorted copies of the original to create variations of the leaf at an angle similar to the examples in the photograph. I colored them by sampling from the photo and added a drop shadow similar to what appears in the photo. The resulting layers are grouped and saved as a Nozzle file.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6692/boys4uq3.jpg
I adjusted the Image Hose to spray the leaf elements within a narrow angle range. As the leaf elements are added on top of the already-applied elements, the drop shadow provides a shallow 3D effect similar to the leaves in the photograph.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3000/boys5xi7.jpg
I applied the leaf elements on a layer. This enabled me to go back and select and eliminate any leaves that were painted in front of the truck. I added some soft shadows to give the leaves a bit of depth. I also added a bit of noise to the leaves layer in order to match the grain already present in the photograph. This wasn't necessary, but it does help the artificial leaves and grainy background smear in a similar manner when painting over the imagery.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9848/boys6kv9.jpg
I don't use a lot of different brushes within an image. Fewer brushes tend to help provide an overall consistent look. The primary brush I use for oil-style painting is my customized brush, John's Photo Blender. This brush has a very realistic smearing quality similar to brushes interacting with wet paint.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8493/boys7if1.jpg
I tend to use a very loose, spontaneous action when stroking with a brush. I feel that this gives the resulting image more energy. When stroking over supporting imagery (backgrounds, non-subject areas, etc.) I don't spend a lot of time painstakingly modeling the photographic elements. When this is done, the resulting imagery does not look very different from the original photograph. You have to be willing to decimate a lot of photographic detail in order to make a photograph look like a painting.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/3483/boys8gm9.jpg
Non-subject areas—like grass—can be expressively stroked quite a bit. It is this loose type of stroking that tells the viewer's eye that this is a painting, rather than a photograph. Tight, small strokes are reserved for the subjects.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/7949/boys9aa6.jpg
I do all of my painting on layers. This enables me to erase back to the original photograph when needed. It additionally encourages experiemntation since you are not altering the original image. Painter is very adept at picking up any underlying color in the layers and base image below the current painting layer. As a result, building up a painting with multiple layers provides a variety of options.
When painting on a layer, it is easy to miss some areas, leaving a bit of telltale photographic imagery in the image. A trick I've developed is to create a layer underneath a recently painted area, using a larger version of the same brush to quickly smear the base layer on my underpainting layer. The original photograph is left untouched, but the intermediate underpainting layer gets smeared, thereby decimating any photographic texture peeking through the primary painting layer above. If needed, these layers can then be merged together.
(Continued in Part 2)