How do you learn to do "Photo-art"?

akj · #16 04-04-2005, 01:19 PM

That's a great link Danny--thanks a bunch. Useful also because I am interested in learning how to take better digital photos. Luckily I also have four cats and a dog and they usually keep me stockpiled with photos.

Thanks again.

Richard_Lynch · #17 10-17-2005, 08:59 AM

Can I suggest there is one addition -- some of the source of photo-art may be in the capture of the image itself. For example, see attached. While there was some interesting method in post processing, had it not been for the source, I don't believe I'd ever have come to this end. And I never used a single freehand tool (paintbrush, pencil, pen, smudge) or filter. This was mostly due to using a specific soft lens with an incredibly short depth-of-field at the shortest focal length (the top part of the image actually fragmented that way in the capture). The rest was Photoshop color and tone correction techniques.

There is something to be said about drawing and running filters...but to me it doesn't matter how the art is created so long as you develop skills and explore, experiment and ENJOY.

Janet Petty · #18 10-17-2005, 10:13 AM

Way Cool Richard!!! I agree wholeheartedly.

Janet

lkroll · #19 09-23-2006, 11:41 PM

Background; many years ago, I use to be an EE and needed to convert some bitmaps to vector (don't ask; can't remember exactly why anyway). I used Hijaak Pro for the vector conversion at that time (and wish I had a copy of this program). I couldn't help but noticed that certain settings really gave a painterly look to the image. Several years later, I found I had a lot of time on my hands so I started to fool around with vector simplication (Autotrace/Potrace with Mayura for interface) and also filters (mainly Photoshop compatible filters) in GIMP. It was the play that got me hooked. I found myself enjoying it; it also kept me sane during a very bad period that I won't go into details. Suffice it to say, I survived. Now, with all the filters and editing programs at my disposal (GIMP and CS2 to name a few), I've managed to learn a lot thanks to boards like RetouchPRO. You guys are awesome and I do appreciate the creativity here.