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Objective: Manipulating portraits so the final result looks like a painting.
Editorial opinion:
From what I've seen so far I don't think it's all that difficult to achieve very attractive results if you have access to the right resources.
What are the right resources?
The answer is subjective, of course, but here are some that I've found to be exceptional.
BOOKS, DVDs and TUTORIALS
=====================
Stephen Lequier (aka: Trimoon)
=====================
www.Trimoon.com
Here are a couple examples of his work:
http://www.pbase.com/image/24303833
http://www.pbase.com/image/27097158
http://www.pbase.com/image/23936494
http://www.pbase.com/image/23281902
In addition to offering several free tutorials at his site, Steve has a couple CD-based tutorials for sale that are very good. Here's a piece created by RetouchPRO member Xaran (aka: Christine) based on Steve's watercolor tutorial:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...chmentid=12843
=====================
Jeremy Sutton
=====================
www.paintercreativity.com
Here's a rich collection of Painter tutorials (some related to creating paintings and sketches):
http://www.paintercreativity.com/articles/index.html
Jeremy does some amazing transformations using Painter. In addition to a DVD training set and numerous books, he presents various live classes as well.
I've viewed the DVD training set, Painter Creativity for Wedding & Portrait Photographers. It presents a number of photo-to-painting methods demonostrated from first stroke to last. To me the primary benefit of this offering was the ability to literally watch him create each project. It's one thing to flail away with Painter while plowing through a book or Internet tutorial. It's an eye opening experince watching a master take it through its paces.
I also own Jeremy's book, Painter 8 Creativity. It contains well written, very detailed step-by-step instructions for many (by not all) of the methods presented in the DVD set.
Besides the excellent tutorials, it contains the BEST intro to Painter I've ever seen. If you're new to Painter (like I was when I read it), you'll find the content meaningful and complete, with plenty of screenshots and a lot of sage advice and golden nuggets.
=====================
Marilyn Sholin
=====================
www.MarilynSholin.com.
Marilyn is an accomplished photographer and artist, with studios in New York and Florida. Her "paintings from photos" are among the most amazing I've seen anywhere.
Here new tutorial CD and optional accompanying book are available here:
https://sslnet.com/marilynsholin/msh.../indexNEW.html
Click here to read the review. (2004/06)
=====================
Cher Threinen-Pendarvis
=====================
The Painter 8 WOW! Book
p. 229 - Cloning a Portrait. This article describes a basic photo-to-painting method.
pp. 230-232 - Creating a Photo Painting. This is an excellent article that describes a method by Michael Campbell. The example photos really hammer home the technique. This one is a real winner.
Other than the two sections noted above, there's not much content devoted to creating paintings from photos. Consider this a Painter "ideas" book. It's richly illustrated and the content format is fairly general.
GALLERIES AND COMMERCIAL SITES
=====================
Jane Conner-ziser
=====================
http://janesdigitalart.com/index.htm
Jane is another well known photographer and artist. Check out her gallery to get a feel for what she's able to do with Photoshop and Painter.
She, too, has a tutorial CD coming out Summer 2004. I hope to get a chance to review it, too.
=====================
Sam Grey
=====================
http://samgrayportraitdesign.com/index.html
Click on the Painted Portraits button to see Sam's offerings.
=====================
Helen Yancy
=====================
http://www.HelenYancyStudio.com
=====================
MyDavinci.com
=====================
http://www.mydavinci.com/j/home.jsp
Several interesting styles offered. Many (to me) look like they were rendered by Photoshop actions.
=====================
PhotoSyrup
=====================
http://www.photosyrup.com/collage.php
=====================
PhotoWow
=====================
http://www.photowow.com/new1/index.asp
Talk about options.
=====================
Judy Horn
=====================
http://www.horngraphics.com.
At the 2004 Puyallup (pronounced "pew-al-up") fair near Seattle, Washington I had the pleasure of meeting Judy Horn, who had some of her works on display.
Her website doesn't do her digital paintings justice. Framed and up close they are amazing. She uses Photoshop and Corel Painter. She prints her portraits on an Epson 9600 printer using Epson watercolor paper.
SOFTWARE
* Image Editors: Just about any of the major ones will do - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoPaint, etc. From what I have seen, however, to get unique results that go far beyond just applying built-in filters and effects, one must supplement the basic editing program with plugins or other programs.
* Painting Programs: These have functions/capabilities that image editors typically do not have, specifically the ability to simulate realistic looking brush strokes and various types of drawing/painting media, for example, oil paints, charcoal, chalks, etc.
The major players in this categorey are Corel Painter (www.Corel.com) and less popular, but very capable Deep Paint (www.RightHemisphere.com).
Most of the "big hitter" professionals like Jeremy Sutton, Marilyn Sholin, etc. who do these types of portraits-to-paintings manipulations use Painter.
If you've not used Painter before, beware: It's as complicated (and in many ways as unintuitative to learn) as Photoshop. Once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are amazing.
* Plugins: While the Buzz plugin (www.Fo2Pix.com) is very popular among photo-artists, for portrait work I don't see a strong need for it. If you have it, fine, but it's not one I would spend an arm and leg on for this category of manipulation.
Another that's a nice to have, but not a requirement, is P & A America's Virtual Painter 4. (Jasc's Virtual Painter 3, if you can still get it, is a suitable substitute. Same program, just a version earlier.) Two of the effects (Oil Painting and Gouache) seem to work well on some portrait manipulations.
For the tradional skills challenged, like me, I consider the Microsoft Impressionist plugin a must have (and low cost) supplement to the arsenal. It is simply unparalleled functionally.
Impressionist is part of a program called Image Composer that was packaged with some versions of Microsoft Front Page. There's no need to install Front Page or Image Composer. One only needs to copy the Impressionist files from the Front Page CD into a new folder inside Phothshop's plugins folder, make a few minor changes to folder names and off you go.
If you are an eBay shopper, search on "Front Page 98" (or "FrontPage 98"). There are Front Page auctions going on almost all the time. If you're not an eBay shopper, I usually have a few legitmate FP CDs on hand for sale. Contact me if you're interested.
PAPER
=====================
Red River
=====================
http://www.redrivercatalog.com/index.htm
Marilyn Sholin alerted me to this site. I like it because it's easy to use and you can tell right away if a particular paper is compatible with your printer.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
As time goes on I will add to this thread as I make new discoveries.
Got a resource you'd like to add to this thread? Pul-eeze, by all means, share what you've discovered.
~Danny~
Editorial opinion:
From what I've seen so far I don't think it's all that difficult to achieve very attractive results if you have access to the right resources.
What are the right resources?
The answer is subjective, of course, but here are some that I've found to be exceptional.
BOOKS, DVDs and TUTORIALS
=====================
Stephen Lequier (aka: Trimoon)
=====================
www.Trimoon.com
Here are a couple examples of his work:
http://www.pbase.com/image/24303833
http://www.pbase.com/image/27097158
http://www.pbase.com/image/23936494
http://www.pbase.com/image/23281902
In addition to offering several free tutorials at his site, Steve has a couple CD-based tutorials for sale that are very good. Here's a piece created by RetouchPRO member Xaran (aka: Christine) based on Steve's watercolor tutorial:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...chmentid=12843
=====================
Jeremy Sutton
=====================
www.paintercreativity.com
Here's a rich collection of Painter tutorials (some related to creating paintings and sketches):
http://www.paintercreativity.com/articles/index.html
Jeremy does some amazing transformations using Painter. In addition to a DVD training set and numerous books, he presents various live classes as well.
I've viewed the DVD training set, Painter Creativity for Wedding & Portrait Photographers. It presents a number of photo-to-painting methods demonostrated from first stroke to last. To me the primary benefit of this offering was the ability to literally watch him create each project. It's one thing to flail away with Painter while plowing through a book or Internet tutorial. It's an eye opening experince watching a master take it through its paces.
I also own Jeremy's book, Painter 8 Creativity. It contains well written, very detailed step-by-step instructions for many (by not all) of the methods presented in the DVD set.
Besides the excellent tutorials, it contains the BEST intro to Painter I've ever seen. If you're new to Painter (like I was when I read it), you'll find the content meaningful and complete, with plenty of screenshots and a lot of sage advice and golden nuggets.
=====================
Marilyn Sholin
=====================
www.MarilynSholin.com.
Marilyn is an accomplished photographer and artist, with studios in New York and Florida. Her "paintings from photos" are among the most amazing I've seen anywhere.
Here new tutorial CD and optional accompanying book are available here:
https://sslnet.com/marilynsholin/msh.../indexNEW.html
Click here to read the review. (2004/06)
=====================
Cher Threinen-Pendarvis
=====================
The Painter 8 WOW! Book
p. 229 - Cloning a Portrait. This article describes a basic photo-to-painting method.
pp. 230-232 - Creating a Photo Painting. This is an excellent article that describes a method by Michael Campbell. The example photos really hammer home the technique. This one is a real winner.
Other than the two sections noted above, there's not much content devoted to creating paintings from photos. Consider this a Painter "ideas" book. It's richly illustrated and the content format is fairly general.
GALLERIES AND COMMERCIAL SITES
=====================
Jane Conner-ziser
=====================
http://janesdigitalart.com/index.htm
Jane is another well known photographer and artist. Check out her gallery to get a feel for what she's able to do with Photoshop and Painter.
She, too, has a tutorial CD coming out Summer 2004. I hope to get a chance to review it, too.
=====================
Sam Grey
=====================
http://samgrayportraitdesign.com/index.html
Click on the Painted Portraits button to see Sam's offerings.
=====================
Helen Yancy
=====================
http://www.HelenYancyStudio.com
=====================
MyDavinci.com
=====================
http://www.mydavinci.com/j/home.jsp
Several interesting styles offered. Many (to me) look like they were rendered by Photoshop actions.
=====================
PhotoSyrup
=====================
http://www.photosyrup.com/collage.php
=====================
PhotoWow
=====================
http://www.photowow.com/new1/index.asp
Talk about options.
=====================
Judy Horn
=====================
http://www.horngraphics.com.
At the 2004 Puyallup (pronounced "pew-al-up") fair near Seattle, Washington I had the pleasure of meeting Judy Horn, who had some of her works on display.
Her website doesn't do her digital paintings justice. Framed and up close they are amazing. She uses Photoshop and Corel Painter. She prints her portraits on an Epson 9600 printer using Epson watercolor paper.
SOFTWARE
* Image Editors: Just about any of the major ones will do - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoPaint, etc. From what I have seen, however, to get unique results that go far beyond just applying built-in filters and effects, one must supplement the basic editing program with plugins or other programs.
* Painting Programs: These have functions/capabilities that image editors typically do not have, specifically the ability to simulate realistic looking brush strokes and various types of drawing/painting media, for example, oil paints, charcoal, chalks, etc.
The major players in this categorey are Corel Painter (www.Corel.com) and less popular, but very capable Deep Paint (www.RightHemisphere.com).
Most of the "big hitter" professionals like Jeremy Sutton, Marilyn Sholin, etc. who do these types of portraits-to-paintings manipulations use Painter.
If you've not used Painter before, beware: It's as complicated (and in many ways as unintuitative to learn) as Photoshop. Once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are amazing.
* Plugins: While the Buzz plugin (www.Fo2Pix.com) is very popular among photo-artists, for portrait work I don't see a strong need for it. If you have it, fine, but it's not one I would spend an arm and leg on for this category of manipulation.
Another that's a nice to have, but not a requirement, is P & A America's Virtual Painter 4. (Jasc's Virtual Painter 3, if you can still get it, is a suitable substitute. Same program, just a version earlier.) Two of the effects (Oil Painting and Gouache) seem to work well on some portrait manipulations.
For the tradional skills challenged, like me, I consider the Microsoft Impressionist plugin a must have (and low cost) supplement to the arsenal. It is simply unparalleled functionally.
Impressionist is part of a program called Image Composer that was packaged with some versions of Microsoft Front Page. There's no need to install Front Page or Image Composer. One only needs to copy the Impressionist files from the Front Page CD into a new folder inside Phothshop's plugins folder, make a few minor changes to folder names and off you go.
If you are an eBay shopper, search on "Front Page 98" (or "FrontPage 98"). There are Front Page auctions going on almost all the time. If you're not an eBay shopper, I usually have a few legitmate FP CDs on hand for sale. Contact me if you're interested.
PAPER
=====================
Red River
=====================
http://www.redrivercatalog.com/index.htm
Marilyn Sholin alerted me to this site. I like it because it's easy to use and you can tell right away if a particular paper is compatible with your printer.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
As time goes on I will add to this thread as I make new discoveries.
Got a resource you'd like to add to this thread? Pul-eeze, by all means, share what you've discovered.
~Danny~
). 
I want to know what the differance and/or advantage is of Painter vs. Photoshop for digital art/paintings?
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