Turning a Photograph
Into A Painting
With Painter X

For the folks who can turn a photograph into a painting simply by using the photograph as a model this aspect of Painter X may not be of interest.

They just take their Wacom tablet and paint away!

For those folks who have no idea how to turn a photograph into a painting (other than paying someone to do it) then the following Painter X techniques will be of great interest.

There are a couple of different methods to create a painting - automatic (let Painter X do it) and manual (using your tablet) to create a painting from a photograph.

Automatic Method

The automatic method of turning a photograph into a painting is completed with 3 palettes in Painter X.

  • Underpainting Palette

  • Auto-Painting Palette

  • Restoration Palette

This is the original picture that will be automatically turned into a painting by Painter X.

Stairs


Underpainting Palette

This is where you set the attributes of the final product and there are a lot of choices. Typically, a painting will not have as many colors as a photograph and will be more contrasty.

Underpainting Palette


In this example the following attributes were selected:

  1. Color Scheme is Impressionist Scheme

  2. Photo Enhance is Increase Contrast

  3. The sliders were left at the default setting, and

  4. The Edge Effect is Jagged Vignette and the amount was increased to 25%.

When I was satisfied with the choices I clicked on Quick Clone and this is what happened.

Colne of Stairs


Each of the Photo Scheme, Photo Enhance, Sliders and Edge Effect have different choices so you can mess with them until you are happy with the results.

Auto-Painting Palette

Painter X sure does provide lots of choices and with the Auto-Painting paletter there are more to make.

When Smart Stroke Painting and Smart Settings are checked then there are no more choices to make. If they are not checked then you get to select how the painting is created.

The last thing to do before painting the picture is to choose the brush. In Painter X there are a LOT of brushes. The default is one of the Cloner Brushes but another one can be chosen. The RealBristle Brushes and the Smart Stroke Brushes both provide some very interesting results.

In this example the Thick Bristle Cloner 20 was selected.

To start the Auto-Painting simple click the start button in the bottom right hand corner and let Painter X do the work.

Auto Painting Palette


After the Start button is pressed, Painter X will evaluate the picture and then go to work.

This is the end result.

Stairs Painted


After saving the first file, I went back to the original and made some changes to the Underpainting palette and changed the brush.

The new selections are:

  1. Color Scheme - Modern

  2. Photo Enhance - Desaturate

  3. Edge Effect - Jagged Vignette

  4. Brush - Wet Oils Cloner 10

Staris Painting


Painter X has many, many different methods of turning a photograph into a painting. Some will provide outsatnding results and some, well, not so great. The thing to do is experiment and have some fun with it.



Return to Painter X page from the Photograph to Painting Page.

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