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Painter For Photographers

Add fine-art effects to your photos with these software techniques

This Article Features Photo Zoom

MAKING A CLONE MANUALLY

Auto-Painting is great for a quick picture, but you'll soon want to paint by hand, as this gives far greater control. A good brush category to start with is the Cloner brushes, as these are all set up for cloning from photographs. To try this technique, open my image "Lynx" and make a Quick Clone. Select the Cloners > Impressionist brush, and change the size to 100 and the opacity to 100%. Paint all over the image, turning the Tracing Paper on and off to see what you're painting. When you've finished, reduce the brush size to 30 and just paint the head, following the features and emphasizing the light and dark areas.

When you've finished, go to Effects > Tonal Control > Equalize and adjust the Black and White sliders to fine-tune the contrast.

MAKING A BRUSH READY FOR CLONING
The two brush categories used so far are both designed for cloning from photographs, but most of the other brush categories are not and need some adjustments to make them ready. Here's how.

For this example, we're using my image "Black Crag." Again, the first step is to make a Quick Clone. Next, select the Oils > Flat Oils, and set the size to 80 and the opacity to 80%. If you try to paint with the default brush, it will add color to the image, so open the Color panel and click the Rubber Stamp icon at the bottom right—this changes the brush to a cloner. Most of the brushes in Painter are used in this way when painting from photographs.


Paint all of the image and keep the brush moving quickly. Oil brushes smear the picture, and this will serve as a rough under-painting. Reduce the brush size to 30 and move the brush more slowly to bring in more detail; the slower the brush moves, the clearer it will become. Paint the trees and sheep and a few selected details, but leave the background loose—if you paint everything very slowly, you'll almost return it to a photograph, which isn't the point of using Painter!

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