deviant art

Deviant Login
Buy ArtBuy T-Shirts & Gear Buy adCast Buy Premium Membership
Shop		  Join deviantART for FREE Take the Tour

Details

Closed to new replies
May 26, 2012
Link

Statistics

Replies: 147

Is photomanipulation for people who can't draw?

Forums > Art Related > General
:iconcnids:
=Cnids May 26, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Straightforward question. Are art photomanips (aside from ones for design purposes) mainly for people who aren't able to paint/draw or don't have the time to, or are they a valid and challenging art form of their own?

I'm kind of split on this. On one hand, I really enjoyed my few experiences with photomanipulation when I was setting up an image for a screen-print, but on the other I feel like if you could paint something, you would.
Reply

You can no longer comment on this thread as it was closed due to no activity for a month.

Devious Comments

love 0 0 joy 2 2 wow 0 0 mad 0 0 sad 0 0 fear 0 0 neutral 2 2
:iconmattcombsart:
~MattCombsArt May 28, 2012
all that freehand stuff was from my head, free handing something from your imagination is completely different then using an image as a reference when doing a portrait..........
Reply
:iconirenelangholm:
`IreneLangholm May 28, 2012
Definitely.
Reply
(1 Reply)
:iconcnids:
=Cnids May 28, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Wow, that's really insulting what she said about your work. It's a lot higher quality than her pencil drawings. >.<

I think it's kind of amusing that she thinks she has full right to go ahead and rip on your paintings (something she apparently knows nothing about) and ironically claims that I'm not qualified to judge photomanipulations because my gallery isn't full of them.

Your portraits look very realistic and you're right to be flattered that she thinks they're just paintovers. :P
Reply
:iconmattcombsart:
Mood: Neutral ~MattCombsArt May 28, 2012
haha ya thats funny:)

ya i did feel insulted a little but at the same time, since i knew how they were done, i was complimented to know i guess im on the right track with those lol, ive been using photoshop since ps 5 was out, way back in highschool, ive used photoshop for over 10years i know what its capable of lol and shortcuts u can do. photomanipulation is the 1st thing the teach u in photoshop classes.
lol i wasnt qualified to say anything i guess because i didnt go into detail when i added it to my gallery...so that made it seem that i didnt know what i was talking about lol

This reminds me when i was in college art classes and when we would critique everyones work, the students that werent really great but thought they were, would get all mad and butt hurt lol, some people cant hear it, people get to defensive lol, all im giving is my 2cents about it and my experience doing art in general...im done with this, i hope everyone is having a great weekend :)
Reply
:iconmattcombsart:
~MattCombsArt May 27, 2012
i havent done a photomanip or matte painting in forever....i did this the other day.... took me 2.5hrs...i was bored and messes around at the time....truthfully it was alot of fun to do for me, i found it super easy to create a cool image by pulling images and painting over some stuff....when you dont have the time to spend, i can see it being really useful is some situations, but everyone operates differently, for each their own, thats just how "I" feel about it, i feel like theyre so easy to do, but i do have years with ps, and with painting in general, so im sure thats why. but ive done them both and sorry if i think their easy to create.....
Reply
:iconirenelangholm:
`IreneLangholm May 28, 2012
Nothing personal, but I can see that you did that on 2.5 hours. There is not much coherency between the different elements, the colours and levels are off and so is depth of field. The lighting is flat. Mountains cut sloppy. Over exposure to some elements due to over adjusting, or bad stock/3D stock. Too much smudging on some of the elements. And it is lacking a good composition. But it has potential, it just needs a bit more work that you've put in. So you see, photomanips may be easy to do, but it's hard to do it well.
Reply
:iconmattcombsart:
~MattCombsArt May 28, 2012
ya im sure if i spent a little more time with it, then fine tuning some stuff. thats the 1st photomanip/matte painting ive done in 6 years. im sure if i did more they would improve.

i dont want to get into a flame war over whats wrong with our art. Since in the end it wont get us anywhere. I think you and I would go on and on about it lol, were 2 opinionated people :) Your work is good, im not knocking you at all for what you do, everyone has their own niche and way of doing things, their own style, things they like to do, for each their own.

They are extremely fun to do and i can see how it would free u up creatively, i feel like it can do that with me. im sure the more i do it will grow on me,but i want to start taking my own photos and not use stuff on the net, that might make me feel better about doing it, thats what i meant about cheating myself, cause im using other images and not ones i took myself. i guess thats the next thing i can do. im just use to doing things from a more traditional way. spending the time drawing the image, then painting it. I always feel bad about using others peoples photos manipulation them to create a scene, but if they were my photos i wouldnt care really i guess. all my portraits were just for fun and to work on painting faces realistically, i dont sell anything, its all personal work, if i were to sell my stuff i would go about them differently, and those are legitimately done and not just a painted over jpeg. :)

When i say their easier what im meaning by that is the process of doing it. your skipping alot of steps(when u have a photo u can work with, it saves a ton of time then drawing the same image from scratch, u have a base to work with already) which is smart i guess, to save time in the end. Sometimes i want to paint but not spend the time on drawing it, since in the end all i want to do is paint not draw lol. The images in the end look a lot more convincing then spending the ridiculous amount of time to paint all that detail in. it can be done but sometimes we dont have the luxury of having unlimited time to work on something, in production work i can see this being very very useful, for banging out quick convincing concepts for games/movies, Its a perfect example of working smarter not harder. Everyone has their own way of going about the art process.

I didnt mean to piss anyone off my giving my 2 cents, sry if i did.:(
Reply
:iconirenelangholm:
`IreneLangholm May 28, 2012
Yes, that's exactly it; everyone has their own niche and it's no good trying to argue over what artform is the best or why it is best or how much time it takes to create something because in the end that doesn't matter. Art is subjective anyway.

Taking your own photos is a great idea. It will make your art more personal, and you also have no restrictions if you want to sell it. :thumbsup:

You might be skipping some steps, but there's also a few steps added. I do photoshoots, often 100 photos just to get 3 of the shots I want. And if I use stock images, I can spend 20-30% of the time just trying to find that one perfect stock item. Or items. It's very time consuming.
Other times you can have 50-100 layers to manage. There may be a lot of retouching and adjusting and painting if the photo material is not in good quality or you want a different look altogether, and just a 100 other things I could list. It doesn't make it a lesser or better artform for those reasons.

That is what the author of this 'discussions' have problems understanding. It's not about the amount of time, it's about the piece iself and what it carries. It really doesn't matter what what medium and what you did to get there. Unless you painted it with your own blood. lol

Nah, I don't think you pissed anyone off. I think others managed to do that quite well by themselves. ;D
Reply
:iconastro-star:
~Astro-Star May 27, 2012   General Artist
It's easy (and common) to slap images on each other that mis-match. It's skillful (and challenging) to do so when you can make all the elements fit together with life-like realism to make it look like it was from just that single photo. You can be just as skillful at hand-created art as you can with photography. They are two entirely separate mediums. Composing a masterful photo manipulation requires the photographer to take multiple shots of each element, keeping in mind that the angles of other objects must be logical. They must also have strong knowledge in color theory, composition, depth, focus, anatomy (yes, if they want to create a plausible image, they must know how the body behaves under certain gravitational situations).

Being able to hold a pencil is not a requirement to create a person's vision. Tools don't matter. The artist's knowledge is everything. Believe me, bad photo manipulations are just as bad as poorly done drawings. Just because a few pictures were put together, it doesn't make the artist any more of a cheater or better than a crappy drawing. The fact that there are more crappy photo manipulations out there than masterful ones should show that there is, in fact, skill and knowledge involved. d:
Reply
:iconelandria:
^Elandria May 28, 2012
:iconfblikeplz:
Reply
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment
©2013 deviantART. All rights reserved
About Us | Contact Us | Developers | Careers | Site Tour | Help & FAQ Advertise | Premium Membership Etiquette | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Copyright Policy