moving pictures wrote:
well, to each, his own.  many in the fashion industry commented that it does.

I can see calling it "in the style of a painting" due to the pose, but the light and post are different from what would make me say "painterly".

I think your comment about desturation is right.


I disagree that it's because of aging. We prefer low contrast to high contrast. No that we don't like true blacks and whites, but we prefer most of our information to be in the middle.

As a result, when we have total control, that's what we choose. So a painter is not going to chose garishly saturated colors. They're not going to chose to paint a cheekbone so dark that you can't see the shape. They probably aren't going to paint in a way that makes you strain to see it. They'll be drawn towards the middle even when they are thinking high contrast.

Look at Dave Hill's photos. They are full range, but really, they're low contrast/narrowed dynamic range - most of the information is in the same range.

MC Photo wrote:

I do.

That model used to be my local bartender, so I've been familiar with his work since she shot with him. Whenever I hear Murtaugh, I think "painting".

I do think this one changes and becomes less so as you look at it.

I'm certain I'm influenced by other photos of his and my pigeonholing of his work.

are you referring to the OPs image or the one posted further down that everyone was arguing about?

AVD AlphaDuctions wrote:

are you referring to the OPs image or the one posted further down that everyone was arguing about?

The OP's image.

AVD AlphaDuctions wrote:

are you referring to the OPs image or the one posted further down that everyone was arguing about?

By one you posted, that was in a reply to a post right? Or did I miss an image you posted?

MC Photo wrote:

By one you posted, that was in a reply to a post right? Or did I miss an image you posted?

I didnt post any image. But everyone seems to think I did.  I suspect the quote got messed up on someone's post.

MC Photo wrote:
This photo has the desaturation that's been mentioned. There's also motion blur softening it. There are multiple light color temperatures, which I think contributes too, but it's really the dynamic range and contrast that does it for me. Look a the difference in light between the subject and the background. The background doesn't quite fall off to true black.

fixed

Daniel Murtagh wrote:
I dont do anything in photoshop. a true photograph happens in the lens.

CRAP!!!  I was hoping it was a $39 plug-in...   

Daniel Murtagh wrote:
I'm surprised by the attention my photograph has gotten on MM.  the painterly quality comes from experimenting... thats all I can tell you. its my will to make it look a certain way and trying till i find it. I dont do anything in photoshop. a true photograph happens in the lens. everything after that is manipulation and post production trickery. which can be done well and thats cool.

the llama looks like a person who lived 200 years ago. that is a huge part of the
'feel' od the image.

see, this defines a true artist

Daniel Murtagh wrote:
I'm surprised by the attention my photograph has gotten on MM.  the painterly quality comes from experimenting... thats all I can tell you. its my will to make it look a certain way and trying till i find it. I dont do anything in photoshop. a true photograph happens in the lens. everything after that is manipulation and post production trickery. which can be done well and thats cool.

the model looks like a person who lived 200 years ago. that is a huge part of the
'feel' od the image.

Beautiful work... Does this mean you did no post-processing? Lightroom or anything like that?

Daniel Murtagh wrote:
the painterly quality comes from experimenting... thats all I can tell you. its my will to make it look a certain way and trying till i find it. I dont do anything in photoshop. a true photograph happens in the lens. everything after that is manipulation and post production trickery. which can be done well and thats cool.

Kudos

ybfoto wrote:
So just curious why would you want a photograph to look like a painting? Are photographer or painter?

Or both - there are so many genres of photography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:P … y_by_genre

in 'Photorealism' why would you want a painting to look like a photograph?

Is the work 'Impressionism' or abstract?

John Horwitz wrote:

Or both - there are so many genres of photography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:P … y_by_genre

in 'Photorealism' why would you want a painting to look like a photograph?

Is the work 'Impressionism' or abstract?

or neither

John Horwitz wrote:
QED

Nicely played sir

ybfoto wrote:
So just curious why would you want a photograph to look like a painting? Are photographer or painter?

You can't understand the answer to this question without first examining why an artist would make art in the first place.

I was going to say "why someone would make a photo in the first place" but people have so many backwards agendas for that tied to identity etc, that that can be misdirecting.

The simple answer is that art is a non-verbal communication, and the idea/feeling/story is best communicated by an image that looks like that. It's not about making a photo that looks like a painting, it's more about making a JPEG that looks like "that" or "the idea/feeling/story". The choice of photography as the process is a lazy/efficient one - it's the easiest way for the artist to hit their target. I don't mean lazy as a criticism, I mean why paint the idea if you can hit the target with a photo? Or maybe the closest you can get to the target is a photo, and there's no other option.

It's not about making a photo look like a painting, it's wanting to provoke a mood or feeling that the image - all aspects of it combined - provoke. So the process is find the model, wardrobe, lighting, make the photo and adjust it until the way it looks provokes the right feeling. He's not thinking "make it look like a painting" he's thinking "this doesn't look right, let me try this. No, how about this? That's better. What about this? Hell no UNDO!" Eventually it either looks right or gets close enough to where the artist has to give up and call it done. Hopefully they've hit the target.

The idea of it looking like a painting comes from a viewer's description of their experience, not the artist's intent. It's possible that you may hear an artist reference a painting in the description, but there's no artist who's intent is "I want to make a photo that looks like a painting." Their intent will be "I want to make a photo that looks like a painting in order to __________" the blank space being their intent.


Don't worry if this explanation makes no sense. It's pretty much impossible to explain in words unless the person your explaining to already understands it.

My understanding of art was pretty minimal until I saw one of the dumbest prices of art I'd ever seen. It was at the Armory Show, which is a massive show on an enclosed pier the size of a half a dozen aircraft hangers. It was a wood pole that had been chiseled, and I think the shavings were still at the bottom. There as no design, no nothing. It was pointless. So why did it exist?

For whatever reason I imagined it in a smaller space, and I realized that in the space of a normal room, I would have been able to smell the wood. If I was alone in a room with a freshly chiseled piece of wood, where would my mind wander to? Maybe the smell would trigger a childhood memory. Would it be the same memory if the pole was made of plastic or metal? I can guarantee you that for me each of those materials would have prompted different things in my mind. What if instead of a pole, it was an apple pie and a boombox blasting rammstein? What it it was an all white canvas or an all black one? Or black with a red stripe? What it if was the Mona Lisa hanging on the wall? What if it was the actual Mona Lisa, but on the floor propped against the wall?

What would your experience in your existence in the moment be for any of those things in front of you? What if instead of a black canvas with a red stripe it was thousands of little brush strokes organized to look like something recognizable? What it it was more the "impression" of something recognizable? What it it was a set of brush strokes that left a hyper real painting of something recognizable? What if it as a person, but the eyes were left out or the face? SST happens if you put cinnamon on steak?

So as an artist, whatever your medium, every little thing you do will create a slightly different experience for the viewer. Some things will be too small to matter. Some thinsg you may choose to treat as too small to matter. Or you may choose to focus on manipulating one thing only. I met a guy recently who's made dozens (hundreds?) of pieces that are a photo that he's manipulated in photoshop. He's just using the same photo over and over, but every piece is totally different. It's not different retouching, it's completely different and not necessarily recognizable as a photo. For him it's about textures and patterns.


So as an artist, whether you want it or not, you have an infinite palette of ways to manipulate the person who receives your art. The goal is not to make a photo that looks like a painting the goal is to manipulate the viewer in the way that happens when they see a particular mood in an image and in this case the presentation creates and appearance of what many people would describe as "a photo that looks like a painting." But that idea is only relevant when conversing about it. It's not relevant to the experience of viewing it. The experience of viewing it, whatever that may be is all that matters. Why isn't relevant except in dissecting. Whether or not dissecting should happen is a different discussion.

Herman van Gestel wrote:
here sample of a more dynamic painterly quality....it all boils down to structure and colour pallet



Herman

That's great.

I think one thing that's special about painting is that you can ignore the realities of light. You can paint light that can't exist. You can also attempt to recreate existing light and miss a little, so part of what we accept or enjoy in paintings is the ways in which painted light doesn't match reality.

In this photo, I think that the contrast between foreground and background is in a range you don't usually see in a photo. Photos are either flatter, or have more falloff.

Also the angle and location of the highlights is not typical in the way that painted light is often not typical.

On top of that the DoF is not typical for a photo depicting a scene this dark. The image is both free of motion blur and has a deep DoF, which don't usually go together, especially in low light, so just about every cue that something is a photo is presented in a non-typical fashion.

Analysis aside, it's a very pleasant moment to look at.

Herman van Gestel wrote:
with this one I studied the paintings of old dutch masters, what they used for example for tin objects...and colours for cloth...



Herman

Time to make a video tutorial.


How many lights was that? Not many right?

Hard key and a lot of soft fill?

Either way, I know what I want to try lighting-wise for my shoot today.

sunn fotography wrote:
Its always good to know how to control soft lights and low contrast in a photo.
and i would love to have more practices on that after i read this post.

actually it's a combination of hard and soft light

sunn fotography wrote:
I know its silly, but i still wonder can we have the painter effect in PS?

the feel should be already in cam....the ingredients should be there already...

MC Photo wrote:
Time to make a video tutorial.

...yeah...time

MC Photo wrote:
How many lights was that? Not many right?

Hard key and a lot of soft fill?

one open lamp on the right, a effect lamp on the left, and 2 windows...

MC Photo wrote:
Either way, I know what I want to try lighting-wise for my shoot today.

have fun

sunn fotography wrote:
I know its silly, but i still wonder can we have the painter effect in PS?

Not really.  It's a topic that is overlooked here quite often, but honestly so much of this look relies on art direction (as do many others).  You have to start with the right look, the right feel, the right color pallet, the right pose, the right composition.  Those will go a very long way to achieving this particular look.  After that it's being skilled with your equipment to light it and shoot it in a particular way. 

I will certainly take the artist at his word, however, unless he shot film, or has his camera setup to develop the raw file a particular way, I'm not sure how you would get exactly those tones without some manipulation in photoshop.  That said, there are far better at that than me.  I would have shot this using a large format camera and Kodak Portra NC.  But that's me, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

sunn fotography wrote:
Its always good to know how to control soft lights and low contrast in a photo.
and i would love to have more practices on that after i read this post.

I know its silly, but i still wonder can we have the painter effect in PS?

If the question is whether it's possible to create a "painterly" photo with digital imaging using Photoshop, yes it is.

If you are asking can such an effect be created in Photoshop after the photo is shot, probably not.

As with any other type of look, Photoshop offers limited capability to transform a photo to something that was not visualized before the shoot and captured in the camera.