If you could paint brilliantly, would you photograph?

[Rob C]

Well, I think it's certainly superior to painting by numbers.

Rob C

[tom b]

Just had an exhibition of my paintings and photographs to celebrate my sixtieth birthday. Some observations:

It's much easier to store digital files and print at your convenience. I've got over one hundred paintings taking up space. Paintings need good storage conditions.

I've got some great 3 Meg and 8 Meg images which I would have loved to show but resolution was a factor.

The paintings that I made from the 3 Meg photos and 35 mm 6"x4" prints were the best sellers in the exhibition (painted 10-12 years ago).

Framing enhances sales, of the thirteen paintings I sold eleven were framed.

Friends and family and a major birthday help sales.

I only had one A2 print framed and the rest were in a presentation folder. There was lots of positive feedback but only two sales. Framing seemed to be a factor.

There was one painting I could have sold ten times over. If it was a framed photograph it would have exceeded the total sales of the exhibition of 69 paintings and 21 photographs.

I just about broke even on the event and have a lot of large very good paintings framed.

I had a number of small paintings that I thought friends and family would buy, but they bought the very best of my medium sized paintings. All the medium sized, framed paintings that I would be happy to hang on my walls were snapped up.

There is a big difference in a photographic image that will make a good print and one that will make a good photographic reference for a painting.

Cheers,

[theguywitha645d]

I would be a photographer. I have spent a great deal of my life with painters and paintings, so I certainly have been exposed to the medium. Photographs have given me greater epiphanies than any canvas.

[debasishroy]

You said your daughter can paint and sketch better than you ever could. That implies that you consider painting and sketching an act where you reproduce what you see exactly. That is not correct. You also say in your post that you discovered photography as a surprise in your 20s. That implies that your inability to 'photograph' situations through painting and sketching led you to 'discover' photography.

What you are saying clearly means you were a photographer all along.

I do not intend to boast but as an answer to your question, I was a famous painter (artist?) even in my school days when my oil paintings on canvas were bought by my teachers and their friends paying me serious money. I once got paid Rupees 12,000.00 for a canvas showing the zoo in 1982. This is big money those days.

However, I always wanted to do some nice wildlife photography but my parents could never afford an SLR when I was a kid. I grew up and after I got my first job I saved up to buy a used Yashica Electro X 30 and started clicking.

My answer: Never compare photography and painting. They are entirely different streams of art.

[ChrisS]

You said your daughter can paint and sketch better than you ever could. That implies that you consider painting and sketching an act where you reproduce what you see exactly.

No it doesn't.

[Isaac]

If you think you know Photoshop, there are groups of people out there using it in a whole bunch of different ways to the average photographer.

For example, Photoshop for Artists: A Complete Guide for Fine Artists, Photographers, and Printmakers

[Isaac]

I recently realised that one thing I value about photography is being able to gain different perspectives on the world around me as it is, rather than "making it up" with paints.

“Some photographers are inventors, others are discoverers. Personally, I'm interested in discovery, not for experimental purposes but to come to grips with life itself. It's the "why" that interests me. I shun the dangers of the anecdotal and the picturesque.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson on the art of photography, Harper's Magazine, November 1961

[jjj]

I only had one A2 print framed and the rest were in a presentation folder. There was lots of positive feedback but only two sales. Framing seemed to be a factor.

There was one painting I could have sold ten times over. If it was a framed photograph it would have exceeded the total sales of the exhibition of 69 paintings and 21 photographs.

Photograph your paintings and make high quality prints of them, then you can eat you cake and still have it.

[jjj]

However, since doing my wee jazz shots, I've been thinking that I may be interested in doing some design/layout again, and since my experience with design and calendars was when Letraset still held respect (as well as setting houses, of course), I wouldn't, currently, know where to start. Using the system of letters that are available in PS6 is very limited - perhaps that's my failure there, and PS6 does it all - but I have no idea how to slide letters all over the place to see how they fit the space and shape of a photo image.

PS has some amazing type capability.
Stick some type on an empty file, select all or parts of the type and then play with the controls in character panel to see what the various options do. Or see links below.

Doing it via th clicks of the keyboard is far too clumsy and limited - tiny movements matter a lot.

And tiny movements can indeed be easily done by using keyboard and type tools in PS. You can adjust kerning and line spacing in very fine amounts. PS is probably used more by graphic designers than it is by photographers and for good reason.

I do have a book or two on PS, but I find I can't learn anything at all from books - by the time I read something and want to try it out, I've forgotten what the friggin' book said! Well, yes, I can drop a title into an image, but as for changing the spaces between lines of text etc., tilting letters around at angles, reversing them, I'm in the dark. I'd like to do a course on things of that type (oh dear!) but they don't seem to happen locally, at least not that I know of.

Here's some tutorial on how to do photoshop style thangs to type.
But first you need to know the basic attributes of the character panel and if using body text then the paragraph panel may need to be used

[theguywitha645d]

However, since doing my wee jazz shots, I've been thinking that I may be interested in doing some design/layout again, and since my experience with design and calendars was when Letraset still held respect (as well as setting houses, of course), I wouldn't, currently, know where to start. Using the system of letters that are available in PS6 is very limited - perhaps that's my failure there, and PS6 does it all - but I have no idea how to slide letters all over the place to see how they fit the space and shape of a photo image. Doing it via th clicks of the keyboard is far too clumsy and limited - tiny movements matter a lot. I do have a book or two on PS, but I find I can't learn anything at all from books - by the time I read something and want to try it out, I've forgotten what the friggin' book said! Well, yes, I can drop a title into an image, but as for changing the spaces between lines of text etc., tilting letters around at angles, reversing them, I'm in the dark. I'd like to do a course on things of that type (oh dear!) but they don't seem to happen locally, at least not that I know of.

Rob C

Design and layout is not Photoshop's thing. You want InDesign. There should be plenty on the internet about typography. But is it is a subtle art.

[Rob C]

Design and layout is not Photoshop's thing. You want InDesign. There should be plenty on the internet about typography. But is it is a subtle art.

Indeed, and many people in the design world felt quiite uncomfortable with it, myself included!

I think that it isn't thought of as glamorous, and that's partly to blame, but there's no doubt that some great typographic design has lasted over the years and still looks good today. As with other arts, I suspect that it requires a particular set of aesthetic qualities from the specialist and is not something you can do by comparing lists of compatible styles of lettering! There were great LP covers in the day... some very pleasing calendar layouts too.

Ciao -

Rob C

[jjj]

Design and layout is not Photoshop's thing. You want InDesign.

That'll come a big surprise to all those graphic designers using PS. 
 It's an awesome tool for design and certain kinds of layout, though InDesign is obviously better at laying out a magazine or newspaper.

[theguywitha645d]

That'll come a big surprise to all those graphic designers using PS. 
 It's an awesome tool for design and certain kinds of layout, though InDesign is obviously better at laying out a magazine or newspaper.

The only graphic designers I know using PS for that type of work don't know anything else. PS is really clunky for design work.

[jjj]

The only graphic designers I know using PS for that type of work don't know anything else. PS is really clunky for design work.

Only if you do not know what you are doing. 
I bet PS is used by more designers than it is by photographers.
Though if you are trying to layout say a long form design such as an entire magazine then yes it is not exactly suitable for that, but I already mentioned that caveat.

[theguywitha645d]

Only if you do not know what you are doing. 
I bet PS is used by more designers than it is by photographers.
Though if you are trying to layout say a long form design such as an entire magazine then yes it is not exactly suitable for that, but I already mentioned that caveat.

Actually, I do know what I am doing. I have no idea the ratio of designer/photographer use of Photoshop. Whatever the ratio, it does not prove ease or efficiency of use. I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign regularly. That is the hazards of the profession--know what tool to use.

[jjj]

Actually, I do know what I am doing. I have no idea the ratio of designer/photographer use of Photoshop. Whatever the ratio, it does not prove ease or efficiency of use. I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign regularly. That is the hazards of the profession--know what tool to use.

Never using Illustrator would be my choice. Cannot stand the programme. Clunky, clumsy and pointlessly difficult to use. Less dreadful than it used to be but still don't like it. Always preferred Corel Draw myself, but as it was a PC only programme it always got sneered at by graphic designers. Didn't stop Adobe borrowing lots of ideas from it though.

A lot of people use PS for design because even if you may not think so, it is actually very good for design as you have very precise control with pixel editing capability, painting tools, drawing tools, type tools, blending modes, layers....etc. I remember being puzzled at how many examples of really good graphic design were produced in Quark [what a crap/overpriced programme] some years back and then found out they were actually done in PS and whole page was then placed in the Quark layout. A good example of knowing what tools to use.  And as I said a couple of times above PS is not suited to long form layout, but graphic design is something it certainly excels at and is why it is often used to do web design, even if the coding and final layout is done in say Dreamweaver.