How to Pick the Perfect Photo for Your Portrait Painting/Drawing

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The most important thing for a successful outcome is choosing a good photo / photos as starting point. Here is a description of what is important to keep in mind when selecting the photo, or when taking the pictures.

Angle

– Different angles give different effects. Choose a picture where the subject reflects its natural side. A head from the front may sometimes appear flat, especially for dogs. In art-language it is called foreshortening.

Sharpness and the size of the photo

– A detailed painting is only possible to create based on a detailed photo. Do not Shrink or crop images before sending it. Send primarily sharp photos if possible! A distant subjects usually loses sharpness and detail, when zooming in.

Light and Contrast

– Avoid huge contrasts and do not use too bright or dark images!

Important!

– That which is not in the photo from the the start is difficult to recreate. Take a new picture instead of spending money on an expensive reconstruction. Examples are closed eyes on a photo where they will be open in your image, or a sad faces on someone who’ll be glad in the image.

Extras!

• One tip is to shoot outdoors when the sun is not at its strongest for good contrast.
• If more than one - make them connect physically in some way, a hand on the shoulder for example.

And then just go for a great result!

But as you can see by comparing the photo with the drawing, to get the proportions and value correct is a much much harder task than taking the photo. This was some years ago and I am still progressing my skills :) Hope you do as well!