WATCH OUT FOR FAKES - 4 WAYS TO TELL
Upvoting a post featuring images is giving real money to the poster. Make sure it's real art, and it belongs to the poster, before you click that button.
There's a popular way to make money, that's been around as long as money, that consists of creating an effect in some less labor-intensive way, then claiming (or allowing the wrong impression to form) that the result was achieved in some more labor-intensive way.
When photography was invented, artists quickly saw the potential as a tool to help them make art. It was never really a problem, until digital painting and the Image Search.
Now there's a lot of artists taking the shortcut of using a photo as a base, painting on top. That's understandable, though not very good, and not illegal as long as they have the rights to the photo, or only use a very small part of it. As long as they take enough time to go over the WHOLE image. The main problem there is the artist is probably not learning much from all their hard work.
But there's always a few people who have to take it too far, who have to figure a way to get rich quick by stealing and lying. They apply a filter on a photo, often one they don't own. A matter of a couple mouse-clicks, boom, done.
For instance, these Photoshop filters from Filter Forge, 37$ for the basic package:
Tempting right? Especially when the internet, including Steemit, is full of clueless people who go ooh and aah over the result.
If they want to push it a bit further, maybe they spend a few minutes on what is known in the concept industry as "photo smudging". Using a smudge brush to smear pixels so they look painted. Like this (grabbed from a video on how to use Procreate):
You can easily find the video on Youtube by searching for Procreate 4 tips and tricks.
Here's an interesting link showing how this problem of fake art will only become bigger in the future - AI making art without any human input:
https://deepart.io/
How to spot a FAKE PAINTING:
- Squint at it - does it totally look like a snapshot you might see if you Googled the subject? Lighting, proportions, perspective, anatomy, richness and variety of details, etc.
- Does the artist have any progress shots to show? Even one? Anywhere in their blog?
The problem with fake art is you can't post progress shots, because they instantly give away the game.
Ask the artist for WIPs (work in progress), if they come up with some excuse, ask them to please remember to post it for the next one. - Does the artist show a disparity in skill? Meaning are some images really bad, while some are really good? Does the style vary a lot? These are warning signs.
- If you really want to play detective, use Reverse Image Search on their art. https://images.google.com/ click the camera icon.
Sometimes the exact photo they used pops up. That's the problem with stealing easily available photos, they're available to everyone.
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Thanks for reading!
Steven Stahlberg, Kuala Lumpur February 24, 2018
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I do paintovers for others on request, as feedback:
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/2ht6cw-animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/nsfw/@stahlberg/3jyiuy-animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/2ughc8-animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/2oxkdq-animated-paintover
Links to some of my other art:
Fake tools and techniques are better and better, inform is the way to fight it! Thanks for the good tips!
That's a very good point about seeing progress shots. They either have them or they don't. And it solves the issue once and for all. That's a good tip to know.
As for the direction all of this is heading, it's a new and emerging technology, just as digital photography once was. Things will get shaken up, but I think there will always be a role for dedicated and talented humans. Just have to wait and see how that all pans out.
Yes I'm no Luddite lol.
But I do believe there will come a day when no one will work anymore, because all jobs will be done by robots or AI or both. Job being defined as something someone gets paid to do. Humans will still be doing things, it's just that no one will be paid for work anymore.
I don't see it as a disaster, it could even be a good thing. :)
Having work done by robots and AI is probably something that is inevitable, but I get what you're saying about the art side of things. The more that can stay in human hands the better.
Reverse image search is godsend for so many things. I use it whenever someone tries to add me on social media with intent to catfish me. I know that I am nowhere attractive enough for instagram models to want to follow me haha.
Haha yes that's a good idea too. Sometimes I use it on my own images just to check if someone is using them without permission.
this is excellent. can't say much more to that other than thanks for pointing it out to your audience, not all of which might be aware of this little factoid.
The art of stealing.... have loads of masters in it!
why are people so annoying and go and steal art from others..??
it's something l will never truly understand.
Good entry by the way!
keep up the good work!
Thank you! Yes it's a bit strange, I think it comes from this:
the threshhold for entering into visual art forms has been greatly lowered in recent decades by the introduction of new apps, and these art forms (concept art, movies, photography, industrial design, architecture, sculpture etc) have gained a huge boost in PR by the spread of the computer and the internet. This has resulted in an explosion of the number of people who call themselves artists never before seen. Which has increased competition enormously. And also let many not-so-serious about their art in. This is mostly a good thing of course, but it does bring some problems with it too.
sometimes it's hard to see the line because it's blurred by professional concept art practices such as photo-bashing and -smudging, painting-bashing and -smudging, and paintovers on 3D and such. At least a beginner might think so.
Very well thought of!
l think it comes to basic thing,
People these days tend to forget about the real and basic art and use stock images and filters..l use to have a friend that was always saying: lm gonna buy this pencils! they're amazing and my art will be better,and this paper,and so and so on..
(not saying that good materials help you improve your work)
but..he was lacking at the very basic, such as perspective, anatomy,etc.. so l would tell him: forget about gadgets and get an hb pencil and a piece of paper,and draw! haha
So my point is, that today everything is available and easily ready to users people think that because of that they're entitled to jump all the previous steps..
I have wondered about this myself. When do you go from being a fake to a real artist, where is the limit? I am an illustrator myself and have been very careful about using reference photos, and if I use much reference I take the photo myself. Not too long ago I discovered this illustration from a quite much featured Illustrator in Norway. I just had to google "girl picking nose tennis racket" out of curiosity. Look at the first image that came up... So, is this fake? I mean, he has illustrated on top of it. I definitely think it's cheating, but he earns a living of his illustrations, and I don't... (yet). Maybe he's just very clever. Maybe I just have to much integrity and will spend too much time on my work in stead of looking for short-cuts and then never succeed?
I'd say it's not "fake", not illegal, but unless he paid for the use of that image, dangerously close to it, and he probably knows it too that's why he mirrored the image... :)
He changed the feet a bit, he changed the dress, he added a bunch of stuff (although who knows all those other props could be googled photos as well). He went through some hard work tracing the image, and adding the mesh inside the racket, and applying paint, although some of the paint could simply be the photos blurred and smudged... yeah it's hard to say exactly, without a video of the process, but this one's probably not super bad. :)
Yes, I can totally see the changes he has done, but I still think it's too close to the original. I know it's not illegal, but I do think it's a bit like cheating. Taking a stock photo and tracing it is not real art in my opinion ;) And I do agree with you, there are worse... :)
This is sssssOOOOOOOOO true...
At sometime, before i knew abt this and before it triggers my suspicions, (havin the same checklist as u forwarded there) I was embarrased and backed off from posting any of my work.
But then when i knew, heck. Im proud of showing off my ugly WIPs hahahaha
Ive learned that using reference is fine....but this is worst than tracing lol.
Nice article mate :)
Thanks! yes it really burns my biscuits lol
Biskut goreng!
lol biskut bomba!
Hm maybe I should keep dropping wips then XD I haven't been doing it lately partly because anyone who has been following me for any length of time is probably bored with it (I have pretty much exactly the same process in every single piece) and mostly because it's more time added on to making the post and I'm either really flat tack or exhausted from previously being flat tack and can't be bothered XD
I agree except the whole wip thing because theres plenty of actual artists who dont show wips like artstation
Oh this is a good idea. Some people even have the audacity to sell other artists' work and then when the artist contacts them and complains about it they have the nerve to say everybody else is doing it so they do it as well. OMG.