Essentials Cafe

you are all so nice here.  unbelievable!

thanks so much

 www.glennlosackmd.com
 

My rule of thumb for what it's worth is i'll set  the size 650 pixels on the longest side. Won't say it will work every time but, it has worked most of the time for me.

And as far a painter X goes I tried the free version before they came out with PE4 and to honest I think I like PE4 better. Sure there are some brushes and bells and whistles on paiter X that PE4 doesn't have but, most of the tiime you can find a way around it. if you just look haard enough.

I'm still wondering if you are wanting to get the best out of Essentials 4 as you say Glenn or if you have decided it's all too much of an effort?

You say you have achieved the same results as I did but you don't like it, if you post your image here and tell us what you don't like we may be able to help. Or were you perhaps playing mind games with us?

Whatever you seem to have dropped out of the arena having jumped in and stirred up a hornet's nest.

Either way it would be nice to draw a line under this or work with you to resilve it.

 squirrel

thanks for your ongoing concern.  I think the photo  i had presented is just beautiful as a photo not as a painting. Thats where my

ambivalence and concern evolved.  Sometimes a photograph should stay one!  this i thought could look great painted but i think i was wrong. 

I think the painting attempts  fell short   because of detail lost, it just speaks wonderfully as a photographic image i think

as well as others i have asked.

I will when i can get 28 hour days indulge with other art work of which i have thousands and use CPE.  I  have hundreds of high priced

photography that i wish to turn some of it ( worth of it and potentially  as paintiings. Here is one i like that i did awhile ago

thanks again and dont be angry ...... too much anger in this world

Glenn, I think some of your photographs are absolutely stunning and they take me to places I could never go.

My friend (a retired GP) also travels with his camera, and it never ceases to amaze me that he is able to find such grace, beauty and colour in the poverty stricken areas of India, Africa and other such places. He has built up a friendship with some Massai warriors and the photographs he took were, like yours, stunning in content, composition and colour, and stand in their own right, as you so rightly say, as photographs.

I do however believe that they, and yours, could also make stunning artwork, but sheer auto-paint would not do them justice.

I think this picture, and the ones I did of your photographs proves that point. Oh yes!  they are nice enough but do nothing to enhance, improve, or bring out a different mood or aspect of your lovely photography.

I personally think such photography needs a much more sympathetic approach, and an in depth, hands on, artistic treatment, in order to be able to stand in it's own right alongside one of your photographs.

A poor photograph can make a stunning artwork if the composition is right, and far outstrip the original. However an excellent photograph needs a whole lot more care if it is to stand apart from the crowd and not be a poor imitation of the original.

If I may use the analogy of artificial flowers. They look like the poor relatives of the real thing unless they are big and brassy enough to say, look at me I'm artificial but I am beautiful, and then, if used in the right context, they can look terrific.

I think auto-paint (in any programme) will always be a dissapointment if it is the sole tool used to turn out digital artwork.

 then you see my point finally after all the yelling  at me   especially  DP so offended by my comments.

Glenn,After reading your posting above I find your comments about Essentials 4 being an amateurish programme quite offensive. As one of the most longest standing users of this forum, and as a digital artist and photographer myself, I am surprised by your comments about not being able to paint something you are happy with.

From my involvement with this forum I see people with less photography experience than you, take their photos and turn them into good works of art that they are happy with.  Others are willing to make the effort, to take the time to learn about this programme and how to use it in a creative way. 

ACCORDING  to you   i am justified in seeing that autopainting is not up to the task   with my photography  and that is why I AM totally left disappointed with it most of the time. A shame, i am not a painter and do not want to be on , i dont have enough time in my life as it is. I have seen recent results done by another member on my photography and i have to admit it is not visually pleasing nor does justice to the photograph.

A shame.  Thanks for your honesty and proving me somewhat right 

Glenn,  I just looked at your site and the photos are excellant.  You obviously enhance them with Photoshop or some similar program and do a very good job of it.  While some would make nice paintings, I don't think they would look better as paintings and they lose detail.  Since you don't have the time to learn to use it well, I think you should keep them as photos.  I feel tht you are tryng to fina nay way to improve them but they are already excellant. 

 Look at art in a gallery and it will most likely disappoint you as compared with your photos because you are seeing with a different eye.  I am a photographer first but find it interesting and fun to make some art.  I am not trying to make a great photo better than I can do in a photo program.  I thik that is the confusion here.  You are asking autopainting to compete with the photo, it can't.  They are two different things.  

Love your work, please continue to make those great photos but don't make them into paintings.

cannot thank you enough for you kind words. You and Squirrel seem to understand the situation i am facing and i will simply set aside CPE and try to forget about it unless im in the spirit. I tried to get my point across to the forum that a great photograph  i think cannot be painted in CPE at least...............and look great as the photo or better!

you helped me a great deal. I will stop obsessing and feeling like  im missing out trying to paint with an autopaint   program .  thankx...

Well Glen I guess you have discovered that you enjoy photograpy the most, and that no art can be done by the touch of a button, and that is exactly why it is art.  I use my creative abilities and my inner vision to achieve what i see in my head and put it out in a 3D form ie on canvas in this case.

I am an artist first and a photographer second.  So to me I have the freedom to be creative in both realms.

Perfection in any artform, photography, painting, or otherwise takes practise and no one can expect to be a master of an art the first time around. Even a doctor cannot perform surgery after one lesson with his teacher!

Anyway no hard feelings.....I wish you well in your endevours.

 If you know anything at all about Impressionistic, or Classical oil paints, you would know that neither of them would offer the sort of detail a photograph offers, (it’s not intended to) and the Impressionistic art by its very nature would only offer an artists impression of the scene and may only offer the merest suggestion of what your camera would pick up.

This is somewhat similar to Squirrel's version but I just wanted to post my quick attempt of Glenn's photo done in Essentials 4.  Glenn, maybe you won't like it but its just to show something that can be done in about 10 minutes.  I reduced the picture to 5 MB before working on it and saved in Jpeg at 78% quality.   If you are interested, I could write out the steps but there is a little hand painting.

Anyway, I have bookmarked your site and have already sent it to a photographer friend of mine. 

Somewhat more 'finished' than mine artisan. I stayed with auto with light soft clone because the man said he did not want to paint but wanted auto to do it all for him.

I rather like your version and quite frankly I think it has more character to it than the original photograph. It now begins to show how it would stand as a work of art. Well done.