An oil painting in Photoshop sounds like the sort of thing Adobe would solve with one impressive button. It hasn’t. Most automatic art filters turn a good portrait into something printed on a novelty cushion. My method is slower, simpler and much more convincing: start with a strong photograph, work by hand and let light, shadow and texture do the heavy lifting.
The button is lying to you
Photoshop has spent years offering filters that promise to turn photographs into paintings.
Most of them fail. If you want that generic novelty cushion look knock yourself out. If you want a more realistic painting then read on.
A filter changes every pixel. A painter decides which pixels matter.
You don’t need the latest Photoshop, an expensive graphics tablet or a clever third-party plug-in. You need a decent source image, a clear idea and enough patience to stop before the effect becomes the subject.
Borrow from Rembrandt. Aim slightly lower.
My starting point was Rembrandt. Ambitious, obviously.
I wasn’t trying to recreate a masterpiece. I was borrowing the principle behind one: chiaroscuro. It is the use of strong light against deep shadow to create depth, drama and focus.
In plain English, decide what you want people to notice.
That contrast does more to make a portrait feel painterly than covering the entire image with digital brush marks.
Start with the photograph
The finished result can only be as convincing as the image underneath it. Photoshop is powerful, but it cannot invent useful detail from a thumbnail somebody saved from Facebook in 2012.
The useful details
- Use the original, highest-resolution photograph
- Choose clear directional lighting where possible
- Keep the face sharp and properly exposed
- A head-and-shoulders portrait is the easiest place to begin
- A simple background gives the subject room to work
- Place the person near the centre while learning the technique
A modern phone photograph can work perfectly well. A compressed screenshot of a compressed message attachment cannot. Pixels have limits. Even the artistic ones.
How I create an oil painting effect in Photoshop
I build the effect by hand rather than asking one filter to make every decision. The exact treatment changes with each portrait, but the thinking stays fairly simple.
- Begin with a clean, high-resolution portrait
- Simplify distracting background detail
- Strengthen the important shadows and highlights
- Break photographic detail into broader painted areas
- Keep sharper detail around the eyes and main features
- Introduce texture selectively
- Use sharpening lightly at the end where it helps the focus
The target is not to hide the photograph. It is to make the image feel observed, interpreted and painted.
Watch the Photoshop painting process
The video below shows the technique in action. It was made using Photoshop CS5, which now belongs in a museum, but the method still works because it relies on basic tools rather than a fashionable filter.
Before Photoshop
After the oil painting effect
Easy does not mean instant
The technique is straightforward. The painting takes time.
A detailed portrait can take more than five hours because faces are unforgiving. Move an eye slightly, flatten the wrong shadow or overwork the skin and the person stops looking like themselves.
That time is not spent finding the right filter. It is spent looking, adjusting and knowing when to leave something alone.
Painting has always involved patience. Photoshop merely gives you an undo button.
What makes the effect convincing?
- A recognisable subject and strong source photograph
- Clear hierarchy between the face and background
- Believable light and shadow
- Texture that follows the form rather than sitting on top
- Sharp detail where you want the eye to land
- Enough restraint to leave some areas quiet
The target is recognition. The texture, colour and brushwork are there to make you see the person differently.
Want me to paint it?
If five hours of careful Photoshop work sounds suspiciously like five hours of careful Photoshop work, I also create commissioned digital paintings.
I need the original high-resolution image, good lighting and a clear view of the subject. Complexity affects the time and cost, so every portrait is quoted individually.
You can see more of my paintings or talk to me about a digital painting commission.
No magic button. No instant Rembrandt. Just a better photograph, careful choices and several thousand slightly more interesting pixels.