100 PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Drouin, 14/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 14
This agreeable looking chap looks happy because he is married to my daughter Lauren, (2/100).
Even though this is a flash photo, which I hate to paint from, I was able to add enough color to make it a somewhat interesting portrait.

People have been asking how I can do this - paint a portrait a day. Last week I wrote about the supports I'm using. Today I will cover photo manipulation.

I'm getting all kinds of photos via email and a few by USPS mail. 99% of the photos I receive have to be cropped into a square format with just the face of the person showing. If the image of the person is too small in the photo, cropping to just show the face, results in a blurry, pixilated image.

As I have said many times, a photo taken in the sun, or with a strong light source to the side, results in shadows on the face that help define the planes of the face and make it easier to paint.
Most of the cropped photos then need to be corrected for brightness, contrast, and sharpness. My photo software is Microsoft's Picture It. It's very easy to use. If I need to do more work with color balancing, I use GIMP, which is a freeware version of Photoshop.

Lastly, after the photo has been cropped and adjusted for color and contrast, I print it on my HP Photosmart 8250 printer on 4x6 photo paper. Image transfer will be discussed next week.

blog: http://carolnelsonfineart.blogspot.com
website: http://carolnelsonfineart.com