Digital Painting and Photo Collage Art

Using Digital Pictures for Fine Art

Dec 6, 2006
Alina Bradford

Finished: Mist Angel - Alina Bradford

Everyone has photographs just laying around waiting to become fine art. Here is how to take a bad picture and turn into into painted collage art.

I love to create collage art with my favorite photos. Combining your painting skills and digital photography skills can produce a really nice piece of art. Here is how you can turn a photo into digital art.

Using Photos for Collage Art

Let me caution, though, never use other people’s photos for your art. Not only does it violate the owner of the photo’s rights, you would also be using something that you didn’t create. Your art wouldn’t be totally yours if you used someone else’s work. It’s kinda shifty. Here is more information about using photos for art: Art Reference Sources.

Some say using photos in art is cheating. I say sure it is, if your using just an average beauty shot. When you take crappy photos and turn them into beauty, then that is totally acceptable because you are stretching the boundaries of your creativity.

Editing a Digital Photo for Collage Art

Let’s take a look at how to create your own digital painting.

First, pick the picture. For my photo collage I picked a picture of a little girl. It doesn't matter how bad the photo is as long as you can see possibilities. For my photo, I tried to imagine what she might be doing if I put her in a different setting. Then, I started editing the photo:

I cropped the photo with my photo editing software.
I faded the edges of the cropped image.
I made it somewhat opaque with my photo editor.

You can see the results of the photo editing below in Step One. (Tip: Click on the image to see more detail.)How to Create a Photo Collage Painting

At this point you could either print out the image and apply it to your canvas, or you can apply it to a digital canvas such as Photoshop or Corel. For this demo I used Corel.

In Step Two, you see that I basically laid in my colors around the photo.
In Step Three, I started painting over the picture, and adding details to the painting around it. I didn’t leave any of the original picture untouched. I added deep shadows to the chin area, added more color and shadow to the hair, etc.
I added a lot of detail to the background and to the reflection in the water. To make a reflection, select the area you want to reflect, copy it, paste it where you want the reflection and use the mirror image tool to flip the image. Make the reflection transparent for a more realistic touch.
In Step Four I added details. Make sure you have a light source and keep your highlights and shadows in-sync with the light. Here's an article that can help you do that: How to Use Fine Art Lighting.

This is my finished collage. By now the digital photo should look less like a photo stuck on a canvas and more like part of the piece as a whole. Notice how I added to the picture by changing almost everything about it.

Also notice, how I didn’t go for photo realism in the photo collage. If I had I think it would have cheapened the whole piece. If realism had been my goal I could have strapped some wings on a little girl, plopped her in our frog pond, and snapped a few shots. I don’t think it would have came out with the same dreamy effect I was going for.

So, go sort through your really bad photos and turn them into collage art from your imagination.