We make a lot of photographic ‘paintings.’  That is where a client has a photo session and then decides to have it made into a painting. Photo paintings are then printed on quality canvas, stretched, and framed.  What you end up with is a piece of art that will last a lifetime (or two).

Each painting below is done, by hand, on the computer via PhotoShop.  Most of our paintings are smudge paintings.  I do some airbrushing too, but it’s usually combined with smudging to achieve the look I like.

That means, in PS, you go to the tools and select the ’smudge’ tool (highlighted in red below).   It may be hidden below one of the other tools on that button (like sharpen(a triangle) or blur ( drop).  Right click and a drop down menu will appear.  You can then select smudge.   It looks like a little finger.  Each painting has tons of tiny or big smudges on them.  The end result is similar to a pastel painting.

I used to paint in pastels a lot, so this seems familiar to me.  The method between pastels (colored charcoals) and smudging is similar.  You start out with the basic shapes, lines, contours, and curves - and then smudge them together in a way that captures the essence of what you are painting.  (From now on in this post - when I refer to a painting - I am referring to a photograph that was retouched by hand, digitally, on the computer).

The computer actually smudges kinda like doing it with your fingers.  However you cannot control pressure as much, which affects the intensity of the color. To adjust the pressure of your smudge, look at the upper tool bar.  There is a box that says strength (shown below).  Adjust it so that the smudge is as heavy or as light as you want.  Mine is usually set to around 47%.  Why?  Because it offers the look I like at that level.  I will make adjustments based on which area I am smudging, but as a general rule, I am usually around 47%.

If I figured out how to use my tablet better (wacom), I suspect the variable pressure issue wouldn’t be as noticeable.  With some of the new monitors, you can draw directly on the screen…which is wicked cool.  It can sense pressure changes which puts it pretty close to manually smudging, minus the dust.

So why bother doing a painting by hand in the 1st place?  Why not order it that way from the lab, or have PS do all the dirty work for you?  The answer is pretty simple.  Uniqueness and quality.  If you do it yourself, you can get EXACTLY what you want.  You can use broad strokes, or subtle stokes.  Basically, you can set the mood of your painting to be exactly what you want it to be.  You can even mess with the colors and make something more abstract.

Below is a painting of a bride.  This is one of the smudge paintings that I’ve done that has the broadest strokes and densest pressure.  It doesn’t have the softness that some of my other paintings have.  Mainly because I liked the vivid colors and the angles of the brides face.  So those aspects were made dominant with harder lines and wider brush strokes.

Below is one of the first smudge paintings I did.  The painting is ONLY on her hair.  The reason for it is obvious - look at her hair!  The color, volume, shine…!  She’s a gorgeous girl with super fab hair.

By painting her hair, it softened it further, pulled out the rich amber tones, and pulled the light up closer to her eyes.  You can brighten eyes, and the face, by adding a little bit of color (in this case the amber highlights) closer to the eyes.

In this image, the painting is very subtle.  You cannot really see the brush strokes.  The highlight on the front of the curl was defined and the shadow was darkened slightly, separating and defining each curl.  Nothing else in this was painted.  People would stop and stare at this shot and just say “WOW, look at her hair.”  After that, I painted a lot of hair.

Below is one of my favorite smudge paintings.  It’s a formal child’s portrait.   This image was shot with the intention of becoming a large painting (the 1st image below).  The shot was underexposed because I know I wanted deep rich colors.

Adding black in post in possible using levels or curves adjustments, but I’d rather start with the darker colors and add the light.  When I try to darken a lighter painting, it usually ends up with green undertones in the stroke.  I can do some color wheel math in my head to fix it, but I find it easier to work dark to light.  Some others may find it easier to work light to dark.

I knew I wanted the final product soft, so I used smaller (thinner) strokes.  I also used less pressure (strength) on the smudge tool.  I knew I wanted the couch gone and the outlet cover, and I wanted the texture on the wall subdued.  All those decisions were made prior to shooting.  Below is the final product.  It was ordered on a large gallery wrap.

A smudge painting typically takes me about 72 hours to complete.  If it has lace or other types of intricate detail, it may take longer.  The example above had a lacy petticoat and all the french lace that was on her skirt.  While I LOVED painting that, it took much longer.  Each little lace detail was smudged gently until it looked perfect.

So, some of you may be thinking…How did you do that?  Smudging on the computer isn’t too hard.  You DO have to keep your persons facial planes intact (meaning do not move them while you are smudging).  So here is the easiest way to understand what is happening every time you take a pass with the smudge tool.

Below is a gradation of circles on a white background.  The circles start with black at the top and fade slowly to light gray.  It’s a rough visual to show what happens to the pixels when you smudge.  Basically, you have all these little dots lined up.  This is what happens.  I made my little circles in a bunch of rows.

From left to right is the progression.  The 1st is untouched.  The 2nd row had the smudge tool dragged over it in one stroke.  It was a single pass (clicked on the mouse and dragged to the bottom, unclicked mouse).  The next column is 2 strokes, and then 3.

So far these strokes were all in the same direction and long.  The last column took the 4th row and stroked each little section (where it looks like a heart) from bottom to top.  So the direction reversed.  If the pressure is too hard - you can see a line.  See the line forming on the last row?  You can also see other colors appearing.  It is easy to make a smudge painting muddy.  So use layers to preserve your work in case you mess up.

Now, when you start a smudge painting, you usually have a photo underneath.  If you want perfect skin and shiny hair - add that 1st BEFORE you start smudging.  Do all your curves, levels, glowers, etc BEFORE you start smudging.  On the image below, we did what most call glamor post processing.  I took the image, edited it to my liking, then airbrushed skin, added highlights where I wanted them on the hair (by adding small sharp dots), and then let the smudging begin.  The image below has most of the smudging on the hair.

Again, it’s soft and subtle.  Looking at it, you wouldn’t necessarily know the hair was painted.  You’d just see rich color, shiny locks, and defined curls.

Here is another set of curls I just finished.  That’d be my self-portrait.  The entire image has been smudged.  I left the layer under neath intact and did a small bleed through on the bangs to retain the texture of the hair.  That’s something that’s nice with photography, you can retain stuff.  With painting, once  you messed it up, you messed it up.  So SAVE YOUR LAYERS!

General rule of thumb with curls - the front of the curl is the lightest and the back of the curl is darkest.  You can smudge the midtones together without messing up the structure of the curl.  But you have to retain a clear highlight and shadow to keep the curl defined.  Girls with curly hair LOVE this.  It makes their hair look totally fab and not frizzy.

In case that was Greek, here is an illustrated example.  In each section where a curl turns and twists, there is a defined dark spot and lighter spot.  If you make the curl all shadow or all highlight, it will look flat.  The trick is to keep the highlight on top of the curl and the shadow immediately below it.  This brightens the hair and defines the curl.

Notice how dark the shadows are too.  I didn’t add those, they were there.  By smudging you remove all the little hairs that didn’t conform to the curl and thereby eliminate any frizz.  These curls are more painted, so the definition isn’t as clear as it is on the locks of the girl with the long painted hair.  But it’s clear enough to give you the idea.

And here is one of my favorite shots.  This was from a maternity session.  The mom and her kiddo were so sweet.  This is a smudge painting.  Notice the color is intensified.  Look at the hair.  Neither of them have curls, but the hair is clearly defined, smooth, and shiny.  Highlights were added to the child’s hair around her face.

I added some of the deep blues in the floor to the mom’s hair.  That’s an old painter’s trick.  Your eye has issues with flow when a color is not repeated in an image.  Basically your eye gets stuck.  To pull the eye up off the floor, I added a dark blue shadow in the mom’s hair, rather than using black.  It worked well, and tied the painting together.

Smudging is a fun way to bring an image to life.  If you want to give it a whirl, start with some curls.  Smudge one lock at a time.  Work in layers in case you mess up.  And play.  You can change the look greatly by varying the size of the smudge tool and the strength (pressure).  Have fun!