I envy my fellow plein air artists that can refrain from being too dependable on reference photos. I depend on reference photos. I do a lot of hiking, and take gobs of photos while on my treks. Back in the studio, I take my digital photos and modify them using photo editing software, to help enhance composition, color and clarity in my paintings.
There are key modifications that can be made digitally to reference photos. Those include modifying contrast, warmth, saturation, and moving elements from one photo to another to build the composition. You can also review values using a greyscale filter, and complete a Notan.
See the reference photo on the left, and the pastel painting on the right. Note that I have placed distant mountains into the painting from a different reference photo. I also re-arranged the water falls and enhanced the saturation of the colors.
Watch this 16 minute video as I share how I use reference photos in my landscape painting.
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