Some paintings are partially cloned and in part truly painted.
In portraits, you will often find the faces of the subject cloned
while the background may be truly painted.
There is nothing wrong with cloned or partially cloned paintings
as long as they are represented as such. Photographers do this
to enhance their photographs, but they are selling photographs, not paintings. A misrepresentation comes about when the "artist" says his painting is a real oil painting when it's
not. This is evidenced when he claims on
his web site or elsewhere that "no filters were used," or "each
stroke was painstakingly applied," or "the work took 10 to 15
hours to do" when, in fact, the cloning filters were used and
none of the above was true.
A true painting uses the computer software to provide the canvas, the paint and the brushes, not the artist. The artist is a real portrait artist who scans and places the photograph in his computer side by side with a blank canvas. He then uses the brushes and paints supplied by the software to paint on the blank canvas while eyeballing the photograph the same as he would with a live model. This process is time consuming but results in a true "painterly" painting.
A non-true or cloned painting will take 4 to 5 minutes to do and will
look exactly like the photograph. A partially cloned painting
may take 25 to 30 minutes with a simple background (like the
example below which took 30 minutes to make) or may take
longer if real images (like flowers or trees, etc.) are truly
painted in the background. On the other hand, a 100% true portrait
painting of one person may indeed take 10 to 15 hours to do, and
even longer if more people are involved.
HOW
CAN YOU TELL IF A PORTRAIT PAINTING HAS BEEN CLONED?
If it looks like art, it probably is. If
it's 100% cloned, it's easy to tell. It looks exactly like the
photograph, including all the background clutter.
If it's partially cloned, it's more difficult to tell. You can
observe the painting closely and try to tell if certain "body
parts" such as eyes, mouths, teeth, ears, noses and hands look
surprisingly similar to the photo. These are the most difficult
and time-consuming things to paint and there may be a temptation
for the artist to take a short cut and clone them. More than likely any color portrait made from a black and white photograph will be truly painted.
There is a simple test which, in most cases, will detect
partial cloning. The image of Duncan below was partially cloned.
Only the background sky was truly painted. Duncan in the foreground
was cloned (that's why he took only 30 minutes to "paint").
Drag the image out onto your desktop so that it copies as a
file (not all browsers will do this so if your's doesn't work, try a different one). Then open the file in one of many programs you may have
that has a magnifier or ZOOM function. See below for examples
of zoom-capable programs.
While focusing on Duncan, Zoom In until he becomes pixilated (i.e. until you can
see all the little squares or pixels around the edge). Stop
zooming when this first occurs. It should take four or five
zoom clicks (400% to 500% magnification) for him to become pixilated.
Now look at the sky, which was truly painted, and
you will notice it is not pixilated and remains smooth. This confirms
your suspicion the painting was partially cloned. In fact, you
would have to zoom eight or nine times before the sky became
pixilated.
This phenomenon can perhaps be explained by the fact a true painting is "layered" with several coats of "paint" as the artist passes his brush back and forth over the painting and blends it in in order to obtain the effect he wants. A cloned subject has only one coat. Because of the thinness of this cloaned coat, it gets pixilated before the heavier layers of the true painting. It's analogous to several coats of varnish on a piece of furniture building up a scratch proof surface while only one coat flakes off quickly.
When you test
a 100% true painting by zooming, it
not only becomes pixilated at a higher magnification than a
cloned painting, but it will get completely pixilated all at the same
time.
Note: This test doesn't work where a photograph of the painting
instead of the image file itself was put directly onto a web
site. Some true artists take photogaphs of their work to show
on the web. You can tell this is the case when there obviously
is a regular picture frame on the picture or it's shown on an
easel or there are objects showing behind the picture. These
photographed paintings would get 100% pixilated at the same
time at a rather low magnification (depending on the camera
resolution), but this doesn't tell us if it's true or cloned.
DRAG
THIS IMAGE TO YOUR DESKTOP FOR A SAMPLE TEST
(Follow directions above)
Partially
cloned
painting of Duncan
Below is the result you will get. This portion of the painting of Duncan was enlarged with 5 Zoom clicks (500%). Notice Duncan's image, which was cloned, is pixilated (blurred) while the portion of sky shown, having been truly painted, is still smooth.
Duncan enlarged 500%
SOME
COMPUTER APPLICATIONS WITH ZOOMING CAPABILITIES
ACDSee, Adobe Photoshop, Apple ColorSync Utility, Apple Preview,
Apple QuickTime Player, ArcSoft PhotoStudio, Canon Image Browser, Canon PhotoStich
Viewer, Corel Painter, Lemke GraphicConverter, Microsoft Windows Picture and Fax Viewer
Products
and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective companies or mark holders.
The owner and developer of this web site has no affiliation
with any of these companies except, in some cases, as authorized
user of the referenced products and makes no representations
or warranties whatsoever as to the authenticity or accuracy
of said products in performance of the tests outlined herein.
