How To Capture Photos That Look Like Paintings

So, you want to take photos that look like paintings? Not like this, more like

like paintings? Not like this, more like this. Well, you're in the right place.

this. Well, you're in the right place.

And I'm not going to tell you to put your grandma's tight over the lens or to scratch it up with the nearest rock.

That's some serial killer. Nah, these

are some real effective things that you can do in camera and in Lightroom to actually make your photos look like paintings. So, if that's your thing,

paintings. So, if that's your thing, then you're probably going to want to stick around.

What makes a photo painting like? Well,

I guess it depends whose paintings we're talking about. I guess what most photos

talking about. I guess what most photos have in common is softness, texture, and a slight feeling of disre.

And I reckon if you want, you can achieve this with your photography. And

I think that editing has a massive part to play in this. But let's start at the beginning.

If you know me, then you know that I shoot film most of the time. And this is one of those moments where I am going to say film will actually help. It's not

absolutely necessary. You could just follow the rest of the steps with your digital camera. But film has texture,

digital camera. But film has texture, you know, it's got that noise from just its very nature. So, if you're shooting

above 8 800 ISO or 400 ISO, then you're going to see that grain. Also, I think most of the time the color is better.

God, I can hear the Fuji bros flipping their tables right now. So, that's film.

You can shoot it. You don't have to. I

think it'll help. But, let's move on to what's going to make the biggest impact.

A real common thing in painting is softness. The colors are beautiful and

softness. The colors are beautiful and soft because the painter wanted them to look that way. In photography, we usually can't really control that sort of stuff unless we're in a studio.

[music] But what we can control is when we choose to shoot. And that can have a massive impact on how your photos look

and feel. First of all, blue hour.

and feel. First of all, blue hour.

That's the hour or so just before sunset or just after sunrise. Now, you might normally only see the morning blue hour after a long night out and a few too

many nose beers, but you should definitely try to get up and shoot at that time. The blue hue and the softness

that time. The blue hue and the softness of the light makes your photos feel totally unique. There's no way to get

totally unique. There's no way to get those shots without shooting at that kind of time. And the same goes for golden hour, the hour of sunrise and

sunset. It's still soft. You get

sunset. It's still soft. You get

beautiful colors. It's equally as unique. I think a common mistake that

unique. I think a common mistake that some people make when we talk about golden hour and blue hour is they think they have to take pictures of the sky.

And that's not the case. You want to take pictures of things that are lit by the sky because they're being uniquely

lit. Use that soft contrast. Use that

lit. Use that soft contrast. Use that

depth that the direction of the light is causing and all those beautiful colors and hues. But that's not the only kind

and hues. But that's not the only kind of light to look for. Fog and mist are a photographic cheat code. They will

provide you with some of the most painting like pictures that you'll ever take. It's completely unique light and

take. It's completely unique light and it also adds another element if the sun is peeking through as well. It's super

diffused and it just adds that like otherworldly feel to your images. So now

we've got the kind of light you want to use out the way. Let's move on to something completely different. I think

when most of us first start in photography, we usually end up shooting at fairly fast shutter speeds, like 250 and above.

And that's fair enough, like we don't want to miss the shot. We want it to be sharp for some reason. But, you know, I can understand. But if you go to any

can understand. But if you go to any gallery or museum or whatever and look at paintings, you'll see that most of

them have a lot of texture and like [music] visible brush strokes. And in

photography, I think the way to create that is through slow shutter speeds. And I love talking about slow shutter speeds because I think most people when they

hear slow shutter speeds, they think of like a 30th of a second, you know, a dad photo of a waterfall. And I'm not dissing the dads. That looks real

fun. But when it comes to the kind of

fun. But when it comes to the kind of thing that I'm talking about, you want to look at the range of like 1 second to a 30th of a second where you can get

movement but still maintain some of the form. And you can do this in a number of

form. And you can do this in a number of ways. A still frame where something's

ways. A still frame where something's moving through it. a frame where you're moving in a vehicle or something and the background is moving or where you're

moving the camera slightly or a panning shot where you're following something.

If you want to get more in depth about slow shutter speed photography and how to do it properly, then I'm going to put together a free PDF that basically

outlines this whole thing. the whole

thing that this video is about and you can just go to the link in the description and download it. But this is a massive thing to completely change the look and feel of your photos and take

[music] it into that realm of sort of disreity.

Obviously, you could do this without shooting film. You could do this without

shooting film. You could do this without using soft light. But if you do mix those other two in with this, then you're going to really be up there

making painting like photos. But there

is one final thing that I think is the cherry on top, and that is editing. I'm

not going to go on about all the different ways that you could edit your photos. You might want a green hue in

photos. You might want a green hue in the shadows. You might want orange in

the shadows. You might want orange in the highlights. You might want no

the highlights. You might want no contrast. Whatever. That's up to you.

contrast. Whatever. That's up to you.

You can play around with those things because that's more of a creative decision and about your identity as a photographer. But one of the things that

photographer. But one of the things that I find can really add a painterly kind of feel to it is a reduction in clarity.

Now, you could just do this in Lightroom. You can literally just reduce

Lightroom. You can literally just reduce your clarity. That's a simple way of

your clarity. That's a simple way of doing it. But I think more effective is

doing it. But I think more effective is adding what's called gorian blur. Now I

know that sounds like some French indie band, but it's actually just a really effective filter. And for this you've

effective filter. And for this you've simply got to duplicate your layer, add the gorge blur filter, choose your amount of pixels. I find obviously if

you go way too high, it's just going to look crazy. So maybe somewhere between

look crazy. So maybe somewhere between sort of like 50 and 20 is probably fine.

Just have a play around with that. Then

reduce the opacity until it looks right because this is on the top layer. So the

more you reduce it, the more your layer below it is sort of coming through. Oh

yeah, and I usually put this to lighten as well.

I mean, it's not one sizefits-all.

Different kinds of light will want more or less blur. It'll become more obvious in different kinds of light. If you've

got a close-up subject, then it can look wrong if there's too much blur. So, just

keep [music] tweaking it until it feels right for you. But those really are the four things that I would use if I was trying to specifically take painting

like photos. I think these are some of

like photos. I think these are some of the most effective things. Maybe there's

some crazy filter that you can get on some other app or some If you want to do that, that's up to you. But I

think it's much more enjoyable if you can try and work out how to do this mainly in camera. And I don't know, that's fun, right? I don't know. Maybe

you've got your own suggestions. Maybe

you don't think I've done a very good job.

is what it is. Either way, I hope you found this really useful. And even if you don't specifically use all of these techniques, maybe you'll find one

technique really helpful to you and you mix it in with something else and it becomes its whole other thing. That's

what's exciting about photography.

There's so many different things and ways that you can shoot something. So,

that's cool. And of course, if you did enjoy the video, then go ahead, download the free PDF guide to basically what was in this video. It'll be helpful to look

back at in future. And of course, drop me a subscribe. It's the single coolest free thing that you can do to support this channel and make it so that I can

make better and better videos. So,

thanks a lot. Take care. I'll see you again very