Throughout the editing process, I was able to become familiar with using a variety of brushes in Photoshop that allowed me to alter the texture, colour, and contours in my image.

Using the smudge tool with alternate brushes and sizes allowed me to create detailed paint-like strokes using the colours already in the image. These strokes replicated the appearance of real paint by mixing or ‘smudging’ the tones, allowing them to flow and blend.

It was important to ensure that many different brushes and sizes were used when editing certain aspects of the photograph such as hair, skin, background texture and clothing. Some YouTube tutorials became a valuable source of tips when creating brush settings for certain aspects of the figures features. These will be listed below.

Another challenge when manipulating this image was matching the colours and tones to that of the reference painting. In order to do this, I experimented by selecting the appropriate colours with blending modes and used the regular brush tool at a low opacity. This allowed me to create soft washes of colour in the image while also adding textured layers to the background to achieve an authentic appearance.

Using these techniques with a variety of brushes and flow settings was also helpful when creating details such as the scratched textures evident in the canvas of the original painting. In addition to these tools, I was able to utilise different layers of canvas, cracks and speckled textures with blending modes to add depth to the work and give the artwork a natural and cohesive appearance.