Digital art has become very popular among artists including photographers. As photographers, we have good computer skills, a very artistic side and a great imagination, all of which are essential skills or abilities needed to create digital art. There are many ways to design digital art, such as by drawing or painting an image on a computer or tablet, using programs such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator or one of many other programs. Also, these days with technology there are many programs or apps that you can use on your smartphones or tablet to turn your photographs into digital art. This is the method I choose to use to make digital art from my wildlife, nature and vineyard/wine photographs.

I will share the steps and processes that I use to turn my photographs into my digital art images and the program that I have found to make my digital art creations. The steps I use to turn my wildlife, nature or wine images into digital art photography are very short, and it is not a very time-consuming process.

Here are my steps for creating my digital art photography.

Find Photograph from Your Image Library

First, when looking at designing a piece of digital art, I may look at images that already exist in my library of wildlife and nature photography in order to find an image that would be suitable to turn into digital art. What I look for is something that would translate into something special, an image which I believe would evoke an emotion from others. Once I have found that existing image, I would then make sure that image was processed, if I have not processed the raw image already.

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Create Photograph to Turn into Digital Art

When creating my wine art, I take specific pictures of wine subjects such as wine glasses, wine bottles, wine grapes, corks, etc. in various compositions that I would want to use for my wine art images. I photograph the wine subjects in my house using various backgrounds that I have purchased. In addition, I used a photo LED light instead of a camera flash mounted on a hot shoe as the photo LED light gives me much more control over where the light will be as I can hand hold the LED light in the position that I desire. I always use my tripod and shutter release for stability which help make the images sharper by preventing camera shake. 

Using Software to Turn Photograph into Digital Art

My next step after converting the raw image, if necessary, is to open my image in a photo software called Smart Photo Editor. I discovered this software program earlier this year, and I really like it and have had a lot of fun using it. Smart Photo Editor is by Anthropics Technology

On a side note, Smart Photo Editor 1 can be purchased as a plugin for Photoshop or as a stand-alone program. It is cheaper to purchase the program as a stand-alone, which is what I did. The program when I bought it was only $29.95. It is the best $29.95 I have ever spent for a photo software program. The website also offers a free trial of Smart Photo Editor.

Smart Photo Editor offers an effects gallery where effects are added daily by users. The effects gallery is always expanding their library. I enjoy browsing through all the different effects that I can apply to my photograph, and sometimes it may take me a while to find the exact look that speaks to me.  Although there are a lot of effects such as watercolors, inks, textures, pastels, drawings, illustrations, crayons, mixed media, and lots of other effects. Smart Photo Editor also has a lot of useful processing effects such as sharpening, levels, contrast, and many more options, as well as the abilities to straighten and crop your image and to do regular processing to your images.

Creating New Image from Effects Gallery

Once I find the effect that I like from the effects gallery of Smart Photo Editor, I create the new art image. Once I have made my digital art image, I add those images to my portfolio on Fine Art America website where on-demand products can be made from these images and to my storefront at Zazzle where I have created certain products with my digital art images to sell online at Zazzle. Then I like to share my new creations on social media and my blog. I am always very excited to share my photography.

This process for me is relatively simple and not very time consuming, which I appreciate very much as I always have a lot of my wildlife and nature images to process. Actually, most of my time in creating these digital art images is spent in the effects gallery trying to choose the effect that speaks to me the most and which allows me to be creative and show my creative side. For my wildlife and nature images that I turn into digital art, I will spend that extra time to find just that one effect to create just one digital art image. However, with my wine art, I have found that sometimes I choose multiple effects, such as two to three for each image, and create different digital art images from just one wine subject photograph.

Below are three digital art images I created from the same photograph. The first image is a watercolor effect with a black border, the middle image is a watercolor and ink effect with a white border and the third image is a watercolor and ink effect with an old legal document texture as the border.

Digital art photography is a terrific way to expand your photography interests and artistry.  This is a simple and easy method to turn your wildlife, nature or wine images into digital art and make stunning and unique digital art photography. I really have enjoyed using my creative side and making, for me, a new style of photography. I hope this article inspires your imagination as you delve into a new technique and methodology of creating digital art photography.

Thank you for taking the time to view and read my blog.

All the very best,

Lori A. Cash

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