You Can Do "The Secret Squint" in Photoshop

Richard Schmid professes that there is a "secret squint" - something you can do when you are looking at a subject to paint that will help you see the light and shadows in your composition. I've practiced this technique, and while it does seem to work, at my age, all I'm doing is getting wrinkles!

While juggling oil painting with digital dog commissions this week, it dawned on me that Photoshop squints fine. As I was adjusting settings such as contrast and exposure to exaggerate the features, I realized that these adjustments behave just like squinting. Here is the result of the painting I finished after using some adjustments or what I now call "digital squinting".

I've also made progress this week on an oil painting of Elke. It is interesting that my digital work is helping me in my oil painting. I can use photoshop to work with the reference photo and exaggerate the light and shadows and carry that to the canvas.

Wonderful that it also helps save my face from all that squinting. :)