Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

14
Art Simulators
A close relative of special effects, art simulation is a category of software that turns realistic
photographs into images that resemble artistic media, such as ink or pencil drawings,
watercolors, and oil paintings. Sometimes the programs go a little bit further and start
to imitate specific artists in these media, especially when the artist’s style lends itself to
being copied. It is relatively easy to write a program that breaks an image into an assembly
of dots, in the manner of French artist Georges-Pierre Seurat, but rather more difficult
to achieve the painterly effects of Diego Velasquez.
From an artistic point of view, it is best to regard art simulation as an experiment. It
certainly has little to do with art. The suggestion by one vendor in its online advertising
—that you no longer have to spend years in art college to create a beautiful drawing but
simply click a few buttons instead—is too absurd to take seriously, yet it is possible that
some people will be convinced by it. In the opinion of art critics, the output from art
simulators is fake art. That is not to say it cannot make a very attractive graphic image,
ideal for a magazine layout, or be used as an element in a real work of art. But presented
on its own, it lacks vitality. The starting point of real art has to be the real world, whereas
art simulation has two starting points—a photograph and a programmer’s preconceived
notion about artistic style.
Despite all the reservations, art simulation is a fascinating category of software. The latest
programs can generate output that seems less wooden than the images produced by
earlier versions. Artificial intelligence may yet outwit the art critic. The day may come
when, in a variation on the Turing test, an art expert will not be able to tell whether a
drawing was created by human hand or by artistic simulation. At that point, in some
future edition of this guide, the negative comments about art simulation will changed.
But not before.