This article is for people who've heard of digital painting and are curious to learn more about it, as well as those who'd like to give it a try, but aren't entirely sure how to begin.
Painting digitally is a type of painting much as working in water color is a type of painting.
Digital painting relies on tools and techniques not employed in traditional painting, and final production remains a limiting factor, but the fundamental vision and attitude and approach are identical. I switched to digital methods in the early and middle 1990s because I found them at once easier and faster, and soon discovered brush work is brush work is brush work. Much has unavoidably been lost during the reduction to 72 pixels per inch and JPEG compression. I've included sequentially arranged views of the painting in progress based on approximately half the iterations it required. I used an aging Macintosh Power PC, two monitors, and a Wacom digitizing tablet and stylus, as well as Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and an assortment of Adobe and third party filters, and Metacreations Painter 6.