This started with essentially a thumbnail image less than 480 pixels on the long side. The image above has been cropped from that thumbnail and preprocessed to, among other things, increase the pixel dimension to about 1200 pixels on the long side. During the painting process the pixel dimension was increased again to over 3300 pixels on the long side.
After Painting
Source Image
While a quality image will always improve the odds of creating a stunning finished product it isn't necessary to work from a studio quality image. This image was in all likely-hood taken with a simple point and shoot camera and is a perfect candidate for several reasons. First, the lighting appears to be a mixture of 3 different sources that progresses from cool colors on the right to warm colors on the left. Second, and probably most important, the models' perfectly candid pose, smile and eye contact invites you to return that gaze.
After Preprocessing and Painting
Source Image
After Preprocessing and Painting
Source Image
This illustrates the extent to which an image can be manipulated with the process I use to produce these images.
After preprocessing and Painting
Our services are not limited to people. We paint "Furbies" too.