There’s more than one way to add photographic detail to your paintings.  Once you’ve mastered texture overlays, it’s time to learn about opaque details.  A bit like traditional collage, you’ll cut out digital photo elements and place them directly into your painting.  The challenge, however, is in the ‘incorporation’ process.  Modifying the color, contrast, and values of the new photo element to seamlessly match your painting. Another term for this process is ‘matte painting’.  Instead of demonstrating these techniques in an illustration, we tackle the tools with a series of straightforward exercises.  Slow and methodical, these are skills that anyone can master.