About Paint From Photos

Hi! I'm Elena.

I built Paint From Photos because I am learning to paint and I couldn't find a way to prepare reference photos easily. I wanted to crop and size an image for my canvas, add a grid when needed, and better understand the colours I was looking at; and I didn't want to use a complex tool or several apps to do that.

So I decided to build the tool I wanted to use myself, and keep it simple and straightforward.

A good reference makes painting easier

When painting from a photograph, it can be surprisingly difficult to translate what you see on a screen onto a canvas. You may need to crop the image to match your canvas proportions, work out where to place important elements, or take a closer look at the colours and values in a particular area.

Paint From Photos helps with those practical steps before you start painting. It doesn't replace your reference photo or tell you how your painting should look. It simply gives you a few useful tools to study and prepare your reference in a way that works for you.

Get started

Ready to prepare your own reference? Create a project and try it out.

You can also explore the tutorials to see how different tools work.