How to Choose Great Reference Photos for Drawing and Painting

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What qualities should you look for in reference photos for drawing or painting? Could the reference photos you’re using be holding you back from achieving the results you want?


Learning to select the right reference photos for art-making is crucial, as not all photos are well-suited for this purpose.

Choosing suboptimal photos can not only make the drawing or painting process much harder than it needs to be, but it can also hold you back from developing your skills to a higher level.

In this post, I'll share the three essential qualities I look for in art reference photos to ensure a smoother process and a better final outcome.

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3 Must-Know Tips For Choosing Great Art Reference Photos

1. Use Photos With High-Resolution
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One of the biggest mistakes artists make is working with low-quality, blurry, or pixelated images. A high-resolution photo allows you to see fine details clearly, giving you more visual information to work with.

Whether you're going for expressive, loose brushstrokes, or detailed realism, a clear image provides you with the flexibility to either simplify or capture intricate details.

It'll provide more options for you, which you can decide what to do with depending on your style. 

The more visual information you have, the more creative freedom you'll have in deciding what to keep, adjust, or enhance. This also helps with observing subtle nuances, textures, and lighting, especially if you're aiming for higher realism.

Always ensure your photo is large enough so you can zoom in on specific areas during your drawing or painting process, especially in later stages when you're adding smaller details. 
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2. Avoid Overexposed or Underexposed Photos

Lighting is another key factor when choosing a reference photo.

Photos that are overexposed (too light) or underexposed (too dark) lack the full range of values needed to accurately portray light, mid-tones, and shadows.

These value variations are what give depth and realism to your work. If there isn't a good balance between lights and darks in a photo, you'll likely end up with flatter results. 

If you're working from an overexposed photo, you'll miss essential dark tones and mid-tones. Similarly, underexposed photos hide lighter values, which can make your artwork look flat and heavy. 

If you have a photo editing software and knowledge on how to fix over or underexposed photos, this could solve this issue. Some photos are not easy to fix. 

If you ever have any doubts on whether a photo is over or underexposed, open up the image in a photo editing software and desaturate it completely (turn it into a black and white image). 

This will make it easier to see if there is a good range in values or not. 




3. Avoid Cropped or Awkwardly Framed Photos

The way a subject is framed in a photo affects both your ability to capture proportions and the overall composition of your artwork.

Photos that crop out essential parts of the subject, like a portion of the face or body, can make it difficult to achieve accurate proportions and details in your drawing or painting.

In addition, awkward cropping can affect the balance of positive and negative space in your composition. Too little negative space can make your artwork feel cramped, while too much can make your subject feel lost and "small".

When taking or selecting a reference photo, make sure there’s enough space around your subject so you have flexibility in adjusting the composition to suit your artwork.

Having no negative space around your subject, or having a part of the subject cropped off, will force you to make up for the information you're visually lacking. This may be okay for more advanced artists who have experience drawing and painting this type of subject.

However, if you're just getting started, making up for information you're lacking is very hard. Especially when you're going for mid-to-higher levels of realism. 

Working with photos with lots of negative space isn't that big of an issue because this extra space can simply be cropped off in a photo editing software. 

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Choosing the right reference photo is about more than just picking a pretty image—it’s about finding a photo that provides the information you need to create a successful piece of art.

So choose them wisely!

By following these three tips—using high-resolution images, avoiding extreme lighting, and choosing well-framed photos—you’ll set yourself up for a more enjoyable and productive art-making process.

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