I have a relative who showed me her high school portrait from the mid 70s (?). SHe said she got the oil painting option; indicating that it was really an oil painting and not a photograph. I don’t think it really is an oil painting, I think it was a type of ‘option’ to make it look like an oil painting. I can’t imagine a photographer hand painting several portraits. To me, it looked like a photograph that had a slightly different appearance, it sure didn’t look like an oil painting to me.
Can anyone confirm that this option did exist in the 70s and if it was just a fancy filter or photographic technique, or was it really someone painting portraits from a photograph.
My sister and I had exactly the same type of portraits created when we were children, somewhere around 1970 or so. According to my mother, they are oil paintings and not pictures, but were based on photographs.
I don’t have any details on exactly how they were made, but they definitely existed.
I know they did airbrush the photos as well. You could pay extra to get those pimples removed from your senior pictures. I think they just took a picture and literlly airbrushed and then took a picture of the picture. Perhaps the oils were done the same way. Take a picture and enhance it with oil paint like a paint by number and then take a photo of the finished work. Not high tech but effective enough.
Could this just be a regular photo printed on a textured “paint” surface?
That’s what I recall. It as a conventional photo printed on textured paper that looked / felt like artist’s canvas. And then covered with a varnish applied with a wide brush, like a house-painting brush.
The overall effect was a slight soft-focus, some physical texture, the glossy slightly yellowish finish, and some brush-strokiness apparent in the larger areas.
One thing’s for sure, they weren’t hand-painted originals of each graduating kid.
On a possibly related note …
FWIW I have a 30"x48" print of an actual oil painting. The print dates from the 1980s. The thing is apparently printed using a silk-screened technique where the inks are kinda gooey like oil paint is. I just looked and felt it. It’s printed on actual cloth and has some relief, like those business cards with the raised ink, but all over since the entire surface is covered in one color or other. Overall it has a lot of appearance of brushstrokes even though up close it’s clearly a print.
Sounds like a hand-tinted photograph. My parents had this done to their wedding photo. It used to be pretty common and gives an image that is more painting-like than it is color photograph-like.
Class of 1969 here - The ones we got with the “oil painting” option were really just hand tinted photographs printed on a “canvas like” paper.
If you look closely at it with a magnifying glass, you will be able to tell how it was made.
Photos were dried by placing the (washed in lots of water) prints on a shiny plate held against a heated surface with canvas…
If you placed the print so the emulsion was against the polished plate, you got a glossy print.
If you placed so the emulsion was on the canvas, you got a mat surface. Course enough canvas…
Hand-tinting photos goes back to the 30’s at least.
We found a pic of my mother (ca 1940) which had been sepia toned and hand painted - remember that direct color emulsion did not become common for a number of years.
If you are old enough, you will remember 35mm SLR’s called “Slide Cameras” and “Color Cameras”.
I may still have some pics in a sleeve from the local photo store with the message:
“Your camera IS a Color Camera! Come in and let us show you how!”.
(for the picky - yes, coated lenses were preferred for color due to refraction/reflection on uncoated lenses. Still, if you put Kodacolor in your little Brownie, you got color pics).
My sister graduated from nursing school in the mid-60s and her photo was accented by paint. The band on her cap and the highlights on her nursing pin were accented. I think there were highlights to her hair and face as well.