# Would you let your work be turned into hand-painted oil paintings?



## chrischen (Jun 19, 2014)

I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion on my service, anonymously. I'm not here to advertise so I will not reveal the name of the service.

*Imagine a service that produces hand-painted oil paintings with 16"x16" ones retailing for under $100 to the consumer.* Please assume the paintings are decent quality. You trust the service (some major society6-like or 500px-like site). These are also physical oil paintings on canvas, not digital. So think like selling prints, but something much fancier.

_Would you sell your photography as reproduced oil-paintings and receive a commission?

_
_What is a fair commission?

_
_How compelling is this and would you signup to do this by adding links to your website?

If no, what are the terms you would do this by?

_
Thanks!


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## sscarmack (Jun 19, 2014)

Yes, 20%.


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## KmH (Jun 19, 2014)

No.

It's not compelling at all to me, and I think the product would dilute my brand.


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## Life (Jun 19, 2014)

chrischen said:


> I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion on my service, anonymously. I'm not here to advertise so I will not reveal the name of the service.
> 
> *Imagine a service that produces hand-painted oil paintings with 16"x16" ones retailing for under $100 to the consumer.*
> 
> ...


I certainly would ^^


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## Designer (Jun 19, 2014)

How good could it be for only $100?  (less photographer's cut)


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## tirediron (Jun 19, 2014)

I know almost zero about any type of fine art painting, but what little I do know says that making a 16x16 print for $80 can not happen...  is there a secret proces that would allow someone to produce the painting in <15 minutes?


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## sm4him (Jun 19, 2014)

A HAND-PAINTED oil painting of my photo, for less than $100? No thank you.  My guess is that I could produce a "simulated" oil painting version of my photo, if I so chose, that would look as decent and realistic as something someone HAND painted that wasn't even worth $100.

Disregarding the fact that sub-$100, 16x16 oil paintings just SCREAMS of low-quality awfulnessI probably wouldn't be interested in doing this even for good quality, on a commission basis. I'd be more likely to be willing to license the use of my photo for someone to create a limited run of paintings based on that photo. You pay me a set amount for the use of my photo, with the understanding that you create no more than X number of paintings based on said photo, then you sell your painting for whatever you want to. That way, MY income doesn't depend on whether anyone likes YOUR painting enough to buy it.


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## Designer (Jun 19, 2014)

BTW: This reminds me of how (some) photographers used to make portraits.  The photographer used B&W film, and made a print.  Then he painted the correct colors on using the clothing that was worn in the portrait.  I remember this because I had to hand over my Scout uniform for him to get the colors right.


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## Life (Jun 19, 2014)

Guys, you can't just assume the worst. If you think under $100 and 16x16 would be bad, then just ask for a sample or something.. But just simply saying that it would be horrible, as if it were a fact isn't very polite... My 2 cents...

And not to forget there are some very good painters out there..


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## chrischen (Jun 19, 2014)

Life said:


> Guys, you can't just assume the worst. If you think under $100 and 16x16 would be bad, then just ask for a sample or something.. But just simply saying that it would be horrible, as if it were a fact isn't very polite... My 2 cents...
> 
> And not to forget there are some very good painters out there..



Thanks for the support. Short answer: they're painted in China. But we have over 70% net promoter score so the quality perception must be there.

Long answer: existing painting services are operating a price fixing ring, or at least such a ring has threatened us revealing they are price fixing. They mostly paint in China as well, but they do huge markups because people perceive art as inherently expensive. Truth is, there are lots of technical artists, especially in China, who make a living not necessarily doing "art" but practicing painting as a technical skill, which isn't that expensive.

I would kindly ask everyone just assume that the paintings are very good quality, and give feedback based on that assumption.


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## limr (Jun 19, 2014)

Life said:


> Guys, you can't just assume the worst. If you think under $100 and 16x16 would be bad, then just ask for a sample or something.. But just simply saying that it would be horrible, as if it were a fact isn't very polite... My 2 cents...



You do have a point. BUT...think of the costs that would go into a quality painting (art supplies aren't cheap and *good *art supplies *really *aren't cheap), PLUS the time and work of the person painting it. Selling that painting for less than $100 likely means using either lower quality materials, paying less money to the artist (thus devaluing the time and skill of the painter), or not making much of a profit, especially after giving a cut to the photographer. 16x16 is pretty big and to ensure good and consistent quality for less than $100 would be really hard.


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## limr (Jun 19, 2014)

Regardless of quality, I would not be interested in the service.


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## Life (Jun 19, 2014)

limr said:


> Life said:
> 
> 
> > Guys, you can't just assume the worst. If you think under $100 and 16x16 would be bad, then just ask for a sample or something.. But just simply saying that it would be horrible, as if it were a fact isn't very polite... My 2 cents...
> ...


Yes. Point well taken. The OP just posted that they are being done in China. Now while I can't stand how (walmart as example) has every pos from china. BUT the Paintings there are also from china, and from all the other ones i've sen, they do look actually very good. I dunno anything about quality, i'm not a painter. However as i'm sure we both know the Chinese do work for super cheap, thus making it possible to sell them for under $100. That's my thought on this anyways. I would personally go for it, under the rules that I get a certain %, AND my name is on the painting. So people know at least whos original picture it was. Heck, even if 0 sell, it might still be another 500 people who see my name. It's all personal preferences I guess ^^  So chrichen, if you are interested in something like this, you can pm me or I can pm you, and maybe we can talk a bit more about it


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## D7K (Jun 19, 2014)

It's a question of preference certainly - I would not - unless it was a known trusted artist allow this, as has been mentioned for 100 bucks a quality issue is certainly brought in to play.  For some people seeing their work in such a form may be a great idea and / or a preference / marketing opportunity.  As I don't get paid for my pictures, as I said I would allow only a trusted artist to maybe recreate something for a personal thing / project and I would want the vito on whether or not it would be an avenue to progress..


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## Designer (Jun 19, 2014)

I think I know someone who would want one if the subject was something they really liked and the composition was fairly good.


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## Derrel (Jun 19, 2014)

tirediron said:


> I know almost zero about any type of fine art painting, but what little I do know says that making a 16x16 print for $80 can not happen...  is there a secret proces that would allow someone to produce the painting in <15 minutes?



It's done overseas. All the time.

Has anybody seen this guy? He makes this painting in less than 6 minutes. Painting can be done FAST by somebody who knows how to paint, with brush, trowel, or even rattle cans and simple tools. YEARS ago, in the early 1970's on the old American TV show,* What's My Line*, I saw one of the first very popular "trowel painters" who could paint a painting in 4 minutes. He was AMAZING.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 19, 2014)

chrischen said:


> I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion on my service, anonymously. I'm not here to advertise so I will not reveal the name of the service.
> 
> *Imagine a service that produces hand-painted oil paintings with 16"x16" ones retailing for under $100 to the consumer.* Please assume the paintings are decent quality. These are also physical oil paintings on canvas, not digital. So think like selling prints, but something much fancier.
> 
> ...



I guess this is a "depends" sort of answer for me, I wouldn't object to the notion at all, my question would be, how would the orders be tracked? I mean if I were dealing with someone I knew and could trust that would be one thing, but if this is something that I'm assuming the artist that was doing the hand painting would be selling locally, how could I be certain I was actually getting paid commision on each sale since I would have no way of tracking or verifiying how many sales were being made?

I mean granted if this were someone I knew and had a relationship with and felt I could trust that wouldn't be an issue - but some person I didn't know who just contacted me over the internet and offered me something like this? Well I'd probably decline unless there were some way I could have of being certain I was actually being paid a commision on each sale, rather than having to just take the artists word for it that I was being correctly compensated.

Ok, quick edit, apparently this is more of a mass produced in China sort of affair, still though the question remains how to be certain that I'm actually being paid a correct amount in commision based on sales?


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## robbins.photo (Jun 19, 2014)

Derrel said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> > I know almost zero about any type of fine art painting, but what little I do know says that making a 16x16 print for $80 can not happen... is there a secret proces that would allow someone to produce the painting in <15 minutes?
> ...



6 Minutes?  Does that inculde a happy tree?  Or a happy bush?  Or some happy clouds?  Quality art my friend takes time.

And a big Fro.

Lol


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## chrischen (Jun 19, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> chrischen said:
> 
> 
> > I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion on my service, anonymously. I'm not here to advertise so I will not reveal the name of the service.
> ...



I guess try to answer making the assumption that you trust this site. Assume it's a big commerce site like society6 or 500px (doing prints).


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## chrischen (Jun 19, 2014)

Don't think of it as art. People have painted solid colors that sell for absurd amounts. There's "art" and then there's technical art, which is much less expensive, more of a commodity skill.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 19, 2014)

chrischen said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > chrischen said:
> ...


Well assuming they seemed like trustworthy folks then yup, it would be something of interest to me.



Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk


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## The_Traveler (Jun 19, 2014)

This sounds like it is leading to a commercial pitch - and is a kind of spam.


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## chrischen (Jun 19, 2014)

The_Traveler said:


> This sounds like it is leading to a commercial pitch - and is a kind of spam.



You can deal with that when it appears (and it won't).

At worst, this is market research.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 19, 2014)

I'm with Lew - I already started wondering about this, if it's legit, or maybe just another 'company' wanting photos cheap to use to make a profit. There are companies who make I think 80-90% of the selling price so the amount per photo the photographers receive is extremely low. I'd want to look up the company and see if it's a registered business in California and be able to read their Terms & Conditions etc.

Based on typical pricing of artwork and photography this service is very underpriced. Sometimes an artist may commission a photo to do one painting or a limited edition of paintings to be displayed/sold at a craft show, art fair, gallery, etc. but that would be priced much higher (I think commissions usually run about 40-60%).

This sounds like something that would most likely be getting done assembly line style; seems like I've read about work done by 'hand' that happens in a factory or similar work setting. 

What does "we have over 70 per cent net promoter score" and "quality perception" mean? - to me it's a red flag when something is described in a way that isn't clear. There would need to be more information given. 

I wouldn't think a photographer or artist who values their time and work and ability would find this too appealing, seems like it's geared for amateurs with cameras who want to try to make a little money. Since I'm not sure who the OP is or what the service/company is, I'd pass.


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## chrischen (Jun 20, 2014)

vintagesnaps said:


> I'm with Lew - I already started wondering about this, if it's legit, or maybe just another 'company' wanting photos cheap to use to make a profit. There are companies who make I think 80-90% of the selling price so the amount per photo the photographers receive is extremely low. I'd want to look up the company and see if it's a registered business in California and be able to read their Terms & Conditions etc.
> 
> Based on typical pricing of artwork and photography this service is very underpriced. Sometimes an artist may commission a photo to do one painting or a limited edition of paintings to be displayed/sold at a craft show, art fair, gallery, etc. but that would be priced much higher (I think commissions usually run about 40-60%).
> 
> ...




Sorry I still think I'm not getting through clearly.

Imagine 500px.com or Society6 is offering to paint your photos (along with printing your photos). Would you promote that? At what commission rate?

This is a hypothetical question so ignore any red flags from what might actually happen or anything unrelated to the concept presented at hand. Assume everything else is perfect and trustworthy.

That being said: assume the paintings are not painted assembly-line style. They're painted one by one, by hand, by a practiced painter. They are at the price I specified. You can set your own price and negotiate a commission. What commission and markup do you think is fair? At what rate would you be compelled to promote this (by placing a link on your website or profile)?

I'm not here to solicit photos so don't worry about that either.


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## Designer (Jun 20, 2014)

I think it would help a lot if you could post an example.


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## limr (Jun 20, 2014)

Well, for what it's worth, I don't think this is a scam really, but I thought I would explain why I would not be interested.

Regardless of how skilled the artist is, what quality materials are used, or what is charged, I simply don't like a photograph translated into a painting. As good as a photograph could be, for some reason, it just looks trite when it's copied into a painting. There's often a delicacy in a photograph that isn't captured properly in a painting - unless of course it's being done by a master, and skilled as these people might be, there aren't that many masters around, and certainly not masters who would work for such a low wage. Some things don't translate in a way that I believe looks good - at least I have never seen anything that did look good.

For the record, I also think it works the other way. I don't think a photograph I take of a painting is going to be able to capture the texture and subtlety of that piece of work.

So no, nothing against your endeavor, but I personally would not be interested.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 21, 2014)

What do you mean would a photographer promote it? Why should we assume it's a 'big commerce site' or that it's perfect and trustworthy? 

I've never heard of Society6 and I don't use 500px because of their Terms & Conditions and the low price that photographers seem to make for prints sold. So I doubt I'd be interested in having paintings done of photos that apparently would retail for the price point you've given. I don't find it believable that the quality could be what I'd want for the pricing you're quoting.

I don't see a service like this being advantageous for photographers. A commissioned work could be sold as a limited edition at an art show, craft fair or a gallery, but this seems to be unlimited; so even with the paintings being done individually by hand it seems like it will be mass produced.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 21, 2014)

The question is being posed as a hypothetical. Roughly:

If you could fly, what would you do?

And all of you.... nice folks... are ignoring the question and saying 'but I can't fly' or 'I don't think a scammer like you can give me wings' which is kind of missing the point. Not quite all, to be fair.


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## Vince.1551 (Jun 21, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> The question is being posed as a hypothetical. Roughly:  If you could fly, what would you do?  And all of you.... nice folks... are ignoring the question and saying 'but I can't fly' or 'I don't think a scammer like you can give me wings' which is kind of missing the point. Not quite all, to be fair.



I'll poop on people below


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## The_Traveler (Jun 21, 2014)

I think that the worth of most/all of my pictures are just because they are photographs rather than paintings.
Losing that specifically caught moment reduces any value they might have.


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## chrischen (Jun 21, 2014)

vintagesnaps said:


> What do you mean would a photographer promote it? Why should we assume it's a 'big commerce site' or that it's perfect and trustworthy?
> 
> I've never heard of Society6 and I don't use 500px because of their Terms & Conditions and the low price that photographers seem to make for prints sold. So I doubt I'd be interested in having paintings done of photos that apparently would retail for the price point you've given. I don't find it believable that the quality could be what I'd want for the pricing you're quoting.
> 
> I don't see a service like this being advantageous for photographers. A commissioned work could be sold as a limited edition at an art show, craft fair or a gallery, but this seems to be unlimited; so even with the paintings being done individually by hand it seems like it will be mass produced.




This is service is not defined. Humor me, please, by making the assumptions I've asked you to make, and no more. I'm simply trying to define it, with the help of the photographers here.

That being said, I think you still helped answer some of my questions. Just to clarify, you would need:

1) Only want it to be reproduced in a high quality (faithful to the original?) manner?
2) The option to limit the runs.

The service I'm asking you to envision is not licensing for mass production, it's licensing for on-demand production, similar to how you might sell prints on your website.


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## chrischen (Jun 21, 2014)

The_Traveler said:


> I think that the worth of most/all of my pictures are just because they are photographs rather than paintings.
> Losing that specifically caught moment reduces any value they might have.



What if it was possible to keep the look of the photo while adding on just enough painting effects (by hand) to make it look hand-painted? For example, oil painting over a print.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 21, 2014)

chrischen said:


> The_Traveler said:
> 
> 
> > I think that the worth of most/all of my pictures are just because they are photographs rather than paintings.
> ...


ok, so are these really handpainted or are these printed so they look like they were painted and somebody comes along later and adds a couple of brush strokes?

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk


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## sm4him (Jun 21, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> The question is being posed as a hypothetical. Roughly:
> 
> If you could fly, what would you do?
> 
> And all of you.... nice folks... are ignoring the question and saying 'but I can't fly' or 'I don't think a scammer like you can give me wings' which is kind of missing the point. Not quite all, to be fair.



I didn't ignore the question at all. I believe I answered it; yes, I said I'd be suspicious of the quality, but then I said that IGNORING that aspect, I still wouldn't be interested, and why. Seems like an answer to me.



chrischen said:


> Don't think of it as art. People have painted solid colors that sell for absurd amounts. There's "art" and then there's technical art, which is much less expensive, more of a commodity skill.



And therein lies part of the problem for me. For the most part, any photos I'd be interested in selling, I'd classify as "art." I'm not interested in having technically-proficient paintings of them produced that are NOT art. Not to mention that if I sell a print of my photo, ALL the proceeds go to ME. Why would I then give people the option to buy something "sort of like" my photo that gives a portion of the proceeds to someone else?

And, I agree with Lew. I mean, basically, if I wanted to offer paintings, I'd paint.


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## Vince.1551 (Jun 21, 2014)

Just go CS6 to convert your image to an oil paint and ask yourself is it worth doing it. Takes out all the guessing game.


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## chrischen (Jun 22, 2014)

Vince.1551 said:


> Just go CS6 to convert your image to an oil paint and ask yourself is it worth doing it. Takes out all the guessing game.




Please assume the hand-painted paintings look nothing like algorithmic oil painting effects.


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## chrischen (Jun 22, 2014)

sm4him said:


> photoguy99 said:
> 
> 
> > The question is being posed as a hypothetical. Roughly:
> ...




Thanks for the feedback. Keep in mind that it's "not" art in the way that the printer printing your photograph is not doing art. As I posted earlier, what if the painting effect was placed on top of your photo to produce a painted look while trying to keep as much of the artistic composition of your original photo?

There are some reasons why one might opt to outsource the painting. It can be produced at lower costs, broadening your exposure and allowing your art to affect more people, and letting those less well off to afford your photos as paintings. It also reduces overhead for you, in that you don't have to deal with customer service, procurement, supply chain, etc, so that you can focus on what you're good at: your photography, instead of production.

I guess your point is that you'd rather maximize your personal brand than to maximize short term revenues (as would be achieved by lowering the cost to purchase your works)? That being said, what about limited runs and custom pricing that you set? We most likely won't design the service to pre-pay the artist in any way, and paintings would be produced on-demand.


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## Vince.1551 (Jun 22, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Please assume the hand-painted paintings look nothing like algorithmic oil painting effects.



I do paint with oil and acrylic and imo CS6 do a pretty good job for a software illustrating strokes and impasto.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 22, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Vince.1551 said:
> 
> 
> > Just go CS6 to convert your image to an oil paint and ask yourself is it worth doing it. Takes out all the guessing game.
> ...



Please assume that my questions are just as important as your own, and please assume that the methodology by which these are actually being created is important because frankly it is - if you are advertising these as "handpainted" and yet in truth your intention is to print them and then have someone simply trace a brush over them to give them the simulation of brush strokes well that really isn't a handpainted piece of art.  As a result the assumption that you folks are "trustworthy" goes completely out the window.

I won't be a party to misleading people or downright false advertisement.  So, yes, the method by which these are being produced becomes very important if they are being advertised as handpainted, when in truth they really aren't handpainted.


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## limr (Jun 22, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Please assume that my questions are just as important as your own, and please assume that the methodology by which these are actually being created is important because frankly it is - if you are advertising these as "handpainted" and yet in truth your intention is to print them and then have someone simply trace a brush over them to give them the simulation of brush strokes well that really isn't a handpainted piece of art.  As a result the assumption that you folks are "trustworthy" goes completely out the window.
> 
> I won't be a party to misleading people or downright false advertisement.  So, yes, the method by which these are being produced becomes very important if they are being advertised as handpainted, when in truth they really aren't handpainted.



And quite frankly, even if they are handpainted in a very technical sense of "someone's hand put some paint on a surface," the more I hear about this process, the less I would want to be part of it. "What if it's not really 'art' per say, but just a technical process?" "What if it's being mass produced?" "What if it's as close as possible because it's really just someone painting over a print of your photograph?"

All those "what ifs" are showing the process to be less and less interesting.

Expand my exposure by someone using my photographs as a paint-by-number kit? Hell no.


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## limr (Jun 22, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Thanks for the feedback. Keep in mind that it's "not" art in the way that the printer printing your photograph is not doing art. As I posted earlier, what if the painting effect was placed on top of your photo to produce a painted look while trying to keep as much of the artistic composition of your original photo?
> 
> There are some reasons why one might opt to outsource the painting. It can be produced at lower costs, broadening your exposure and allowing your art to affect more people, and letting those less well off to afford your photos as paintings. It also reduces overhead for you, in that you don't have to deal with customer service, procurement, supply chain, etc, so that you can focus on what you're good at: your photography, instead of production.
> 
> I guess your point is that you'd rather maximize your personal brand than to maximize short term revenues (as would be achieved by lowering the cost to purchase your works)? That being said, what about limited runs and custom pricing that you set? We most likely won't design the service to pre-pay the artist in any way, and paintings would be produced on-demand.



This sounds to me like someone trying really really REALLY hard to convince photographers that it's all about helping them, when really it's about somebody else making money from the photographer's work and China's cheap labor. Seriously, the more "options" I read about, the less I would want to be part of it.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 22, 2014)

limr said:


> And quite frankly, even if they are handpainted in a very technical sense of "someone's hand put some paint on a surface," the more I hear about this process, the less I would want to be part of it. "What if it's not really 'art' per say, but just a technical process?" "What if it's being mass produced?" "What if it's as close as possible because it's really just someone painting over a print of your photograph?"
> 
> All those "what ifs" are showing the process to be less and less interesting.
> 
> Expand my exposure by someone using my photographs as a paint-by-number kit? Hell no.



Well at first this sounded interesting, at least to me - I mean as an amateur the thought of making a little extra money here and there was of interest particularly if I really didn't have to do much in the way of marketing, etc.  But the more I hear about this the less I like what I hear, sounds to me like they are going to be marketing these to folks as "handpainted works of art" when in truth they are just printouts that have been retouched so they look handpainted.  

That pretty much kills any interest I might have, because frankly they'll be advertising a product that they won't actually be delivering if such is the case.  I realize the OP supposedly posted this originally as market research, but honestly the responses received about the process and most of the other details don't just seem sketchy, they seem downright evasive.

So yes, even though I don't have a brand I need to protect and no intention of turning pro, well, ever.. lol - I've pretty much lost any interest I might have had at this stage.


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## BlackSheep (Jun 22, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Thanks for the support. Short answer: they're painted in China. But we have over 70% net promoter score so the quality perception must be there.
> 
> Long answer: *existing painting services are operating a price fixing ring, or at least such a ring has threatened us revealing they are price fixing*. They mostly paint in China as well, but they do huge markups because people perceive art as inherently expensive. Truth is, there are lots of technical artists, especially in China, who make a living not necessarily doing "art" but practicing painting as a technical skill, which isn't that expensive.
> 
> I would kindly ask everyone just assume that the paintings are very good quality, and give feedback based on that assumption.



Bolding mine - I personally would not be comfortable with being involved with a situation like this. 

I have had local artists use my photographs as base material for their paintings, but the final product was their work and their work only. Their paintings were not a mass-market copy of my image and were not sold as that, which is quite a different situation from what the OP is proposing. 

If I was interested in mass-marketing my brand/name/photos (which is what the OP is selling), then I would skip the paintings completely, and just sell my photos as gift cards, post cards, calendars, mugs, etc. etc. etc.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 22, 2014)

This feels like a guy who is at the very beginning of drafting a business plan. There are certain resources available, namely technically skilled painters available at - in the western world - extremely low prices. He's trying to see if there's some motel that appeals to photographers and getting very little traction here.

OP: TPF is a particularly poor venue for the sort of question, for a variety of reasons. You should probably be looking in to stock photos, as well as trying to find forums where the stock photo people talk about these things.

Stock photo people in today's world are very comfortable licensing appealing photos for a variety of consumer uses, at quite low rates. TPF leans in, um, let's say less pragmatic and more argumentative directions.


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## chrischen (Jun 23, 2014)

Vince.1551 said:


> chrischen said:
> 
> 
> > Please assume the hand-painted paintings look nothing like algorithmic oil painting effects.
> ...



Yes, if a person paints it. Their automatic "oil paint" effects are pretty easily identified though.


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## e.rose (Jun 23, 2014)

I probably should read through the whole thread to get my answer, but you have to understand that I'm lazy and also procrastinating doing my own work, so instead of reading the whole thing, I'm just gonna ask my questions (yay, run-on sentences!)

1. $100... for a hand-painted oil painting??

Sh*t. I charge $160 for a single high resolution image. You're not charging enough. :greenpbl:

2. I don't understand what the purpose of this would be?? Who is this marketed to? 

Take me for example... I shoot portraits. How does that benefit me at all to have my photos turned into oil paintings? (This is a serious question... I'm not being passive aggressive. I'm genuinely curious about the thought behind this venture :sillysmi: )


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## chrischen (Jun 23, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > And quite frankly, even if they are handpainted in a very technical sense of "someone's hand put some paint on a surface," the more I hear about this process, the less I would want to be part of it. "What if it's not really 'art' per say, but just a technical process?" "What if it's being mass produced?" "What if it's as close as possible because it's really just someone painting over a print of your photograph?"
> ...




[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]@[/FONT]​photoguy99 thanks for the tip! I'll probably try there next time.

"​That pretty much kills any interest I might have, because frankly they'll be advertising a product that they won't actually be delivering if such is the case."

Such is not the case, never the case, and never implied to be the case except by other people. If I wanted to ask if you guys would license your photo for digital prints I'd be marketing as oil paintings (falsely), I would have asked that myself.

[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I'd kindly ask you to please ignore the what-ifs and accusations provided by other posters because *this service does not exist.* It is **purely** hypothetical, therefore the what-ifs are irrelevant for the purposes of my research.[/FONT]

[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I'm here specifically to gauge interest in licensing photos for on-demand 100% hand-painting (just that, nothing more). Since the under $100 pricing brought so much arguing, let's just say the price is undefined. It will be set at whatever is reasonable to produce the 100% hand-painted (not oil filtered, not digitally printed, not child-labor produced, not slave labor produced).
[/FONT]
Remember: hypothetical! If I'm being dodgy it's only because I'm trying to get you guys to answer the question I presented, and ignore the random what-ifs other people are introducing.

[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Most importantly, given the above, would you be compelled to explore this as a revenue stream if I was not soliciting from you? That is, if you saw this on the internet, would you be compelled to signup and try it out by your own will?[/FONT]​


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## e.rose (Jun 23, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> TPF leans in, um, let's say less pragmatic and more argumentative directions.



SURELY, you Jest! :shock:


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## Bitter Jeweler (Jun 23, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Such is not the case, never the case, and never implied to be the case except by other people. If I wanted to ask if you guys would license your photo for digital prints I'd be marketing as oil paintings (falsely), I would have asked that myself.
> [/COLOR]
> [FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I'd kindly ask you to please ignore the what-ifs and accusations provided by other posters because *this service does not exist.* It is **purely** hypothetical, therefore the what-ifs are irrelevant for the purposes of my research.[/FONT]
> 
> ...



If this product is 100% paint, not just a few brush strokes to imply paint, I think it's a cool product, and something to offer alongside photo albums, coffee mugs, and such. How long would it take to ship from China? People can be impatient you know.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 23, 2014)

Chrischen with you not having been a member of this site prior to posting this thread it doesn't give people much info. about you to go on. You say things like it will be trustworthy and people shouldn't worry, but it might help to provide more info. about yourself or your company instead of asking users to ignore some of the comments and questions. 

Designer - and this is somewhat OT but is from earlier in the thread - I was wondering if what you mentioned was a process used to color B&W photos before color film was readily available? There were pots of color used to be applied to portraits, I don't think those were used all that long before color film was manufactured. There are also so-called watercolors which are powder and come on perforated paper so you tear off a small strip and dip a brush in water then in the color and blend it into a B&W darkroom print. 

But I think photographers/artists most likely would be doing their own work if they're working in hand-made photographic processes or doing any type of alternative photography. If I saw this somewhere online I doubt I'd be interested.


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## DanielPhotog (Jun 23, 2014)

Johannes Vermeer, the dutch painter, was known to use a pinhole projector of sorts, a camera obscura, to project an image of his subject through the pinhole, reflected from a mirror onto his canvas. He would then use this projected image to paint over and replicate as much detail as possible. Many other Dutch golden age painters used this process, but I can see how a digital photograph would limit the creativity of the painter, vs having a live subject to project onto a canvas for the painter to interpret artistically. I believe that JPEG to canvas is not as expressive as live projection onto canvas.

Kind of like projecting your live view image onto a canvas and having a really good painter trace it and embellish it in their style. An entire genre of paintings is based on this concept, so im sure there is some value in having someone paint a good JPEG.


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## limr (Jun 23, 2014)

chrischen said:


> I'd kindly ask you to please ignore the what-ifs and accusations provided by other posters because *this service does not exist.* It is **purely** hypothetical, therefore the what-ifs are irrelevant for the purposes of my research.



Don't know about anyone else, but I was responding to all the "what-ifs" that you were providing, not other posters.

Every time someone says they're not interested, you are the one who introduces a what-if, such as, "What if the price is undefined?" as if the only reason we're not interested is because we don't know all the details. But when someone wants details, we're reminded that it's only hypothetical. It's quite the vicious cycle.



> I'm here specifically to gauge interest in licensing photos for on-demand 100% hand-painting (just that, nothing more). Since the under $100 pricing brought so much arguing, *let's just say the price is undefined*. It will be set at whatever is reasonable to produce the 100% hand-painted (not oil filtered, not digitally printed, not child-labor produced, not slave labor produced).
> 
> Remember: hypothetical! If I'm being dodgy it's only because I'm trying to get you guys to answer the question I presented, and ignore the random what-ifs other people are introducing.



Once again, I don't know about anyone else, but I understand this is hypothetical, and I for one am saying I WOULD NOT be interested. That's the conditional tense. It's used for hypothetical situations in the present and future. I used the same tense in previous answers. This does not interest me, neither as an actual offer (which it is not, I understand) NOR as a hypothetical.



> Most importantly, given the above, would you be compelled to explore this as a revenue stream if I was not soliciting from you? That is, if you saw this on the internet, would you be compelled to signup and try it out by your own will?



No. I would not pursue that as a revenue stream

I am not trying to be argumentative. This is an answer to your question. It's a data point. I think the other posters have also answered your question. It just isn't an answer you seem pleased with, that's all.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 23, 2014)

Ok, well like limr I was responding to the what ifs you yourself posted and frankly the purely hypothetical dodge to avoid answering direct questions really isn't flying, at least with me.

In order for this to work at all you would need to be able to crank them out quickly because your looking at shipping something fairly large and heavy from overseas which means a pretty significant wait time right from the get go, and no I will not imagine that these are being shipped in a week or two by magical unicorns.

So in order for this "reproduction of technical details" to occur either you are painting over a print or you must allow probably at least a month and a half for delivery at a minimum.



Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk


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## vfotog (Jun 25, 2014)

chrischen said:


> I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion on my service, anonymously. I'm not here to advertise so I will not reveal the name of the service.
> 
> *Imagine a service that produces hand-painted oil paintings with 16"x16" ones retailing for under $100 to the consumer.* Please assume the paintings are decent quality. You trust the service (some major society6-like or 500px-like site). These are also physical oil paintings on canvas, not digital. So think like selling prints, but something much fancier.
> 
> ...


 

I thought I'd remind everyone of what you originally wrote. As much as you've been emphasizing this is strictly "hypothetical" it's pretty obvious that your original concept is to set up a painting from photo service competitive with the rings you accuse of price fixing. You want to offer a similar service but at a lowball price. "Paintings" for those who can't afford real art. When someone buys a "hand-painted" oil painting, they generally expect it to be original. Not just a copy of someone else's creative idea. I hope you'd make sure the consumer knows they aren't getting anything unique. So at this pricing, you're aiming for the Walmart/trailer park crowd. I think you'd have a problem with those of us who believe in fair wages.  To paint a 16 X 16 painting that closely resembles the photograph would take some time. At less than $100 retail, the artist couldn't possible be making a fair wage, especially since in addition to them, you've got to pay for materials, shipping, advertising, rent, utilities, and make a profit. PLUS, pay commissions or for licensing the image. Do the math; at under $100 retail the "commission" won't buy you a meal at Denny's. Of course, since the business appears to not be US-based, if you end up not getting paid, how are you going to follow up on that? I'm an artist and a photographer, and I wouldn't do an original painting for under $100. and I wouldn't license an image for lunch money either. And commission...  I'm sure they'll be willing to provide auditing at their expense. LOL.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

vfotog said:


> chrischen said:
> 
> 
> > I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion on my service, anonymously. I'm not here to advertise so I will not reveal the name of the service.
> ...



Interesting...I'm glad you quoted the original post because I also just noticed something else that was written in it:



chrischen said:


> I'm new here, and I'm just here to get general feedback and the general opinion* on my service*, anonymously. *I'm not here to advertise* so* I will not reveal the name of the service*.



Don't these things suggest that the service already exists? So perhaps it's not so hypothetical after all. The questions about the interest were hypothetical ("Would you...") but the service seems to be established already.


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## Designer (Jun 25, 2014)

We're still not seeing any examples.  If the OP would have posted a link, a lot of conjecture would have disappeared in the first page.  Since he is not going to show us any examples, I have to think that this is not going to happen even if we all went for it.


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## Designer (Jun 25, 2014)

This is probably not the site the OP would send us to, but here is a place that does that:

Portrait Painting, Photo to Painting, Oil Painting from Photo

No, I do not receive any commission on sales.  Just curious about how it works.

(edit) After viewing their gallery, I have decided that this *NOT* a service that I would use.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

Those are pretty low cost as well.

I've seen a lot of street artists do this. But they've got very little overhead  And they aren't paying people to use their photos.

Oh lord, did you look at some of those samples??? Samples of Portrait Painting- Portrait-Painting.com


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## Designer (Jun 25, 2014)

limr said:


> Oh lord, did you look at some of those samples???



Yes, and that is when I edited my post to declare that I will not be using that service.  

It's too bad the OP hasn't posted an example.


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

e.rose said:


> I probably should read through the whole thread to get my answer, but you have to understand that I'm lazy and also procrastinating doing my own work, so instead of reading the whole thing, I'm just gonna ask my questions (yay, run-on sentences!)
> 
> 1. $100... for a hand-painted oil painting??
> 
> ...




1. Since it was so contentious, you don't have to assume $100/painting anymore.

2. The paintings are for the mass market. You can treat them like on-demand prints of your photos, except, they are on-demand painted.

You wouldn't be turning your photos into paintings, but offering people a painted version of them (in addition to prints).


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Ok, well like limr I was responding to the what ifs you yourself posted and frankly the purely hypothetical dodge to avoid answering direct questions really isn't flying, at least with me.
> 
> In order for this to work at all you would need to be able to crank them out quickly because your looking at shipping something fairly large and heavy from overseas which means a pretty significant wait time right from the get go, and no I will not imagine that these are being shipped in a week or two by magical unicorns.
> 
> ...




The actual service already achieves under 3 week turnaround time (order to door), so it is not something that's magical.

I'm not dodging to avoid your questions. I'm "dodging" to redefine it... to pinpoint what type of conditions would make it interesting to you. I'm not here to argue. Perhaps a better way to approach this is to ask you what conditions would make something like this appeal to you?


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

vintagesnaps said:


> Chrischen with you not having been a member of this site prior to posting this thread it doesn't give people much info. about you to go on. You say things like it will be trustworthy and people shouldn't worry, but it might help to provide more info. about yourself or your company instead of asking users to ignore some of the comments and questions.
> 
> Designer - and this is somewhat OT but is from earlier in the thread - I was wondering if what you mentioned was a process used to color B&W photos before color film was readily available? There were pots of color used to be applied to portraits, I don't think those were used all that long before color film was manufactured. There are also so-called watercolors which are powder and come on perforated paper so you tear off a small strip and dip a brush in water then in the color and blend it into a B&W darkroom print.
> 
> But I think photographers/artists most likely would be doing their own work if they're working in hand-made photographic processes or doing any type of alternative photography. If I saw this somewhere online I doubt I'd be interested.




I agree artists most likely would do their own work, however I think most photographers don't know how to paint, or paint well. So this would be a good service to expand the values of their photographs beyond prints. I'm just here to check how such a service (which offered on-demand photo to painting) would be received.


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

limr said:


> chrischen said:
> 
> 
> > I'd kindly ask you to please ignore the what-ifs and accusations provided by other posters because *this service does not exist.* It is **purely** hypothetical, therefore the what-ifs are irrelevant for the purposes of my research.
> ...




"...as if the only reason we're not interested is because we don't know all the details."

Like I said, this service is undefined. The details are not defined. I simply add new "what ifs" to see at what point such a [hypothetical] service would become appealing to you guys. Perhaps a better way to approach this is how would you structure such a program or service to make it appealing to you (if at all)? Though, it seems you're saying there's no way such a service would be appealing to you. Then may I ask, are you also opposed to selling prints (canvas or otherwise)? Because if so, perhaps you're simply the wrong demographic.


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

limr said:


> vfotog said:
> 
> 
> > chrischen said:
> ...




You can ignore the $100 lowball price statement. Yes the service technically does exist. However, for the sake of my research, you can pretend i'm talking about a purely hypothetical version.


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

Designer said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > Oh lord, did you look at some of those samples???
> ...




Thanks for posting the example link. You can assume the paintings will be around the same quality level as the link you posted. That site is most likely has the paintings done in China (despite it claiming it's made in the USA... the pricing just doesn't make sense).


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

chrischen said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Ok, well like limr I was responding to the what ifs you yourself posted and frankly the purely hypothetical dodge to avoid answering direct questions really isn't flying, at least with me.
> ...


Well to make this appealing to me first I'd have to deal with people who would give straight answers to straight questions.  What you call redirecting is known as BS'ing where I come from, and I don't do business that way.

Second I would need to know that the product being delivered was just as advertised and of high enough quality that it was not ripping off the end consumer.

I haven't been convinced of either, quite the opposite in fact.  So I am not interested.

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk


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## limr (Jun 26, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Like I said, this service is undefined. The details are not defined.* I simply add new "what ifs" to see at what point such a [hypothetical] service would become appealing to you guys.*



The more I learn about this real-but-hypothetical service, the less appealing it is.



> Perhaps a better way to approach this is how would you structure such a program or service to make it appealing to you (if at all)? Though, it seems you're saying there's no way such a service would be appealing to you. *Then may I ask, are you also opposed to selling prints (canvas or otherwise)? Because if so, perhaps you're simply the wrong demographic*.



Prints of photos are a whole different animal than cheesy paintings made from a photograph. But you're right - I'm absolutely not your target customer. I'm not going to support a service that cheapens labor - both mine and that of the painter - and creates something that I think is aesthetically unpleasant at best.


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## chrischen (Jun 26, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> chrischen said:
> 
> 
> > robbins.photo said:
> ...




Lol... I really don't understand why (or what) we're arguing about. I told you I'm not trying to sell you anything, and will not. This service I'm describing is hypothetical so it is by definition **whatever you want it to be**.

I simply wanted to ask if having your photographs be ready to made on-demand into oil paintings is appealing to you.

"Second I would need to know that the product being delivered was just as advertised and of high enough quality that it was not ripping off the end consumer."

Yes. The product will be delivered as advertised. For the sake of argument, I will now reveal that Amazon.com is the one providing this service. If Amazon.com is offering this service for photographers to sell their photos as paintings (produced on-demand), would it be appealing to you? The paintings are fully hand-painted oil paintings. Amazon.com will not be telling customers they are buying iPads, and then sending them an oil painting of your photo instead. Why? Because I'm not interested in finding out if photographers would be interested in a fraudulent service. I'm interested in finding out if photographers find it really appealing to have their photos turned into on-demand oil paintings by Amazon.com, for a very affordable price.


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## Bitter Jeweler (Jun 26, 2014)

Chrischen, I really admire your stick-to-it-ness here.
But you will never win with this crowd. Ever.

I have to add, after talking to my better half, who is a custom framer...he said he gets tons of portraits, family portraits, and pet portraits, that have been painted from a photo. Sometimes it's a local artist, but often it's not. Sometimes it's a full on oil painting, sometimes it's "remarqued" where some brush strokes are added to the print to give the illusion of being painted.

So this is something to offer customers as a portrait photographer, that people here just don't grasp how popular it is. Sure, being made in China may prevent a small portion of sales. 

In my industry, jewelry, soooooooooooo much product is made overseas it's not even funny. Even popular American designer products are made overseas. The product tends to be terrible, thin, and poorly set. What drives that market is the price, not quality. Luxury goods, just like an oil painting, at rock bottom prices. People don't ask where their jewelry is made, and retail stores remove any tag that says so.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 26, 2014)

Well said.

I think you're trying to poll some notional 'typical photographer' on this. In the first place there's no such thing and in the second place to the event that there is this pace does not embody it.

People on TPF are mainly gear-heads.


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## Bitter Jeweler (Jun 26, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Well said.
> 
> I think you're trying to poll some notional 'typical photographer' on this. In the first place there's no such thing and in the second place, to the event that there is, this place does not embody it.
> 
> People on TPF are mainly gear-heads.




And not business people.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

chrischen said:


> Lol... I really don't understand why (or what) we're arguing about. I told you I'm not trying to sell you anything, and will not. This service I'm describing is hypothetical so it is by definition **whatever you want it to be**.



I haven't "argued" about anything.  I did you the courtesy of answering your questions, despite the fact that you were so incredibly discourteous as to never provide a single adequate answer to my own.



> I simply wanted to ask if having your photographs be ready to made on-demand into oil paintings is appealing to you.



If I thought for one second that it would be a quality product and worth the price you'd charge the end consumer then yes - but from what I've gotten from you, no.




> Yes. The product will be delivered as advertised. For the sake of argument, I will now reveal that Amazon.com is the one providing this service. If Amazon.com is offering this service for photographers to sell their photos as paintings (produced on-demand), would it be appealing to you? The paintings are fully hand-painted oil paintings. Amazon.com will not be telling customers they are buying iPads, and then sending them an oil painting of your photo instead. Why? Because I'm not interested in finding out if photographers would be interested in a fraudulent service. I'm interested in finding out if photographers find it really appealing to have their photos turned into on-demand oil paintings by Amazon.com, for a very affordable price.



Amazon.com sells plenty of cut rate Chinese products of very low quality.  And you know what, that's fine - there must be a market for it or Amazon wouldn't sell it.  But when it comes to photography - well if the end product isn't going to be a quality product then yes, Amazon may find a market for it - but no, I still wouldn't want to be involved with it.


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## vfotog (Jun 27, 2014)

chrischen said:


> The actual service already achieves under 3 week turnaround time (order to door), so it is not something that's magical.
> 
> I'm not dodging to avoid your questions. I'm "dodging" to redefine it... to pinpoint what type of conditions would make it interesting to you. I'm not here to argue. Perhaps a better way to approach this is to ask you what conditions would make something like this appeal to you?
> 
> ...



There would be less contention if you were being straight-forward right from the very beginning. Instead you have contradicted yourself repeatedly. It's hypothetical. Oh wait, it's your service. It's meant to compete with those nefarious price-fixers. At much lower pricing. Now it's not about that at all...  It started out as the photographers only involvement as letting their images be used as the actual creative part of the work that is being copied and sold to consumers; the photographer only getting commission. And a small commission at that. Now it seems you are instead talking about using this as a service you  are marketing to photographers to sell to their clients instead of prints.  Entirely different ideas. First it was YOUR service. Now you are saying "AMAZON.COM is the one providing the service." I don't believe that for a minute. You are saying Amazon is hiring artists, etc. uh huh. Sure Amazon would be interested to hear you're saying THEY are the ones doing this. They're a huge corporation; they're not going to be doing market research on this forum. LOL. There is a huge difference between something being sold BY Amazon and something in their Marketplace. Like the guarantee. And who the seller of record is. If a company is selling through Amazon, then Amazon is not providing the service anymore than eBay is the seller because an auction is located there. You also talked about links to the photographers...  and you're going to do that on an Amazon page? uh huh. Some of us have been in business for decades and know what actually makes sense. You would have gotten a better reception if you had kept your story consistent and believable.


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