For the visitors of this page who are already familiar with Studio Artist, this tutorial may be a bit too simplistic. However, for those who come to this fabulous application for the first time, I hope the tutorial will help them enter an exciting environment.

I will work strictly on one canvas, no added layers, but will open and use several Source Images.

Studio Artist requires the opening of a Source Image in order to get started, and this Source Image can already be greatly modified right at that initial stage, simply by setting a canvas size that might be radically different from the original image size/resolution/proportions.

In this tutorial, we will use a 320 x 240 pixels canvas size because we will eventually use the resulting images as material with which to look at "Morphing" (the subject of another tutorial to be published soon).

This tutorial on Multiple Source Images will attempt to show how Studio Artist enables the artist to "use" just about any combination of source images in order to come up with unique images that are truly his or her own, and doing so in ways that are radically different from what, for example, could be done in Photoshop, or Painter.

Yet, I remember from my many years of working with natural media, that it was already quite common for artists to build a library of images borrowed from all sorts of sources, magazines, newspapers, photos, etc. Those personal libraries of images, often only fragments of images, were/are the source of much inspiration, sometimes a simple "spot on a wall" captured in a photo can become the spark that will trigger a whole series of new images, all born from it, yet often not showing any obvious connection to it.

Studio Artist makes this time tested process a lot easier, those sources of inspiration can now be easily integrated into the work itself. So let us start.

These images are there in no particular order, they are gathered as raw material for the creation of one or several images I know nothing about as of yet. Some of these images may be used a lot, others may be ignored (almost) totally.

I find that Studio Artist is an exceptional tool for exploring almost without a goal, my favorite way to work.

First, I will launch Studio Artist 1.5 and select "image 1" above as the Source Image, at 320 x 240 pixels. As soon as you launch it, the application asks you to select a Source Image and then brings up this dialog box:

If you want to change the proportions of the image you are opening as Source Image, make sure you deselect the "Constrain Aspect Ratio" box. If you want the Source Image to appear on the canvas, select "Source Image" in the pop up menu at the top of the work window:

Here's what that first 320 x 240 canvas image looks like: