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Even if you could why?
What would be the point of a painting that looked exactly like the photo it was copied from? Why not just frame the photo. It is not as if a photo can not be art in and of itself.
My opinion on this is, yes you can use a photo for reference but you should strive to create something beyond what a photo can deliver. I find that I can look at the best photo and it will always look like a flat image of what it was taken from.
On the other hand a great painting can fool the eye it has depth. Sure that depth is created and not real but I have never seen a photo that had that kind of depth to it.
Also as you paint from life your point of reference changes as you look at different areas of your subject. And that is reflected in your painting, hence if you compared the perspective to that in a photo it would be off from the photo which has a fixed reference of the position and focal length of the lens used.
But it is these slight differences (as well as the play of warm and cool colors) that help give the painting more depth for as your eye travels around the painting it seems as if your view changes slightly as it would if you to where looking at 3 dimensional objects. These differences are not even planed it just happens it is the very imperfections that make a painting look more real then a photo.
Also on tracing well I have never seen someone who can not draw who could trace and create a drawing from it with any style.
I have used photos and still do. How many people can you get to give you 2-4 hours during good painting light. Well Not many people I know in this busy world, so you get 1 maybe 2, 1 hour sessions. Well I do not know about rest of you but that is not enough time for me to finish a painting and my memory is not that great that I can finish with out the help of reference photos. In the end you can use all the photos you want but unless you can also draw and paint they will not help you create a good painting.
The truth is we do not use photos because it is easier in fact they can hurt the final result. Many times l liked the first rough likeness I get during the first 15min of a session then after hours of refining from a photo. (as those of you that commented on my post in the critique section have seen) I would prefer to paint only from life but it is impractical in this day and age to do so. For those lucky enough or who's style of painting (alla prima) allows them to finish a painting in 1-2 hours or can get the rich and famous to sit for hours then great.
Vermeer on the other hand took months to finish a painting so it is no wonder he looked for ways to help. But I hardly see how looking at a image projected on a piece of frosted glass could be considered the same as tracing a photo.
Vermeer's talent was not in the drawing but the finish (not that he could not draw) his paintings are more real then any photo and anyone that holds up photos as a representation of real life needs to stop and look around them more and see that photos do not capture what the human eye sees. Painters like Vermeer did they made images so life-like that they could not have been done from a photo (at least not photos alone).
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