Not sure whether I should post this snippet but move it if you want.
Now after doing numerous paintings, thanks to this tutorial, I have a good pointer I stumbled accross, if you're like me and like your pictures unblurred up close in game, instead of clothyfying your picture, do apply canvas and set it to 1 (trust me, 1 is perfect), now I know you're saying, wait, 1, it won't show the canvas look ingame.
Actually, it does, also when making your picture, the .png works best, and if you follow Insanity Sorrows tutorial ( like me ) when you go to save as a copy, if you want a superior quality painting look, save as DX3 alpha. then go and use it to make your normal map.
Another thing, colourful pictures work best for this, like daytime screenie landscapes.
Oh and if you want your picture to fit the rectangle sized painting frames better, change the size to 256 height and 512 width.
Thanks Insanity Sorrow for teaching me how to create a painting, hope this post doesn't offend you. Kudo's to you.