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Seeing the subtleties has to do with being an educated looker.
I think painting what you see depends greatly on what you choose to see. The number of receptors in your eyes greatly out numbers the the pathways from your eye to your brain. This means you have to make decisions on what to focus on from the get go.
Training is what makes the difference. Ten people will witness the same crime yet each will have a recollection of the perpetrator according to their own criteria. The shoe salesman remembers Gucci loafers, the hairdresser recalls a beehive hairdo while the plastic surgeon recollects a very big nose with a mole.
What you see is based entirely on what you know. Thus the phrase "paint what you know not what you see." One area, for example, that I notice working with my students, is the inability to see reflected colors in shadows. Once they are properly directed on what to look for, the unity in their paintings improves greatly.
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