David Hockney made the point that these people would have had all the latest technology.

My admiration for these artsts work has not been dented, for they were just doing the job later done by photographic chemical processes.

The composition was done with the artist's eye and that is mostly the same skill of the photographer too. Although a lot can be done later in the printing process of course.

Having said all that: I wonder if an artist projected a photographic slide onto a canvas and painted that, if we would not now feel them to be a bit of a fraud?