I stumbled upon this forum and it has been exactly what I've been looking for. My wife and I are interested in taking my photos "to the next level" by converting them into stylized art work. I've downloaded and installed the Impressionist plug-in and have used one of my pictures from my Son's baseball team as a first go. I'm planning on making this or a derivative a coach's gift that will be printed large and framed.

I pretty much just followed the Impressionist video tutorial and came up with the attached.

It is in the right direction for where I want to go, but I'd like to see if anyone has any recommendations on further refinements. I would like to have a little more detail in the coaches.

To compare - the original file can be seen here: http://theraypriceshow.smugmug.com/gallery/561843/1/90479150

I've played around with some of the styles in the impressionist plug-in and there are a ton there. Does anyone know of a sort of quick reference of examples of each of the styles, just to be able to get a quick browse of what they each do?

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

in Photoshop CS/CS2 you have "filter gallery" - with this filter, you can simple browse the effects, and combine them on-line.

I stumbled upon this forum and it has been exactly what I've been looking for. My wife and I are interested in taking my photos "to the next level" by converting them into stylized art work. I've downloaded and installed the Impressionist plug-in and have used one of my pictures from my Son's baseball team as a first go. I'm planning on making this or a derivative a coach's gift that will be printed large and framed.

I pretty much just followed the Impressionist video tutorial and came up with the attached.

It is in the right direction for where I want to go, but I'd like to see if anyone has any recommendations on further refinements. I would like to have a little more detail in the coaches.

To compare - the original file can be seen here: http://theraypriceshow.smugmug.com/gallery/561843/1/90479150

I've played around with some of the styles in the impressionist plug-in and there are a ton there. Does anyone know of a sort of quick reference of examples of each of the styles, just to be able to get a quick browse of what they each do?

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

First impressions: Solid home run on your first time at bat (pardon the pun).

re: Does anyone know of a sort of quick reference of examples of each of the styles, just to be able to get a quick browse of what they each do?

With 170 +/- built-in presets, I'm not sure if you'll find the following to be a "quick" or particularly an easy way of comparing them... but it's the only reference I know of:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mcmillanmail/DPReview/MeFirst.html

re: Observations/food for thought
* When looking at arty manipulations on a monitor, they can look pretty good because your nose is about foot or so from the screen. At that viewing distance it's easy to see the pseudo brush strokes and texturing. Back away a bit and it begins to look more like an out of focus photo. The point is keep viewing distance in mind when making prints. I'd say 11x14 minimum; 16x20 or larger is better.
* Among the things that distinguish paintings from photos:
- Photos: Accurate colors captured by the camera. A lot of detail.
- Paintings: Highlights/shadows often achieved using complimentary colors, colors exaggerated, detail often "suggested," but not always painted. "Black paint" not used at all in some styles.
* No plugin, including Impressionist, does well when it comes to rendering white or black areas of an image. Sometime's it's better to use Select > Color Range (Shadows) to create a selection for isolation purposes, followed by Hue/Sat or Selective Color adjustments in order to shift black areas to 'some other color' before applying the filter or plugin.

Consider my quick shot (attached) as "food for thought" regarding the previous commentary. Note how it's unlikely it would be ever mistaken for a "photo." But this type of thing is a matter of style. Your mileage will vary. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your interpretation. In fact I like it a lot.

re: I would like to have a little more detail in the coaches.
There are a couple ways to do this...
a. Duplicate the Background
b. Drag the duplicate to the top of the layer stack
c. Add a 'hide all' layer mask
d. Airbrush white in areas where you want to restore detail

Option:
b.1: Apply Photoshop's Dry Brush or the Xero Caravaggio filter (functional equivalent for those not using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements) to arty-up the effect a little. This may be necessary because restoring "too much detail" from an unmodified layer can look out of place.

Keep on doin' what you're doing. You're off to a great start.

~Danny~

A year or more ago,I was in the same place as you seem to be - so I took the time to produce some documents (for myself) that showed what several programs could do using the default processes.

Other folks helped along the way (with my great Appreciation) and the documents were finally hosted by Jim Lewis at atncentral

Go to the address below - and at the bottom of the page there are several docs that give descriptions and results of the default effects of several "art" programs

http://www.atncentral.com/tutorials.htm

Hope this helps you

Regards,

Bob Mc

Actually, I should have looked at Danny's reference first.

They are the same documents - the ones at atncentral are in pdf format and can be be browsed on-line (or I assume downloaded in one fell swoop)

Thanks Danny

Bob Mc

After converting it to 300 DPI, I tried some detail and contrast adjustment. Then increased the saturation a bit.

May give you some ideas on a way to go.

Steve

Maby a sketch combined with aniso.
Dan