FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE -or- NEW TO PHOTO-ART?
See below for "Information and Guidelines."

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PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #59 – Hotel in Valides

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category until the next major challenge is posted here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/index.html).

The base image can be downloaded by clicking the link near the bottom of this lengthy introduction!


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When I saw this photo taken by member Art Hill, I couldn't resist the urge to "borrow it" for this mini-challenge. Thanks, Art, for consenting to its use.

~DannyR~

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LEGAL VERBIAGE
Art retains the U.S. and international copyright © not only for the original image, but also for any photo-art versions of it. Unauthorized distribution or use of this image without permission is prohibited.

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INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES

Unlike “official challenges” for this forum, which can be found here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/index.html), this one will be self-contained within this thread. It is intended as an opportunity to engage in this art form until the next official challenge is posted.

The rules are more-or-less the same:
* It’s a challenge, not a contest -- intended to provide opportunities to experiment, share methods and/or techniques and, most importantly, have FUN.
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

GUIDELINES:
1. Use any method, application(s), style(s) you like:
. * Convert to sketch, grayscale, abstract, watercolor, oil painting, pen-and-ink, Conte crayon, impasto, van Gogh or any style of your choosing
. * Add elements from other images (collage) or replace the background
. * Hand painting? Tracing? Freehand? You bet. Always appreciate entries of this nature.
. * Apply filters from your favorite application(s) or tweak it with 3rd party plug-ins
. * Feeling animated? Animated entries are definitely welcome. There have been some really funny ones submitted in the past. Fish jumping, leaves falling, wheels turning. You get the idea.
. * Any or all of the above

Bottom line:
How you create this masterpiece makes no difference. Whatever floats your boat as long as you follow guideline #4 in the process.

2. When done, reply to this thread and attach your work (don’t forget the 100kb size limit).

Note: Multiple entries OK if you’re so inspired.

3. By all means include some verbiage on how you achieved your masterpiece so others will benefit from your skills and experience. Make it as descriptive as you like. Grammar and spelling will not be graded. Priority given to content, not how it is written.

4. Have fun.


A special message to those who are new to Photo-art
… Who may be feeling a little uncomfortable about posting an entry.

If you’ve read this far, it means you’re at least curious. That’s a good sign. :)

But what if you’re feeling a little squeamish about posting your first image?

From time to time I hear from those who want to participate, but have considerable anxieties about posting their creations in these mini-challenge. “I’m just a beginner. My pictures don’t belong,” “I see the works of others and I know I’ll never get that good,” “How am I supposed to compete with those wonderful creations?” are typical expressions of concern.

To which I say: Put your fears to rest. This isn’t a competition. You will not be judged in the traditional “art critique” sense. Your honor isn’t on the line. This isn’t about who’s best.

Don’t hold back from participating and posting your creation because your initial attempts don’t measure up (in your own mind) to images generated by folks with more experience than you.

This is a no-fault, all-fun way to jump in the pool. Everyone started the same place: The beginning. Everyone who is more skilled and experienced than you got to that point by practicing, experimenting, asking questions, learning from others, and participating.

Can one learn without interacting with others? Sure. Can one learn as fast? Absolutely not.

When you participate, others get to know you. That makes it easier to ask them questions. Asking questions leads to learning from those with more experience than you. It just keeps getting better and better!

By all means give it a go. You’ll be glad you did.

The pep talk cheerfully brought to you by:

Danny Raphael
Photo-based Art Forum Moderator

Nice one Chuck..Looks like your getting the hang of psp7..Do you like it better than photoshop..I have it but never use it..

Thought this would make a nice tinted sketch..

Jerry :D

Chuck,
Your version looks like a Monet painting. I like the colors.

Jerry,
You definitely achieved a tinted sketch. Much like those old photographs that were hand tinted.

Here's my rendition. I don't know what to call it.
It looks like a partly sunny weather before an impending storm.
In any case, much was achieved by using history brush tools with different blending modes: Multiply or Darken when I want darker color, and Screen or lighten when I want brighter colors.

Hi,

Here is my attempt at art. :) I first selected out the sky and dry brushed it, then made another layer from the background then used accented images, then did some curves adjustment then flatten the layers.

Enjoy,
Alan

Chuck:

I like that look. Haven't messed with PSP7 Watercolor lately. Will have to dust it off.

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Tony:

Nice arty/sketchy style. Someday I hope to develop History Brush skills like you.

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Jerry:

I can see why you liked it. Another solid rendition.

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Alan:

Glad you're jumpin' in the pool with the rest of us. Pretty soon the water will feel warm enough to stalk underwater tropical fish!

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Extracted the image from the sky; blurred the sky a bit and added a hue/sat adjustment layer in order to crank up the color.

I've found that Smart Blur/Edge Only seldom renders an image that's uniform in detail, so I generated three versions and pieced them together...then ran Phyllis's (and now my) favorite filter (PS7 Stylize -> Diffuse -> Anisotropic) to soften the edges a little.

Added some artificial green to the trees via Hue / Sat adjustment layer set to colorize and layer mask.

Chuck, Tony, Jerry, Alan, Danny, all nice sketches and paintings. Jerry, lovely sketch as always. Alan, nice bright painting look. Chuck, I guess that's Virtual Painter...turned out great. Tony, maybe you "don't know what to call it," but I'd call it a moody watercolor. Danny, bold, bright, simple colors all work together...with the help of anisotropic diffuse, of course. :)

My first attempt at this is not a painting but more of a statement. I have to stop watching the news because the world is just too depressing these days. Why is everyone so anxious to kill everyone who doesn't agree? If there is a god, I don't think he'd be too happy with us these days...might just start to think he made a mistake.

Phyllis

A very powerful image with which to make a very sad point.

Thanks, Danny, but not powerful enough, perhaps. It shows blue sky breaking through the clouds...the end of the flood. Hmmm... then again, everyone supposedly is dead by now, so I guess that IS pretty glum. But here's another version anyway, more stormy and mystical looking.

Phyllis

Two "end of the world" pictures are enough...enough to put that hotel out of business at least. :) Here's something more traditional that makes no political or religious comment...just a simple pencil sketch.

Phyllis

Phyllis, enjoyed the last pencil effect.

Yeh, nothing difficult. It's just sliced down through the middle of the dome, duplicated and flipped! As you said, you sensed something was different. That's all I'm trying to do, seems the majority here have been at this longer than me and are the experts with the filters. Some using filters I have never heard of! Thr bottom of that picture is the flood filter (Flaming Pear) which was a freebie on a disk with a photographic magazine I bought this week here in UK. Looks like Phyllis has got it as well! :) Someone was asking about the ripples I did in one of the other photos, that is "Flood " as well.
Frank

Phyllis ...

Planet Of The Apes !!!

Don

Try again!

Frank:

I like both the horizontal and the vertical mirror versions. Again, a very creative approach and nicely spliced. The flood filter can do some pretty amazing things.

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Phyllis:

Sketch version came out especially well. Did you do anything out of the ordinary to get these out of the ordinary results?

~Danny~

I just started playing around so I don't have all the steps...

Added a Level's layer
Added a Posterize layer and then did some mask layering stuff (pretty technical, heh? ha ha ha)

Anyhow, got to this and liked it, so I stopped.

Don, yes, I thought of that same thing. :D Too bad our challenge pic wasn't the Statue of Liberty. Which would be a good one, btw, Danny... hint hint.

Frank, love the reflection in the river. That walkway does look like it belongs by a river, and you finished it beautifully.

Jeff, I like how your technique looks on the trees...brought out a nice 3-D puffy look!

Danny, yes I did something different in the sketch. I used Trimoon's method, basically, but in the blur/dodge layer step, I did two versions of this procedure then combined them with mixed opacity.

The first was a sharp outline with the normal blur method. For the second, which makes it different, I blurred the top layer using KPT2's gaussian glow, which is a one-step version of something anyone can do with Photoshop: Dupe over original (no inversion) then gaussian blur top layer and set mode to darken and merge.

Problem here is that you already have to set the top layer to color dodge, so how do you also set it to darken? Maybe by fading in edit to darken, while leaving the layer itself in color dodge mode. Don't know if this would give the same result, but seems like it might...

I liked the way the gaussian glow shaded the edges of the building while keeping the edge lines fine. I will use this again for sure. If anyone figures out how to combine the necessary steps above for those who lack KPT2, I'm sure you'll share the info.

Phyllis

wow, lots of interesting stuff. It's kinda cool seeing your own picture interpreted so many way. Love the pencil sketches and the mirrored one. Too many good ones to mention.
Art

I had to contribute something so this is it. Glow Edges.

Hotel in Valides

I went for kind of a parchment-y old-world watercolor-ish feel with this one.

Ecurb, very nice...like what it did to the trees and the wall especially.

Phyllis

Playing with Virtual Painter... just love the smooth simplicity of this collage filter!

Phyllis

Sat at work, bored, so I thought I'd have a play . . .

Here is my submission. First I promoted the background to a layer and then duplicated it. Hid the original layer and scaled the duped layer up and then moved it over to the left. Did a hue/saturation adjustment and added noise and then used the multiply layer blend mode, merged and saved.


Ken

I decided to take another try with the dark paint look I've been working on. I just can't seem to find settings that work consistantly though. I'm about ready to give up trying on this look--I just can't figure it out like I want it.

Basically 2 "sets" that I blend together when finished.

First set: Flaming Pear's Mr. Contrast blended with the original (mr c, orig, mr c)

Second set: Flaming Pear's Melancholytron blended with the original. (mel, orig, mel)

Put the second set on top the first set and blended those.

Then made a copy of the result and applied Flaming Pear's Lacquer. Blended those 2 layers together and added texture.

I had to try an impressionist version of this one. Several blended impressionist layers with find edges and a gaussian blur sketch on top. Finished with a light texture.

I think all renditions are beautiful
Here's my try

some layers with different glass distortions, two layers with paint engine, wild river and impression, lighting effects and a curves adjusting


nice work from everyone!
I learn a lot from you guys

I made a lighter version afterwards

desturate-invert-cutout-hue and saturation

Chery, the first one is fantastic and it has that fantacy back droop.
Mauler it isenough to scare..
Gina the previous one stands defferent..
This is my Hotel..
A Filter > Stylize>solarize and Other >custom and defferent levels as usual..

thankyuo

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vijayan

Hi Vijayan,


very dark and ominous this last picture, nice


gina

gina, thank you very much; and I see your submissions very interestingly. That is good you are keeping always an identity in concept and in creation.

Thank you

_______

vijayan

Mauler,
really I am very sorry.
Thanks for the reminder. Actually i do not know how I missed it. usually I do visit the challenge pages and go back to my works, but sometimes I do check PM box also.This was a long delay in between, and for that I am really very very sorry....
Deffinitly you can receive my reply..

thank you

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vijayan

Looking for images to try out my fake buzz pro filter on. Paint Engine Poster 7, toned down in effect, then colored edges, toned down. Soft focus and texture.

AmyHutton

ahutton,
I was intrigued by your experiment to replicate buzz pro. That got me trying a different route. I used Cutout filter and smart blur.

I liked this peaceful image and wanted to enjoy a few moments after a long week at work. The image has been cropped, weathered, had the lighting adjusted, and run through several filters to bring out the blue/green tones. Thanks for the chance to have some fun!

Phyllis I really liked your pencil sketch. How did you do it?

The old hotel seemed to call for an "old" treatment.

I wish I could remember all that I did, I just kept playing with it until I had something I liked. I know I adjusted the levels, colors, simplified it with Buzz, ran the artistic-rough pastels and faded it, merged layers, then ran Sheri's sketch action on it, made a copy of the background, moved it to the top, set to luminosity. There were other steps, but this is all I remember. Should have kept notes! :ditsy:

Patricia

Well I really liked it. The end result was very pleasing to me.

Duped bottom layer.
L2 - Flaming Pear/Tachyon/Mode(Soft Light)
Merged and duped layer again.
L2 - AIM/USM
Paint Alchemy/Oil Tipped Sparse/
Layer Blend Mode - Screen
Merged and duped layer again
L2 - Mode Hard Light.
Merged.
Auto Sat/More Colour
Duped Layer
L2 - Mode Multiply 40%
Merged

Chuck, Tony, Jerry, Alan, Danny, all nice sketches and paintings. Jerry, lovely sketch as always. Alan, nice bright painting look. Chuck, I guess that's Virtual Painter...turned out great. Tony, maybe you "don't know what to call it," but I'd call it a moody watercolor. Danny, bold, bright, simple colors all work together...with the help of anisotropic diffuse, of course. :)

My first attempt at this is not a painting but more of a statement. I have to stop watching the news because the world is just too depressing these days. Why is everyone so anxious to kill everyone who doesn't agree? If there is a god, I don't think he'd be too happy with us these days...might just start to think he made a mistake.

Phyllis





nice image

Hotel in Valides


Wonderful, I love it.

OK -- I'm up for this.

What I did was duplicated the original and boosted the saturation and contrast and lowered the brightness somewhat.

Then I duplicated this layer and applied Filter>Impressionist>Paint>Fluorescent Palette Knife. I set the blending mode to 'Lighten' and added a layer mask to restore some of the detail to the dome.

I thought that some of the detail needed to be removed from the trees so I duplicated the BG again and applied Filter>Impressionist>Chalk>Detailed Opaque Strokes. Blending was set to 'Luminosity'. Again, I added a layer mask and restored some of the architectural detail to the Hotel and some detail to the street scene.

:cat: Thanks to Danny Raphael for introducing me to the Impressionist plug-in and for his instruction in the use of layer masks.

Icewynd

A belated welcome to you, Icewynd. Looks like you have a good eye for Impressionist. Hope to see more.

I found another toy in Painter8: Sponges>GlazingSponge60. Started with some cropping and contrast enhancement. In Painter8, cloned the image with BristleOilsCloner15. Then went to work w/ the GlazingSponge, using several applications of different colors. This ruined the sky, and of course I did this on the original cloned copy. :sad: So, I cloned the sky back in on a new layer and lowered the opacity. Finished w/ some texture in Elements2.

-Mark

Icewynd and Mark, your use of the tools is impressive. You both have great paintings. I've never used the fluorescent palette knife. And as I'm just beginning to explore Painter, I'll have a look at that glazing sponge too.

Great job.

Janet

Icewynd, good painting and an innovative one.. a real color magic...

SW, Great one like a period painting.....Classic one...Big hand !!!

thanks
vijayan

OK -- I'm up for this.

:cat: Thanks to Danny Raphael for introducing me to the Impressionist plug-in and for his instruction in the use of layer masks.

Icewynd

How in the world did I miss this? (Lots of activity of late, and I just missed it. Sorry about that. You weren't being ignored. Really. :( )

What a *TERRIFIC* first post.

If this were a yardstick, I'll take credit for 1". Take a well deserved bow for the other 35"! :bow:

Don't stop now! Keep them coming.

~Danny~

another AHB mess i did :blush:

Art History Brush (Watercolour Texture Surface, from Wet Media Brushes), and above it Imp-Watercolour Damp Translucent (size 63, brightness 60), blend Soft Light

another AHB mess i did :blush:

Art History Brush (Watercolour Texture Surface, from Wet Media Brushes), and above it Imp-Watercolour Damp Translucent (size 63, brightness 60), blend Soft Light

re: another AHB mess

Not a mess; an AHB creative experiment! :)

Did I get this right?

You:
* Created a new layer and used AHB to paint it
* Duplicated the original BG, applied Impressionist & set blend to Soft Light?

Not a mess; an AHB creative experiment! :)

Did I get this right?

You:
* Created a new layer and used AHB to paint it
* Duplicated the original BG, applied Impressionist & set blend to Soft Light?
thanks :D

yes, you got it right... or, for me to be precise - i created white fill layer above the BG (i didn't want the BG to look through); then 3 empty layers above it for different levels of detail of AHB (for brush sizes cca 60, 40, and 20 bottom to up); 60 for sky and trees, 40 for trees and building, and 20 for building)...
then, i thought it needs something, so i dupped BG, and put it on top, applied impressionist, and changed blend to soft light

:wavey:

I blended Jeff's (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7810) Van Gogh preset with my own (hopfully synergistically) to create this rendering. Sharpened, bumpmapped and added canvas texture on just the lighter colors using Cybia's Alphaworks eliminate black to isolate just the lighter colors. :)

I found a little time tonight to play! :D I decided to give this image a shot. Below is what I ended up with.

Steps:
Color sketch effect applied to background layer. Dup. Layer and applied a pencil effect, sorry can’t remember the settings. Merged all and applied a paper textured effect.

Simple but effective.

Enjoy,
TwoLaidBack

There are some lovely renderings here. Good job everyone!

Phyllis, great reflection work! Awesome!

Omeyas yours looks like a vintage photo! Love it! All so, good job on the addition of a grand entrance. Just a quick glance at the thumbnail lead me to think you had rendered a new Taj Mahal.

I went for a faux bas-relief effect. Very simple to do and quick

1. Saved the original as a Photoshop file to use as a texture map
2. Deleted the original and created a new layer.
3. Selected two shades of brown, one light and one dark as the fore/background colors and filled the empty layer with the lighter color.
4. Filter -> Texture-> load texture.... loaded the previously made texture map
5. Tweaked the scaling and relief effects.

At least two thumbs up! Maybe 4. Good job.

Also I may be losing it, but I still don't understand fully how your "original.bmp"
fits in with the carpet preset in Impressionist. Do I download this, or is it found in Impressionist or what????

Steve

I blended Jeff's (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7810) Van Gogh preset with my own (hopfully synergistically) to create this rendering. Sharpened, bumpmapped and added canvas texture on just the lighter colors using Cybia's Alphaworks eliminate black to isolate just the lighter colors. :)

How about a hotel in the mountains?

Steve

At least two thumbs up! Maybe 4. Good job.

Also I may be losing it, but I still don't understand fully how your "original.bmp"
fits in with the carpet preset in Impressionist. Do I download this, or is it found in Impressionist or what????

Steve


Forgot to add that I ported the whole thing in GIMP for bumpmap. I do not know whole to create the type of relief that GIMP's bumpmap filter creates in Photoshop. Sorry for the oversite; I do this step for oil renderings quite often; I tend to forget to add that I use GIMP. I feel both Photoshop and GIMP are fantastic tools. I'm just a heck of a lot better at using GIMP. :)

i like your chalet, steve :)

i had a go at this also. however, my attempt wasnt so much at photo art as it was in trying to punch of the image and still make it look like a photo. so, it's more of a 'photograph as art' than true photo art how we mean it.

months ago i began playing with a technique of over-sharpening and then doing various things to that. it had potential but i was never really happy with it. but recently i've been playing with stroker's lum frequencies and a 7 band sharpen filter plugin. this one used the 7 band sharpen. it also used some blending of burn that was then masked to capture just the sky and import that into another image. it had some blank raster layers with gray painted in to lessen some highlights i didnt want with the sharpening. it's also obviously cropped.

the attempt here was to bring out the detail without getting the sharpening blocks or high highlights of an intense sharpening. it's not quite as sharp and intense as i'd like it yet, but it's much better than my earlier technicques with just the sharpening filters.

craig

How about a hotel in the mountains?

Steve

Cool idea Steve. Like the mask work too. :)

Craig,

Very well done! I particularly like the crop which brings out the detail in the dome.

Thank you Craig. Put a mountain behind a pic of Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World some time back. I get the strangest reactions when I show the image to the staff there and ask about the skiing etc. 8-)

Steve

i like your chalet, steve :)

craig

Had to take a swipe at this.
Dave's simplifier
Impressionist>kind of an ink thing, I guess
Impressionist>Jaykita watercolor B (modified)
Basic outline
Dropped opacity of Impressionist layers a bit
Duplicated underlying simplified layer in Overlay partly masked out except for the gold on the dome

And pardon the pedantry but for the sake of historical/architectural accuracy, it isn't a hotel, exactly, and it isn't in "Valides." The structure with the dome is a church.

http://www.pariserve.tm.fr/English/paris/Invalides/hotel-invalides.htm

dc

Love the way the trees came out! Fantastic!

thanks dee dee. i'm still working on this process. i'm not real happy yet with the high values...just a bit too bright yet, but it's getting there :)

lol steve. well, they've got the matterhorn, so why not the rest of the range :)

craig

dk,

i like that too. like swampy said, great trees. i also like that you brought out the gold dome more.

craig

Thanks, Swampy & Craig.

I wiped out the outlines in the trees and I'm glad I did - I think that's what made the difference.

David

I'm not use to recording my moves but the best I can remember is this...

I took out the blue sky - I ran the upper part of the building thru a plug in "terazzo" [oldie but a goodie] - a lil motion blurr and a redish gradient thru the sky. Oh The redish part [the sky] was a seperate layer. Which I copied twice I darkened the underlying layer. Then I used the eraser on the top layer and started erasing [like a pok a dot effect]

:bigthmb:

Yeah yeah that's the ticket

Man I hope I did this right....

Greeniuspix.. Rome is buring? Great effect in the sky. The only thing I might suggest it to mask out the red gradient in the area of the dome so that the gold dome doesn't pick up the red tint. It kinda looks like the sky color is mixing in with the beautiful gold detailing in the dome.

I'm not use to recording my moves but the best I can remember is this...

I hope I did this right....Greeniuspix... Welcome to the forum and thanks for leaping into the pool. Ya done just fine, here.

Good job on the rememberin', too. I've got Terazzo myself, but it's been quite a while since I've used it.

Keep the artwork coming. I like your creative style.

~Danny~

Dup, Toadies set to Overlay, Impressionist using CherylH's fine brush. Flatten. Dupped and then CherylH's finger paint 1 with adjuste opacity and some selective erasing. Flatten. Auto Contrast. Done. :)

Some very inspiratioanal work done on this thread missed it last time round so have remedied that !

Made a colour sketch added smart blur and a bit of tweaking

Palms

Hello,
Here is my submission.
By the way, this building is spelled "Hotel des Invalides" and is located in Paris. It used to be kind of a hospital during Napoleon's days, and as never been a hotel as we now know them.
Sylvia

Very nice, Sylvia!

How many remember a song sung by Robert Goulette by the title above? I believe he sang it in Camelot. I could hear it as I worked upon this picture. Thank you so very much for sharing.

I'll take the challenge! It's a tower, now!

klassy,

"i love paris in the springtime.
i love paris in the fall.
i love paris in the winter, when it's drizzling.
i love paris in the summer, when it's sizzling."

yup. i remember. we used to do that in acapella. :)

craig

You're a kick.... that's the song! :nod: ;)

You're a kick.... that's the song! :nod: ;) :)

craig

Actually second but the first one didnt work...hope this one does hope you like the color treatment!!! Dont be shy rock the vote
Stef
hope you get to see the pix this time

With all the great pictures here, Im not sure mine is up to it, but what the Heck

Smoothed
Lucis
Poster edges
Diffuse
Loads of brush strokes to remove a halo that appeared around the edge of the building
Auto levels

Peter

With all the great pictures here, Im not sure mine is up to it, but what the Heck

Peter

I think it just about cuts it Peter :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
very nice Peter really envy you the lucis still cant justify the price of buying it

Palms

I think it just about cuts it Peter :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
very nice Peter really envy you the lucis still cant justify the price of buying it

Palms

Thanks Palms.
It was a present so didn't ask price - just very grateful.

Peter

I'm submitting a pair of images for this challenge. This is the first. I applied 19 effects to the original to "fix" the photo to my taste. This involved the following steps:
1. select the sky as a layer and render in blending mode 'multiply'
2. Rosenman/diffuse glow filter to the sky
3. fill flash (amount=6) to everything but the sky
4. Rosenman/diffuse glow filter to everything
5. Photo Plugins/soft focus filter
6. select sky/inverse then Lighting effects/omni filter
7. Copied image as Layer 1
8. Desaturated L1 by Enhance/remove color
9. Copied L1 by dragging to icon in layer screen to make L2
10. With L2 as active layer, Image/Adjustments/Invert
11. Set L2 blend mode to ‘color dodge’
12. Applied Minimum filter to L2 to taste
13. ‘Merge down’ L2 to L1 taste
14. Adjusted opacity of L1 to Background to taste to add color
15. Photo Plugins/soft focus filter
16. Red Paw/beautifier filter
17. Xero/caravaggio filter to trees to soften them
18. Pog/blurrinator filter to sky
19. Pog/blurrinator filter to trees

This is my second submission. It takes off from my previous image which involved 19 steps to "fix" the original to my taste. This image is my attempt to give it a 'Van Gogh' look. It involved the following 8 filters:
1. Paint Engine filter/custom brush stroke
2. Paint Daubs
3. IP Process/adaptive equalization
4. Lighting effects/omni
5. Photo Plugins/contrast mask
6. Paint Engine filter/custom brush stroke
7. Rosenman/diffuse glow
8. Little Ink Pot/xpose (to sky) to bring out yellow tones

Lots of nice versions, I just played with everything for awhile, went for color and brightness. Combination of built in effects and the Fantastic Machine Paint Engine.

Better late than never? I just wanted to try out a new idea and thought I would post =)

Layers in Photoshop

1. New layer
2.Duplicate Background
3.Duplicate Bakground
4. Background

First, I turn off layers 1 and 2 so I can see what I am doing. Layer 3 Find edges, then desaturate, adjust brightness and contrast to get nice line drawing.

Then fill Layer 1 with white. Turn down opacity so I can see layer underneath and used a painterly brush, in this case, 27 pixel spatter brush and added in colour all over the place. Then returned to 100 % opacity and used watercolour filter.

Deleted layer 2.

Then Layer 1 darken and layer 2 overlay to bring in some colour from the original to "fill in the blanks" left by my painting.

Adjusted brightness/contrast to suit, erased a few distracting dark spots by painting over in white, and there it is =)

I like the look of your technique. Thanks for giving the details. Welcome to RetouchPro!