Tutorial: Impressionist look using Lighting Effects filter

[M_Hnatiuk]

Let me start by saying that much of what I see on RetouchPRO is sooooo impressive, I'm a little intimidated. This was easy enough and I was pleased enough with the result that I thought I'd share though. The picture is one I took with a disposable camera to finish off a roll of film.

Using Photoshop 7.0 or Elements 2.0:

Duplicate Background twice.
Turn off (click eyeball) of Background, turning it off.

Middle layer:
Filter> Render Lighting effects,
.............Light type: directional
.............Intensity = 35
.............Gloss = 0
.............Material = 69
.............Exposure = 28
.............Ambience = 36
.............Texture channel "blue"
.............Height = 55

Top layer:
.............Filter>Pixelate>Pointillize (Cell size = 3)

.............Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur (Radius = 1.6 pixels)

.............Filter>Brush Strokes>Sprayed Strokes
..........................Stroke length = 12
..........................Spray radius = 7
..........................Stroke direction - left diagonal

.............Repeat sprayed stroke changing direction to right diagonal

.............Change blend mode from Normal to "Overlay"

Adjust opacity of middle layer to suit. I used 39% for this picture.

[Duv]

The image is small but from what I can see it looks pretty impressive. Part of the fun is sometimes creating plugin effects without the plugins.
One very minor point on your workflow..I would not work on the bottom layer. Keep it as an original that you can always get back to.

Cheers
Dave

[M_Hnatiuk]

Thanks for the input, Dave and good point. In this case, I was working with a copy of my original psd file so I can always get back to it. I've saved the steps above as an action and have been going a little overboard with it today trying it on absolutely everything!

[DannyRaphael]

Great detail on the steps and a terrific tutorial overall. Your efforts and willingness to share are greatly appreciated.

I took the liberty to tweak the format to make it a little easier to follow. As you noticed, the forum software doesn't recognize tab stops. (You get "A for effort" in this regard. Your heart was definitely in the right place.)

Since many of our members are rookies and might not remember to start on a duplicate of the original image, I added verbiage to keep the original Background in tact as Dave suggested.

This is a wonderful contribution to the forum. I hope you'll continue to come up with and post great methods like this in the future.

~Danny~

[Janet Petty]

To all the purists out there...Disposable cameras aren't all bad. Impressive shot. And I like what you did with it.

Keep up the good work.