I've had Paint Alchemy for a couple years and could never get into it. With all those settings that seem unrelated, I gave up. Maybe I just wasn't ready for such a feature rich toy. Could be time to dust it off again.
Anyway on this one I was going for a pencil sketch look. I took a pile of background copies to which a plethora of effects were applied. The final image was 36 layers and I lost track of decent details at about layer eight! So beware: The fillowing is NOT a step-by-step recipe... just a high level summary of the major effects applied:
* Mike Finn's InstaSketch Beta action (available here:
http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~mikefinn/action.html)
* Impressionist: Pencil Sketch - Detailed Monochrome
* Impressionist: Pencil Sketch - Detailed Monochrome applied to an inverted copy of the Background
* Impressionist: Ink - Spyderweb Crosshatch
* Photoshop: Angled Strokes (applied to a grayscale copy of BG)
* Photoshop: Smart Blur/Edge Only (inverted), blend mode=Darken
* Photoshop Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer
* Virtual Painter - Oil Paint
By the time I got tired of messing with it I could see I had overcooked a few areas detail-wise, but I learned a few things, making the journey worthwhile.
~Danny~