Oil Painting from Photo

[akvis]

Today we release the new program AKVIS ArtWork.

It converts your photos into realistic oil paintings. Whether an oil portrait or a landscape painting - the program will make your ideas a reality!

Even with the default settings you can achieve a realistic result coming very close to hand painted works.

http://akvis.com/en/artwork/
http://akvis.com/en/artwork-tutorial/howwork/oil.php

Welcome!!!


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Kat

[David Stevenson]

Please forward your payment for your advertisement in this forum

[akvis]

I know that a lot of members of RetouchPro love our Sketch, and I thought you will be interested in the news about an oil painting program.

If you're interested, you could try and share your ideas. The newborn needs your testing.

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Kat

[Kraellin]

thanks, akvis

[DannyRaphael]

This plugin looks promising... I'll post a review of it soon.

[skydog]

Sketch I like because it provides a number of variations. So far I find "oil" limited and pricey for what it provides. I'd rather put the money toward corel painter...then one would get autopainting and multiple brushes. My two cents. Why not combine sketch and oil and add $20 to the cost of the package?

[akvis]

Skydog,

Yes, ArtWork makes oil, and how!
And this is version 1.0. We are going to add Watercolor to the program. And may be anything else...

Sketch is exactly sketch, its name shows its features. All its effects are around a sketch technique.
ArtWork works with painting styles, they differ.

Our special offer is almost what you want - three programs in a pack with a discount (Artistic bundle: Sketch and ArtWork and ArtSuite).

Danny,

We are looking forward to your review! You have wide experience, and it will be useful for us to know your opinion.

And this relates to all members - please send us your thoughts how to improve the program

[akvis]

Have you read the review of Sketch in PhotoshopUser magazine? By Dave Huss?

It is like about ArtWork. Both programs make their job, their own effect.

" This is the fifth such product I reviewed in the past few years. All of these "instant artist" programs use impressive-looking samples for which the company made a grand effort to find the best photos to showcase the effects, but when I applied them to different photos the results were usually far less impressive.

My first observation was that Sketch 7 offered only pencil and watercolor (all the others offered at least 8-10 effects). I installed it as a plugin and then applied the filter to a portrait using the default settings. Wow! It really looked like a pencil sketch. I opened another portrait and it too was made to look like a real pencil sketch. I spent most of the evening converting more than 60 photos with subjects as diverse as a fashion model to a pudgy gondolier in Venice, and all the results were impressive. Sketch may do only a few effects but they're kick-butt effects. It also includes masking tools that allow you to isolate the application of artist effects to part of the photo... "

read the review



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Have a good week end!

Kat

[Steve Conway]

I am in agreement with you Skydog.

I tried out this software and found it limited indeed. Only does a type of oil painting and it's a bit awkward to figure out how to set it up for a basic painting. Also I tried it on several images not over 800 pixels in size and the program took forever to process.

Can't recommend this one yet, altho I have three other Akvis products which are well done and easy to use.

Steve C.

[DannyRaphael]

Like any plugin, on some images it works well, on others not so good. I liked how this one turned out...

For settings I used see the screen grab attachment.

[DannyRaphael]

Here's another example using the same settings as the image above. I applied some sharpening to give the strokes more distinction.

This is our cat, Patience, whose nickname is "Boo." (It's a long story). Original image: 12 MP.

[Kraellin]

those are looking good, danny. i like the dog a bit more of the two.

[DannyRaphael]

Here's a close-up of my 12 (going on 25) year old daughter. This was achievied by applying the same custom preset ("Ali 5" - see attackment) two times on the same layer. The multiple applications increase the 'arty' look.

Note the detail preservation in the eyes and hat texture. Some people would prefer a little less photorealism under similar circumstances.

Anyway, in my opinion this example is a considerably more realistic "oil painting" look than Snap Art or Virtual Painter's oil painting effects. And even if one was very skilled using Corel Painter, there is absolutely no way to achieve results like these in less than the two minutes it took me using ArtWork.

The second attachment is the output of Artwork to which Unsharp Mask was applied (90,70,0).

[skipatk]

Here is a try using a landscape. The settings are only a slight variation from what Danny used above.

[gun4hire!]

great between this program and the 100 others plus bidding for jobs coming in from india at 2$ an image. maybe i could just stay home and watch my kids starve from lack of work. thanks a million. lets just let technology put talent in the hands of the banal and trite.

... and the worst part is i know i can paint an image in ps or painter way better than this... but in a world of good enough not many can even notice.

i guess my glass is half empty today.

[Liasson]

That's good to know.

[DannyRaphael]

Nicely done, Skipatk... Thanks for sharing your handiwork.

G4H: Sorry you're having a half empty day. I hope things turn around for you soon.

- - - - - -

Another example to chew on.

I recordrd a Photoshop action that applies different custom presets to duplicate copies if the Bacjground. I then used layer masks to reveal the best of each layer (see second attachnent).

[MarkStrang]

Alien Skin sells great plug-ins including SnapArt that create very impressive artwork in Photoshop.

[akvis]

Great pictures, Danny! I love especially the dog. And others!


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Kat

[Fluffbutt]

"great between this program and the 100 others plus bidding for jobs coming in from india at 2$ an image. maybe i could just stay home and watch my kids starve from lack of work. thanks a million. lets just let technology put talent in the hands of the banal and trite.

... and the worst part is i know i can paint an image in ps or painter way better than this... but in a world of good enough not many can even notice.

i guess my glass is half empty today."

How that any different from anything else - I use to do photo retouching, then came the programs that did it with a mouse stroke. OK, they're crap compared to hours spent on the computer (or even the older way, with inks/paints/dyes), but the average punter don't care.

You could even moan that 12Mpix cameras going cheapish have made the Pro Photographer obsolete (I used to be a wedding photog too, 'til every-man-and-his-dog came along and decided to to the same thing, again lesser quality and poorer composition, but the average punter don't care).

In a nutshell:

The average person doesn't want to pay what something is worth (or even costs in time to make) when for a few $ they can do it themselves and THEY don't notice a difference.

The people who would notice a difference aren't interested in quality or ability, all they want is a 'name' (meaning, a celeb, a recognized name - "Oh, look, you've got a Jimmy Banks picture.. wow..")

Welcome to the future, lets hope humans don't survive for long..