I just love experimenting.. and when you experiment you learn to do new things in Photoshop and Lightroom.  Now on this PC I have a problem the Oil Paint filter refuses to work in Photoshop.  I don’t know what the problem is but no way will it play ball.  And today I wanted to create a painted effect photo.

So to create a painted effect photo, without having to revert to using my laptop, I used the Artistic Filters within Photoshop.  To use this filters I had to turn my original into an 8 bit photo, which was simple enough using the Image ► Mode ► 8 bits/channel.  This gave me the option to use the Artistic Filters.

Now here is the problem, I know I used a texturiser, a brush and a sponge.. but I didn’t write down the exact uses of them.. and neither did I create an action so I could use them again.  And when I went back to my history panel it didn’t tell me exactly what I did and what settings I used.

I know I could have processed it further in Photoshop using Camera Raw.. but to be perfectly honest, I prefer using Lightroom for that task.. so I wasn’t bother about the darkness before importing it back into Lightroom.

I then added split-toning, radial filters and played around with the sliders in the Basic Panel of Lightroom, until I achieved a much lighter and more golden-toned image.

I still wasn’t that happy with the image.. but didn’t know why.  What was it that I didn’t like?  And it wasn’t until I put the image into a photo frame using Lightroom’s Print Module did the image turn into something like I was trying to achieve; a textured golden toned photography of Daffodils.  I will work on this photograph even more at a later date as to me it still isn’t right, but what I am pleased about is that you can create an artistic piece of work, without using the Oil Paint Filter in Photoshop.