Best program for making photos look like paintings

Looking for some help I'm trying to get some recommendation for a program. I'm kind of really liking the look of photos where they kind of end up looking like oil paintings or watercolor paintings or somewhere in between there.

 

I've seen different videos on it using Photoshop are there any programs that anybody knows of that are designed especially for transforming photos into oil paintings watercolor paintings that type stuff?

 

My second question would be once you have your photo converted to an oil painting type photo what would be the best type of paper to print it out on would it be Canvas OR you have to kind of keep it more realistic looking not sure what type of paper to use?

 

Thanks again I appreciate all your help.

There are filters in Photoshop for painterly effects, and more filters from third parties which can be imported. Photomatix and AuroraHD have similar options.

 

I have done things like this for clients, on the order of 19th century French posters, printed on matte paper, ultimately laminated, matted and framed.

Take a look at Fotosketcher, a free (donation) program that purports to convert photos to paintings. I've never tried it so I can't recommend it. If you google "convert photo to painting", you'll also find some on-line sites that do something similar when you upload a photo.

 

Most 'artistic conversation' programs convert whole photos based on your chosen 'painting style' (Watercolor, Oil 1, Oil 2, etc.) and your parameters for things like intensity, brush length, brush size, etc. Depending on how satisfied you are with a 'painting' conversion, you might still want to touch up different areas of a 'painting': warm up colors, increase/decrease saturation, vibrance, luminence or contrast. You may need to do this in some desktop/on-line photo-editor.

Hey thanks for your replies I appreciate it I tried the fotosketcher don't like it doesn't have a lot of control I don't I don't like it I'm trying one called Dynamic Auto painter it's pretty good.

DAP does indeed look very good on its website, @michael_radika. Well found! I might well try it out too at some stage. It looks a real cut above the rest.

 

FYI, I also downloaded fotosketcher, did a quick 'default' watercolor of a photo and I didn't like the program either. In general, it's wonderful that people make all sorts of programs, plug-ins, stock photos and other resources freely available on a 'please donate' basis. But I felt that fotosketcher - whatever its capabilities - was 'clunky'. For the photo I tried it out on, the watercolor conversion also took forever!

 

When you've had more time to play around with DAP, I hope you'll post your evaluation (perhaps with one or two examples) in this DD forum!

 

 

Hey thanks for your replies I appreciate it I tried the fotosketcher don't like it doesn't have a lot of control I don't I don't like it I'm trying one called Dynamic Auto painter it's pretty good.

Definitely very good software lots of options lots of details you can control brushstrokes definitely would take some time to learn this program to get it dialed in.

 

Just messing around for a couple hours I came up with some interesting stuff I'm actually over at Walmart having it printed out right now I'm so curious what it looks like printed out so I'll let you know.

So actually did a picture of a Paris scene and I clicked on the van Gogh drop down menu which turns your photo into look like Van Gogh you can control the brushstrokes you can control how much paint everything.

 

I took it over to Walmart cuz I had to see it printed out. Just looking at it on a computer screen I had to print it out I'm not sure if it's completely matte paper or not.

 

I have to say I'm pretty impressed I mean it totally looks like a van Gogh course I don't have the program dialed and there's lots to learn but just initial impressions are I'm very impressed with it.

Turn this another one called topaz impression I tried to download it the free version of it and it wouldn't run on my Windows computer was all those all buggy I want everybody has experienced with this program from what I read it sounds pretty darn good?

Michael, you might want to examine the NIK Bundle. It now is available with DxO at dxo.com . Specifically, given your interest in giving images a painterly appearance, please examine Color Efex 2. At least two of its filters are appropriate for your purpose: "Ink" and "Pastel." I must warn you that, since DxO bought or possibly got the entire bundle, it seems to be a bit quirky.

 

I hope this helps.

I remember years ago before switching to Adobe, I used Corel Draw and Photo Paint. In one of those there an engine to render photographs into vector drawings. I played with it a little and it was a bit in its infancy. I don't know if they still have that.

Yeah I just went to Staples and have a 12 by 18 printed out on a poster of a watercolor and I'm very disappointed it's sort of resembles a watercolor but it's obvious that it's not I don't know how close these programs when you print them out that they actually get to looking like a real thing I obviously it'll never replace the real thing but I was expecting more authenticity.

Well after playing with this thing for a while I've decided to purchase it to get the watermark removed from it it's a fantastic program you just got to know how to dial it in. Made some very interesting Monet paintings from it that look pretty impressive I'm going to have them printed out on William Turner watercolor paper.

 

What's better I think about this program than Photoshop I think it offers a lot more flexibility Photoshop takes forever to turn stuff into paintings this thing does it like in nothing flat and I think they're just for more options.

 

When I'm done I take it back into Lightroom and fine-tune it and it's ready to go so all update once I get the prints back.