A Decent Oil Painting Effect in Photoshop

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Step 7

Remember how we talked about the image getting darker? Here's where we fix that problem.

Go to:

Image | Adjust | Levels

Note that the histogram will show a lot of pixels in the shadows and not much in the highlights.

Step 8

Drag the white triangle to the left to brighten the whole image. Move the gray (middle) triangle around until you've gotten to a brightness you like.

This step is subjective so go with what you like.

Step 9

The final step is to apply Smart Blur to the image. This will retain the edges but blur within the boundaries of those edges.

To find the Smart Blur, go to

Filter | Blur | Smart Blur

Step 10

You should feel free to adjust these settings to suit your preference, but I've had good success with these settings on a low resolution image.

Finished

Click the image for a larger view. The effect gives a nice painterly feel, where the edges appear soft but still distinct.

If you don't feel the effect is painterly enough, you can do steps 3-6 two times before the remaining steps. Or, to soften the overall effect, run the Smart Blur repeatedly.

You can go to the next page to see other examples.

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