create
realistic
fine-art
from your
digital photographs
Snap Art from Alien Skin is a nifty plug-in for Photoshop (and other applications) that allows you to create realistic fine-art from your digital photographs. I've long wanted to do this and have been frustrated by the so-called conversion filters included with most imaging applications. While those may be great for simple effects, they are useless for producing anything you'd want to hang on your wall.
Not so with Snap Art. You can choose from several fine-art types including oil painting, watercolor, pencil, impasto, even comic book. And the results achieved are nothing short of amazing. Within these techniques are a multitude of options to create just the right image.
Oil Painting Filter
You can change the thickness of the brush, pencil or other medium and the pressure used. Increase saturation and contrast in the colors tab, choose from 14 different canvas or paper types to integrate texture effects, and alter the lighting of the resulting image. You can even set these options at random for an totally unplanned look. Once you get a combination you like, you can save this configuration as a named custom User Setting.
Also included with each art technique are several factory settings that let you select pre-configured setting combinations in a single click. Very nice. Very helpful.
The preview window allows you to see the entire image at once. You can also split the window so that you can see part of the image rendered and part original. Unfortunately, there is not an option to see the same area at the same time, instead you see adjoining segments, one rendered, one original. It would be nice if you could see the same area before and after.