Mary Ann's Photo Gallery and Tips

I like everyone else loves a shortcut but thought it would be difficult to create an action.  Actually with clear cut language and descriptions I hope you will see creating an action is in fact very easy and you will find yourself making them for many of the photo manipulations that you do often.  Some of these may be like different sepia tones with blends applied, more than one filter in use, or creating a frame effect.

I started with my basic work flow in Lightroom to make this garden scene to my taste with white balance, adjusting tone, clarity, vibrance and a slight curve adjustment to highlights and shadows.  Then I exported to Photoshop.  If you do not use Lightroom you may start here:

1. Open your photo.
2. If you did no adjustments in Lightroom you may want to adjust your levels.  I always adjust my R, G, B sliders separately and then go to RGB and adjust the tonal quality before clicking OK.
3. Now lets make our action as we want this photo to look like a painting.
4. Click on the Actions palette (it's grouped with the History palette or go to Windows and check Actions).  Click on New Action button at the bottom of the palette.  (If you have your action palette in button mode you can't see this button so click off the button mode.)
5. Name your action: Painting action, Set: Default, Color: None and Click Record.
6. Your will want to increase your Saturation to pop it a little so go to Adjustments, Hue/Saturation and move the Saturation slider to between +25 and +50 depending on your photo.  I used +50 on this photo.
7. Note:  do not click on OK or Stop recording until I tell you too!  Apply 1st of 4 filters.  Open under Filter>Glass>Distortion 3,Smoothness 3, in Texture choose Canvas, Scaling 79%
8. Go to the bottom and click on New Effect Layer.  (Sometimes it will give you an extra layer but you just need to go to the next setting and then come back and apply).  In the actions you should see Glass is now in the New Effect Layers.
9. Next Filter.  Open Artistic>Paint Daubs Brush Size 4, Sharpness 1, Brush Type choose Simple.  Now it should be showing Paint Daubs in the New Effect Layer above the Glass Layer.
10. Next Layer:  Click on New Effect Layer icon to add another new layer (If it shows Paint Daubs again, don't worry because when you save this next layer it will change).
11. Next Filter:  Go to Brush Stroke> Choose Angled Strokes.  set Direction Balance to 46, Stroke Length 3, Sharpness 1.  You should now have 3 layers. If you have 4 and the last layer is called Angled Strokes do not choose another New Effect Layer Icon at the bottom as you will use this extra Angled Stroke, however if you only have 3 layers then choose the New Effect Icon.  It may come up with the name Angled Stroke but don't worry about that.)
12. Next Filter:  Go to Texture>Texturizer> Choose Canvas, Scaling 65%, Relief 7, Light chose Top Left, and leave Invert Unchecked.
13. Use Ctrl+J or on a Mac Com+J to get a copy of your background layer in the palette window.
14. Desaturate this level by going to Adjustments>Desaturate>Saturation -100.
15. Change the Blend Mode in the Layers Palette from Normal to Overlay.
16. Now go to Filters>Stylize>Emboss and Set Angle to 135 degrees, Height 1 pixel, Amount 500%. NOW YOU CAN CLICK OK! (You will see your top layer in the Layers Palette looks all gray)
    
17. Go to the opacity slider on the Layers Palette and lower it from 100% to 40%. NOW YOU CAN CLICK STOP ON THE ACTIONS PALETTE.
18. You can crop before or after using this action.
    

Below you can see the photo after the action has been applied.

I hope you will try this on your florals and maybe even a portraits to see how you like it.  Of course the larger you can view the results the better it will look. It really has a painterly look verses looking like a blurred photo!

Enjoy!

Mary Ann