Before and After No 4

The 4th post in my Before and After series where I experiment with Topaz Lab's new Impressions plugin. 

Topaz Labs creates some great Photoshop plugins geared towards the photographer. They recently released a new offering that allows photographers to experiment with different traditional artistic styles. You can see all the different plugin options offered at Topaz Lab's Website.

The Topaz website couldn't have said it better........The old masters like Monet, Van Gogh, and Cezanne concerned themselves with feeling and emotion in their art. Even though they were absolutely capable of photorealistically reproducing their subject, they didn’t necessarily want to. No, they wanted to show the subject like they felt it, not as it objectively appeared. And that’s why it’s so easy to tell the difference between a Monet, Van Gogh, and a Cezanne - because they made their paintings a reflection of themselves.

"Real painters do not paint things as they are. They paint them as they feel." — VAN GOGH

Impression helps create authentic art that deeply reflects your the artist's unique style.

I tried the plugin using one of my recent favorite cutting horse photos to see what can be done with the plugin. Its a very easy plugin to use with thumbnail styles to choose from sketches, pastels, imrpressionism, traditional painting and other art styles. Once you find a style the works for you, you can then go deeper to adjust brishes, paint flow, colour, lighting and textures. Even though it can act as a one button press transforamtion, the fun comes experimenting with the different styles to bring out your feelings in the final art.

Before

Original post processed photograph.

After

Stylized photo using Van Gogh filter as a starting point.

​After 2

Another stylized photo using Da Vinci Sketch filter as a starting point. 

I think this will be a fun addition to my post processing tools.