After doing several different tutorials that I have found on the web and learning so many different ways of turning a picture into a painting using some of the many different filters there are out there, I decided to try and do this painted effect with just the use of the filters in Paint Shop Pro. This is a very short and simple way to come up with this effect and I hope you will enjoy it and attempt some of your own ways of creating this effect.

This tutorial was written July 2004 and is my own creation so please respect that fact and do not copy in whole or in part to any other websites and/or claim it to be your own. If you would like to post a text link to this tutorial for a graphics group please e-mail me to ask my permission. Remember that the image you create from this tutorial is yours to do with as you please.

What you will need:

• PSP 7    A 30 Day Trial Version can be obtained from this link.

• An image you are going to work on, or you can use the image below, which is a picture I took of some roses I was given *smile*. Just right click on the image with your mouse and save to your hardrive.

If your using PSP7 it's a good idea to have your "auto save" option on, that way if those computer gremlins that shut your computer down come along you won't lose any of your hard work. If your using PSP6 or older be sure to name and save your image as a .psp file and make sure you save your work as you go along.

Okay let's get started. Open up your image that you want to use and duplicate it, then close the original. On your layer pallet right click on the background layer and "promote to layer". Right click on this layer and duplicate it twice, so you now have a total of three layers. Rename the top layer "Brush Strokes" and the middle layer "Colored Pencil".

Now comes the fun part of playing with the filters. Click on your Brush Strokes layer to make it active. Now go up to Effects - Artistic Effects - Brush Srokes. Use the settings shown below and click okay.

Now click on your layer pallet and on this brush Strokes layer change the blend mode to "Luminance" and set the opacity down to 60. Your image should look similar to the one below now.

Now click on your "Colored Pencil" layer to make it active. Up to Effects - Artistic Effects - Colored Pencil. Set your Detail to 100 and Opacity to 25. Go to your layers pallet and change the blend mode to "Overlay". That's it, your painting is done and all you need to do now is Merge All Layers - Flatten and add a frame if you want.

You'll find you can get a few slightly different effects by playing with the blend mode of the layers and changing the opacity higher or lower to suit your taste. Below are two examples of this, they are very subtle changes and it depends on the picture you use and what your own taste is. Just play around and have fun!

On this image I just changed the blend mode of the Colored Pencil layer to "Screen"

On this image I just changed the blend mode of the Colored Pencil layer to "Darken"