Mountain Hut in Oil

Today's picture is a little bit of an experiment. I recently took advantage of Topaz Lab's half price offer of Topaz Simplify for half price in February, of which this picture is my early result. As you may know, I am always interested to bring an artistic side to my photography where possible, and the reason I do so many HDR's is because this naturally adds an artistic element. It is not the only type of processing I want to explore though, and I used Topaz Simply (and a lot of photoshop blending modes afterwards) to create this oil painting look for this scene.

I'm not 100% sold yet on Simplify's ability to transform your photographs into paintings, but I feel with a lot of work carried out in Photoshop alongside it, you can perhaps get the image close to what you imagined. I will keep trying of course, and post any other results after my forays into Topaz Simplify.

My wife and I (and dog) are taking a mini break in a Dorset cottage (I've checked, there's no flooding) from Thursday to Sunday, so this will be my last blog until Sunday. Hope you guys have a nice week, I will post some iPhone shots I take in Dorset onto Twitter.