The missus is getting more into photography and has pretty much nicked by MBP, so I thought I’d get her a funky add-on to convert photos into other kinds of “look”.

Have only had a brief look at stuff like Akvis Artwork and Corel Painter 11 (too pricey ATM).

Also watched a demo of Dynamic Auto Painter which looks very cool but is Windows only.

What would the STW Mac-massive recommend?

Cheers

EDIT: the app needs to do the actual conversion for you (as opposed to have you faff around with brushes and pencils etc)

Photoshop of course, but The Gimp may also do what she wants although it may involve installing additional filters.

PS and GIMP aren’t the tools for this. I’m looking for something that takes an image and converts into into a painting/sketch automatically (with adjustable filters/settings of course).

DAP seems pretty good but is Win only. And the Akvis app doesn’t seem to have much PR around it, so I’m not yet inspired that it’s really any good.

Photoshop elements does make sketches/paintings out of photos in a click. Although it’s a seriously naff technique.

Yeah, but PS is too damn expensive in the first place.

These Akvis examples look good though …

Elements only 70 ish notes, and is WELL worth it imo. You get the ability to make naff paintings from photos 😉 but everything else too – layers, cloning etc etc and RAW editing.

These Akvis examples look good though …

😐

Molgrips is correct AND the GIMP WILL do what you want, but may be too involved for you.

Gimp ‘artistic’ filters here – http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Evaluation_Notes_-_Creating_Original_Art#Artistic

They do look errrr intersting though.

Post edited to comply with the Sister Wendy principle.