Bodie

I painted over a landscape photo in Paintstorm Studio, trying for a bristle effect. I finished the processing in iColorama, transforming it from a rather flat image to a vibrant image with depth.

I started with this photo I took in a ghost town in Bodie State Park.

I opened the photo in Paintstorm Studio Pro. On a new layer, I painted all over it with the Roller Simple brush. I made sure that Take Underlayer Color was checked, and I reduced Color Amount to about 5%. This means that the brush will pick up color from the underlying layer, rather than from the color picker. This will be my base color layer. With this layer, I can make sure that any areas that remain unpainted in the other layers that we will create can be filled from this layer.

I dragged the base color layer to the bottom of the layer stack, underneath the photo. On a new layer above the photo, I used the Rand Texture brush to loosely paint the buildings. I checked Take Underlayer Color, and I reduced Color Amount to about 5%, so that the brush will pick up color from the underlying layer (the photo layer), rather than from the color picker. For texture, I used the first texture in the list. Here I show only the paint layers, with the photo layer visibility turned off.

Now I created a new layer above the photo layer and underneath the buildings layer. I used the Flat Brush Direction brush to paint in the grass and foliage. I checked Take Underlayer Color, and I reduced Color Amount to about 5%, so that the brush will pick up color from the underlying layer, rather than from the color picker. For texture, I used the first texture in the list. While I painted, I turned off visibility of the buildings layer so it would not obscure the paint I was laying on. When I finished the foliage layer, I turned on visibility of the buildings layer, and I dragged the foliage layer to the top, because I want it to be in front of (on top of) the buildings. Here I'm showing the result with the visibility of the photo layer turned off, so what you see is just the paint layers.

Using Image/Color Balance&Brightness, I increased the contrast and deepened the color of the foliage layer.

Now I created a new layer above the photo layer and underneath the buildings and foliage layers. I used the Low Feature Dirty brush to paint the hills. I checked Take Underlayer Color, and I reduced Color Amount to about 5%, so that the brush will pick up color from the underlying layer (the photo layer), rather than from the color picker. After painting with these settings and covering the hills, I then increased color amount to about 50% and painted a few spots, choosing a light and a dark color from the color picker, for some color variation. Here I'm showing the result with the visibility of the photo layer turned off, so what you see is just the paint layers.

Then I created a layer above the photo layer and painted with a Roller 2 brush. In Brush Settings, I changed the texture and stroke direction to match the area of the photo I was painting over, on the buildings and other areas where there were gaps in the other layers where I wanted texture. The base color layer still shows through Where I don't care so much about texture.

I changed the blending mode of the hills layer to soft light at medium opacity, because I liked the effect better. I turned off visibility of the photo layer. So the layers for the completed painting are: foliage on top, then buildings under that, then hills under that, then the Roller 2 texture layer under that, then the base color layer at the bottom to provide color where there might otherwise be white spaces. I saved to my camera roll.

I opened the image in iColorama. I used Adjust/Tonelab preset 4 and Adjust/EQ for tonal separation, Tone/Enhance and Tone/Duotone for color, and Effect/Raise to emphasize the strokes.