Take Photo

Below is a step-by-step workflow from start to finish for this painterly piece, "Grouper". I will provide a list of links to the apps used at the end of the tutorial. As always, this edit was done entirely on my iPad 4.

Below is the original photo taken of a grouper with an iPhone 5S through the glass of a marine aquarium in Dana Point, California. I had the camera set to shoot in Square mode.

While still in Snapseed, I used Tuning to increase Ambiance, increase Contrast, increase Brightness, decrease Shadows and decrease Warmth to cool down the image a bit. I saved this image to my Camera Roll. 

There was another fish swimming behind the main subject and quite noticeable, so I opened up the image above in Sketch Club and used a soft brush to paint out the fish by using a color selected from the background with the inkdrop tool. This image was saved and was ready to be taken to the next step.

I opened the image above in the Sketch Guru app and ran it through the app using two separate settings. First, I used Pencil Sketch and saved that. 

Next I used Watercolor 2 and bumped up the saturation a bit while still in Sketch Guru. I saved this version as well. So I now had two versions that I created using Sketch Guru.

Next I opened up Sketch Club and created a new document. On one layer I added the Sketch Guru Watercolor 2 result and on the layer above it I added the Sketch Guru Pencil Sketch result. I blended these using the Hard Light setting and reduced the opacity of the top layer a bit so it wouldn't be so harsh. This combined image was saved to the Camera Roll and I was ready to move on to the next app.

The blended version created above was then opened in Repix. Here I used the Drips brush to blend the background in a painterly way. If the drips cover part of your main subject and you don't like them there, you can always use the Undoer brush! I'm so thankful the developer added this when I suggested it to him. While in Repix I also applied the Mist filter over the image to lighten it up a bit and then saved the results.

Just a few steps to go! I opened up the Repix version in Stackables and added a filter from the first menu on the top left called Glacial Ice and saved this.

I wanted the final to be a bit muted, so I ran the filtered version above through Stackables again and this time I applied one of my custom formulas called "Fade Away". Hopefully this formula will appear in the next Stackables update.

I have had a few requests to find out if I will ever be teaching a painterly course. If you're interested, please leave a comment below and I will start collecting names in case I ever decide to go forward with it. If I get enough interest, it would definitely be something I'd love to pursue. The course would be complete with detailed video tutorials.