Recently, I got into the "painting" mood, and tried some artistic filters and plugins. Some of them can yield quite surprising transformations.
In the example below, I started with an old image taken on an overcast day in Valley Of Fire. First, I ran it through the Topaz Impression program, using da Vinci Sketch preset, and applied light saturation to retain some of red. Then I converted it to pure B&W, but I think, I prefer the warmer tones of the second picture. I found it amazing how much detail was removed, yet the main features remained intact. However, what I liked best is the fading effect of the road on both ends. In the original image taken by a medium telephoto, the road surface in foreground was rather blurred, whereas the fading as rendered by the Impression plugin looks much better.
To see more painting transformation examples, you can look at the review of the painting program on my blog, with many examples of "ruining" completely good photographs.
Topaz Impression Review.
