Impasto oil paint effect

[photoken]

I've been trying for a long time to get an impasto oil paint effect, and finally got something that works:

Impasto 01.jpg

I used the #15 "speckled" brush:

impasto 01 brush.jpg

(with all the "Jitter" settings at 0 and the "Steps" at the default 10%).

Create a transparent image layer which will be painted on, copy it and paste it as a virtual copy. The layers look like this:

impasto 01 layers.png

The virtual copy layer has two layer styles -- Inner Emboss and Special Emboss. The next message will show the settings for those styles.

[photoken]

Here are the settings for the two layer styles of the virtual copy layer:

impasto 01 inner emboss.jpg

impasto 01 special emboss.jpg

By varying the intensity of the "Light" setting of the Inner Emboss style, and increasing the strength of the virtual copy layer, you have great control over the strength of the highlights -- the "oil paint" can be made dull or shiny....

Note: Because of the virtual copy needing to be updated, when painting on the image layer there's a noticeable lag between the brush position and the drawn effect. I guess that's to be expected....

Enjoy!

[photoken]

For your convenience, here's the impasto layer style as a PL preset:

Impasto.zip