This fall I have so many things happening that I can’t wait for – a trip to LA to test print my new series, my Promoting Passion Convention, hiking Machu Picchu, visiting Peru, Seattle, NYC, PA, and Florida…selling my house in favor of downsizing and living more simply…There is so much goodness coming. And with that goodness comes anxiety and nerves and busy-ness and chaos. But with all of those things I learn and I grow and I step into who I want to become. This truly is going to be a transformative season.

I started thinking about the coming of the new weather and change, and that prompted me to pull out this image I shot earlier in the summer. I wanted to create a painterly image, but I didn’t feel like it was the right time to jump into editing just yet. Now that something shifted within me, this image called to me and I pulled it out from the archives. I get asked often how to create a painterly effect in an image. The easy answer is to use a texture overlay, which does work great and you can find 150+ free textures right here on my blog.

However, this particular image was a 3-step process and I didn’t use a single texture on this piece. Here’s how:

1. De-noise. De-noising an image will soften without blurring, so it still looks in focus but not sharp. Filter–>Noise–>Reduce Noise
2. Clone stamp. By using the clone stamp tool as a very small brush and continually running it over the edges of my subject, I could create little tiny brush strokes.
3. Liquify. By smudging the pixels around in liquify and then lowering the opacity on that layer, it looks like big brush strokes are running through parts of the image. Filter–>Liquify

Those three steps are how I achieved any sort of a painterly look that you see in this image. I hope that helps for your future edits if you ever want to add a little bit of a painterly effect!

Have a beautiful day wherever you are. I’ll be at my favorite chai tea spot sitting on a balcony in the breeze editing my novel.

I decided to share a backward edit of the photo I am sharing today to emphasize how everything that we do begins as a small idea. It may seem impossible, it might seem like it isn’t worth finishing, and there might be people criticizing the idea or the process; but in the end, when all is said and done, it is not the finished product that means half as much as the journey. An idea stays an idea unless you see it through to the end, and in the end, people judge their lives based on how many ideas became reality.

And if you would, share what you plan on doing this week that will turn an idea into reality. I want to be inspired by your commitment to seeing it through to the end.