[NB: I do not own the copyrights to any of these images.]
Getting the results below previously required an expert hand or buying actions.
Actions are small programs that perform a number of steps in Photoshop on an image automatically.
If you wanted an image to look like a watercolor painting then you could buy an action to do that. It might go through 20 to 30 steps to get that look. Such as adjusting contrast to a certain point, setting the saturation, changing the brightness, applying a cross hatch filter and so on.
I find actions tough to install and work with. Every designer works with them, however, which has caused much of online graphic work to look the same. I prefer these filters to get similar results to actions.
These new neural filters provide two kinds of style transfers (internal link to more musings on this). Artist styles and image styles. After converting a monotone image to color, again provided by a neural filter, look at these two wildly different image styles. Both done with just one click.
This is the first time I think Adobe’s outrageous subscription fee for Photoshop is worth it.
Now, take a look at the custom style transfer filter. I’m using two photos I took today. I like the color scheme and the design of this Packard.
Here’s the original photo. It focuses on the strong grillwork.
Here’s the photo I want to transfer the car’s style to.
And here is the result. Something of the horizontal has been brought in.
Here is another original photo with more of the car as well as the foreground and background.
Here’s the transfer of style.
Notice how the gravel or sand texture has been brought in.
All of these were one click transfers. Several adjustments are possible before applying them.
NB: I do not own the rights to any of these photographs.