Have been trying for months to get a filter to work for Oil Paint

[jcpete60]

Last night I spent almost an hour with a nice guy trying to help me with graphic card issue to get the Oil Paint filter to work on Photoshop 2020 for Mac. He seemed to know what he was doing and came on screen to help but when he was done so was Oil Paint filter. It was no longer available to use.

I was an old computer user back in the late 70's before Apple became Apple, but a lot of the new language now has me baffled. I'm an artist and love the filters that are available, but I would like to use Oil Paint now and then. What can be done?

[Guest]

Hi

Have to checked in preferences to make sure OpenCL is enabled, go to edit > preferences > performance also check that Photoshop is seeing your GPU

[jcpete60]

I looked at what you sent me. Thanks but I can't seem to set the settings the same in your screenshot. When I open preference and then performance and then advance setting for draw mode I can't check Use OpenCl my ideal range is 3791-4963. The only thing I was able to change was cache level from 2 to 4 and Cache tile Size 1024K. I did that and didn't the error message as usual but looked like nothing changed. Thanks for trying.

[lc55472355]

I've updated the followig entry after reaalizing that the oil paint filter is found in Filter > Stylize  rather than Filter > Filter Gallery > Stylize.  <blushing!>

Hey, another oldster here.  I learned some COBOL programming for early mainframes, in college in 1978.  I began using PC's for work a few years later, when a 20MB hard drive was considered enormous!  I fell in love with these machines and have been using them ever since.  I've been glued to my Photoshop screen for the last 4.5 years, making digital art.

My current graphics card runs all of the features in Photoshop.  Before I upgraded my computer, I seem to recall that features I could not use were grayed out rather than absent.  I also used to get a message every time I started up Photoshop, warning me that Photoshop would not use my GPU because it wasn't up to snuff.

For anyone who wants to see if their card has all the right stuff, there is a GPU FAQ that was updated 11-4-2019.  (I note that Oil Paint is still listed as one of the features that won't work without a GPU, however that could well have been an oversight.) You will find the FAQ at https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html

I'm not a Mac user, but I would be happy to help anyone who can't find the spec info discussed in the article.

The Oil Paint filter creates brush strokes which are  very strange and not at all lifelike, so if you can't access it, it is no loss in my opinion.  (To see examples, do an image search for "oil paint filter in Photoshop" or take a look at the pics in this tutorial https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/how-to-use-the-oil-paint-filter-in-photoshop-cc/ 

I, too, love using some of the other available filters.  There are a number of ways to turn photographs into sketches and paintings in Photoshop using tools and commands that are accessible without a high-powered graphics card.  Let me know if I can point you in the right direction to explore some of these techniques.

[jcpete60]

Thanks for the information and I looked at the tutorial for oil pant and you are right I don't like the results. Too much texture and not lifelike at all. Put before I got photoshop 2020 the oil paint almost gave more of comic or cartooninsh efect I liked. I did try changing my cache level and tile size as suggested by someone else, and got oil paint to now at least show up but doesn't see to change the imgae I have but it is a start. I don't think I am going to worry about that much. I have other filters that do similar things anyway, but Thanks for the information.

[gener7]

See if any of these look promising: https://exchange.adobe.com/creativecloud.photoshop.html

Search for "Oil Paint"  There's a lot of good actions and extensions there.

You can also search for third party plugins on Google, paid or free.

Corel Painter is an excellent natural media program for artists and I've seen some use it as a companion to Photoshop.

It can go down as far as $125 for the full version. https://www.painterartist.com/en/product/painter/

[lc55472355]

May I offer more of my two-cents worth, in the hope of perhaps saving you some of the time I've devoted (some would say wasted) in the same search?

Note: Most of the oil paint actions offered in Adobe Exchange use the oil paint filter. 

One year ago I reviewed EVERYTHING on the market--programs/apps, plug-ins, and third-party brushes for Photoshop--looking for something that could recreate the three-dimensionality of impasto painting or dry brush, because I love texture in a painting.  Verve, if you're willing to devote lots of time to learn it, was the best I found for creating texture with a brush tool. 

Corel Painter has an extremely steep learning curve for those who want to paint with it, which is the primary purpose of the program.  Corel Painter Essentials is designed for folks who want to paint over a photograph or paint more simply with brushes.  Corel's PaintShop Pro is their equivalent to Photoshop.  Corel's programs have a reputation for being buggy and slow, so I highly recommend checking user reviews of the latest edition before buying.

I have experimented, again and again, with brushes in Photoshop.  Mixer brushes combine colors but don't add texture.  When I learned that K.T. Webster, prior to joining the Adobe team, sold his impasto brushes with an accompanying style to bring out the three-dimensionality,  I was intrigued.  I was able to eventually create ny own custom style, to use with some of Webster's brush presets, that realistically imitates the texture of dry brush.  In my opinion, without such a style, Webster's brushes look as flat as the ones created by Adobe.

Some artists who use traditional media favor a smooth style devoid of visible brush strokes--the only texture you might discern is the underlying canvas.  There are many ways in Photoshop to give an image the look of being on canvas, and you can combine it with most of the filters.

There are also lots of videos on Youtube showing how to create "smudge paintings" in Photoshoop, if that technique interests you.

Adobe's new program, Fresco, is designed exclusively for Apple Pencil.  I've read claims that you can create richly textured strokes with it, but none of the examples in their ads seem to bear this out.  However, if you have an iPad, and want to paint and draw from scratch, this app would be well worth checking out.

[gener7]

I really appreciate your input. Basically I'm giving out some ideas, but since it isn't my specialty, all I can do is suggest.

[lc55472355]

So you're not an expert in all things Photoshop?  ;D  Whenever I see the title Adobe Community Professional, I've assumed that person knows all the in's and out's and wrinkles of the program. Thanks much for informing me it ain't necessarily so.

As for me, I just hate to think of someone having to recreate the wheel when someone else has researched the h--- out of something and is happy to share.  Every time I spend days in the Photoshop weeds, I can't help wishing I could find one of the individuals out there on the web who already knows all the answers on the subject.  And when I'm finished typing up my copious notes, I think I should publish them as a booklet on Amazon so other people could benefit from them.  But doing that would take up as much of my time as the research did and I would have to revise and republish every time a pertinent upgrade was made in Photoshop.

Thanks to you, and mglush, too, for being helpers to all us users who ocassionally hit a wall we can't scale on our own. 

[jcpete60]

Thanks for your help.

--
John Carroll
Do the Hokey Pokey and turn yourself around

[mglush]

I would also suggest looking through the Mixer Brushes. You can get a really beautiful Oil paint look using the settings in the mixer brush section of the Brushes panel. There are some terrific Brush Presets that look like oils also!

Michelle