Pixiq

One of my favorite Photoshop plug-ins allows you to turn photographs into watercolor-like paintings with the adjustment of a single slider.  Topaz Simplify has several options for manipulating an image, but the slider 'simplify size' is all you need to create works of art. 

The picture you see here was taken during the annual Carnival in Venice photo workshop I conduct, and the costumed models make incredible subjects for this technique.  I bring a model into a 17th century palace, everyone in my group gets amazing images.  In this particular case, I replaced the background (a huge room in the palace) with a detail of one of the decorated walls in an adjacent room, and then I desaturated the color of the background to direct more attention to the subject.

Finally, I applied Topaz Simplify and instantly transformed the photo into a painting.  If you would like to see a collection of images where most were created with this technique, click here. This plug-in can be applied to many types of subjects, from landscapes, still lifes, florals, and travel.