Great effects

First find the source image online. This is easy if you have adequate tools. Goto http://www.tineye.com. This is a graphical comparison engine (there are now also engines popping up for music). Upload a scaled down image of any “treated” image you like (even your own scanned image) and the engine will look through a billion or so images in its database. Up pops many source images from online sources, regardless of how altered the treated image is, or how cropped/mangled. Now compare/download the original image. The cheetah comes from http://www.thebigcats.com

Buy/download Redfield Fractilius: http://www.redfieldplugins.com. Start with the “Slow motion” preset. Crank up saturation and lower the brightness. Play with line thicknesses and radiusses until the image resembles the wispy and styalised final image. 35,69,69,23; 51,31,70,20; -50, 40 using v.1.03 of the plugin comes pretty close to the cheetah, without modifying the source image.

Source images with maximum contrast and saturation work the best, as would a photographic composition with smoke. In fact if an image is good enough as a wallpaper, it is ideal for Fractilius. Normally you require a telephoto zoom to keep the background blurred and the subject sharp. You could artificially blur out areas you don’t want heavily stylised and sharpen up areas that you want to highlight subsequently using the filter. Some fantastic images can be obtained from plants, (esp flowers), as well as texture images.

For poster size prints, even low resolution source images can be upscaled using your favourite fractal upscaler, then sharpened and stylised with the filter.

Enjoy,
Bob

regards,
zaytuun | Fractal Art WebGallery