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IrfanView

Turn Images into "Oil Paintings"

SUMMARY: Add an artistic oil painting effect to your images with IrfanView.

Without having to buy expensive image manipulation software, would you like to make your images look like oil paintings? You can do this with IrfanView:

1. After loading an image into IrfanView, select "Image" - "Effects" - "Effects browser" (or press Ctrl+E).

Accessing IrfanView image effects

2. The "Image effects" dialog box appears. Underneath "Effects" click "Oil Paint".

3. A snapshot of the original image should appear underneath "Original image", and underneath "New image" you should see how the image should appear after performing the oil painting effect. Change the filter settings from 0-255 by clicking in the "Filter settings" box or moving the slider thumb. The larger the number, the larger the splotches.

Adjusting the Oil Paint filter in IrfanView

4. Click the "OK" button.

5. When you are done manipulating the image / photo, you may want to save a copy of the oil painted version.

Choose "File" - "Save As" (or press "S") to create a new copy of the modified image / photo. You can then choose the new image filename, type of image file to save (such as BMP, GIF, JPG, and TIF) and where to save the file on your computer, network, or removable media.

This tip was written for IrfanView 4.25 on a Windows XP system. Features, information, and screenshots for other versions and operating systems may differ.