Hi Yves, Thanks for the kind words.
I imported the original RAW file to Nikon's Capture NX2, which is where I generally do most of my work.
I used Nik's Sunshine filter with settings that would give more of a sense of brightness with bit more shadows than the original scene. It also lightens those areas of the house that were subdued. You kind of need to fool around with filter drop down menus to get the effect you are looking for.
Next I used NIK's Flux filter, with 2nd pull down menu setting to grunge it up a bit. This filter actually stretches pixels in a somewhat random way resulting in "sloppy" straight lines and features. It is a look I often used in this sort of style.
I imported the converted TIF file to CS5......
I then used Topaz Simplify to reduce some detail and give me a smoother look to the image. I used the OIL Painting preset and then did sliders to taste. I also did my cloning in this step of the unwanted features.
Now back to Capture NX2 for more grunge with Flux to further distort what Simplify did. Here I did selective area work only, since I didn't want the effect applied to the trees or some of the other vegetation. Mostly worked on the house.
Add in about a 6 layers of hand work in saturation, color balance, and light balancing for the effect I wanted.
I believe most or all of NIK's filters are available as Photoshop pluggins, so you should have access to all of these tools.
Hope this helps.......I realized that this particular workflow style is very subjective and depends on the look you are after, and of course, some experimenting. Give it a go, and see how you can transform an image. If you have any questions along the way.......here I am.
