Nowadays, you don't have to be a proficient painter to turn your favorite photos into beautiful paintings...
With the aid of some digital tools the process of getting a nice photo-painting (that's how I called it) it's very simple. Although simple, the hardest part comes from the skills you have editing pics on the software of your choice.
Of course you can transform your photos right out of the camera, but it will look poor when you "digital-paint" them.
For this purpose I use mainly two apps: Adobe Lightroom and a plugin called Simplify by Topaz Labs. Both available for Windows and Mac.
You can use the plugin also in Photoshop, but I prefer Lightroom for editing my images.
I must say that the plugin it's in unsupported state now, and don't seem to come into another Topaz Labs bundle, but anyway you can use the version provided by clicking on the link.
First of all you need to get some basic skills with the Adobe LR software. There are thousands of tutorial on YouTube, I've found it very easy to use and the results are gorgeous when you work with RAW images. Remember that the more details the image you want to "paint" has, the better the "painted" version will be.
Next, after editing, you're ready to export into Topaz Simplify.
Here's a tutorial on how to do the process (it's for Photoshop, but it's similar to LR).
You can view some of my works with this technique on my Photo-Paintings wall art page.
And in a short video I've made...
Thanks for reading!