Both are good, I like the Road with the mossy trees and the spiked fronds better than
the jungle, it may be due to the jungle being so 'busy' in the greens..

Glad you like the result, Sallyanne.

And you ninga'd me, Brian (glad you liked the result too).

When ready, Lyle, "give" your procedure to animicule, he will certainly be able to create a nice filter.

Will soon share the procedure I finalize on. That said, it's really not game for automation since I still cannot automate the nuances and there's more than enough unfortunately (hince still a quest and not a final; lol).

OK; not a tut but hints. The nuances (cleanup and other adjustments) is what's keeping me from posting a tutorial, but the hints and ones own way of cleaning may be of help.

ref: http://www.fontplay.com/freephotos/twel ... 108-01.jpg

First step is to create the convolution layer. Just dup a few times and hide base layer. Then top layer set to Hue and center layer set to Grain extract. Run G'MIC's Bilateral smoothing preset and merge visible. Screen shots below.

Now use the convolution layer a few times; all convolution layers set to Grain Extract except the bottom one which needs to be set to Value and adjust opacity to taste.

For a more surreal look. Copy the base layer and move all the away above the convolution layers and set the lowest one to Difference, the one above that to Color and the one above that to Saturation and adjust levels to taste. Again these are hints. Can choose to auto-level and many other things to get a result that's more to you liking. Unfortunately those steps aren't rote so I don't believe you can automate such a flow (not to mention artifacts; see lid of truck for instance and the line that occurs between light and shadow). Those artifacts require manual cleanup (what a pain). I didn't do so since this is not a tut but a guide.

OK; had another ah ha moment. I created the convolution layer by first adjusting the center level control pushing it left (making brighter) by a significant amount. For the one shown, I started out doing a contrast mask before starting the fake HDR flow. Pretty much artifact free (well, I could have done some sky cleaning but chose not to).

ref: http://www.allabouthappylife.com/wallpa ... c04097.jpg

ref: https://pixabay.com/en/architecture-bui ... y-1851095/

Seems to lend itself well now with cityscapes too (yes; did some wavelet denoise cleaning too).

Your last cityscape is outstanding, Lyle. Fantastic water!

Ditto

It is looking nice Lyle!

Appreciate all the comments/feedback. Before discovering the level trick, if I were to do the flow, there would be all kinds of artifacting especially the transition between sky scraper and sky (but other noticeable places too). Pretty happy now with this new method for creating the convolution layer. Still, my experiments continue.

OK; yet another method. Used G'MICs fast tone map (radius set to zero) and applied the convolution layer method (center level slider moved left to brighten up) mentioned earlier and blended to taste. If you go too extreme with fast tone map, you get a negative shadow underneath the carriage of the car. Anyway, just continuing with the quest. Not so fantasy this time (more photo-realistic) but it's all part of the same quest.

ref: http://www.fontplay.com/freephotos/3rd5 ... 205-14.jpg