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This is a photo of a female Cardinal taken in rather drab conditions...failing light, foliage, etc...but it had a good composition and was fairly well focused. I decided to play with it rather than to discard it. First thing was to size and crop then adjust tonal clarity. Next step was to slightly HDR the image to take it farther to a painted look and then some darkening around the distracting foliage. Choosing a oil painting filter I tweaked it ever so slightly and finally applying a slight relief to intensify the oil look. Minor cosmetic features were tended to like the beak , eye, and lighting. Realize it was not intended to look like an actual photo. Comments are welcome and think of what you might do to it.