One Incredible HACK to Using the Alla Prima Textures!

Do you remember the clipping masks in Photoshop? This hack is sort of like that.

There are three components. 

1. A retouched image
2. A colorful, painted, full bleed texture
3. A monochromatic, contrasty, brushed topper like the Alla Prima ll textures (or veil, which would be harder to use here)

Number one will be your bottom layer in Adobe Photoshop. 2, the second layer, and 3, the top layer. 

Set layer 2 to Hard Light (or whatever works best with your image) under layer mode.

Set Layer 3 to Screen.

MAGIC!

I didn't even take this through Corel Painter! It would be a fabulous prep file, but as is it's ready to print!

 More in depth

I gently retouched my image first in Adobe Photoshop CC 2022 using a Wacom Intuos Pro medium tablet and basic tools (healing brush, stamp, etc). The beauty of controlling outdoor light with a strobe typically means less retouching is required. I'm working in Adobe RGB 1998 in a 16 bit file as...