David Thoirin has announced the release of FotoSketcher 3.00, a freeware Windows application for transforming digital photos into works of art.

The headline addition this time is a new Painting 10 (brushstrokes) effect, which turns your source image into a painting – complete with the look of layered brush strokes – in a couple of clicks.

This might sound familiar, but no, it’s not anything like the disappointing “oil painting” effect you’ll see in other freeware, which mostly just seems to mean “pixelate and blur a little”. Thoirin’s technology is light years in advance of his clueless competition, and the new effect leaves them further trailing in his digital dust.

The new effect turns even a simple row of colours into a thing of beauty

The rest of version 3.0 is rather basic, by comparison. Are we excited by the addition of an “Invert colours” function in the interface, and script mode? No, not really.

Elsewhere there’s apparently “improved Painting 4 responsiveness”, new keyboard shortcuts to move the divider between the left and right panes, and some cosmetic interface tweaks.

It all makes for a fairly short “new features” list, but that’s just fine with us, because FotoSketcher 3.00’s “brushstrokes” effect justifies the download all on its own. Now try it out for yourself.

It’s hard to believe, but this was an old photo, not a painting. Click to view it full size, and it gets even better