The clouds in the picture before the palette knifed version is fabulous. I really liked that one. Great shot there.
The sandbank in the first picture took me immediately to summers in Sandy Hook, NJ

I too prefer the unfiltered images as final products.

But, to explore the images, I may filter them to learn about their gross lines. I was happy to uncover the power of the perspective in the uncropped last image.

I guess I said “bothered” (in a mild way) because it doesn’t seem a good way to make a photograph of a gull, nor of a beach texture. It is amusing about the interaction, though, as June and I found.

Whether or not you like the results of your image manipulation, I think it is an excellent way to learn about images. Changing composition, color, etc. teaches you what the effects of particular choices are. You can use what you learn next time you photograph.

for ‘rehabilitating’ clouds for me. Unreasonably, I tend to fear that they look like kitsch.

As you assure me, they do serve a purpose here.

I like the original photo and the one with the clouds. The clouds are a great contrast in their expanding right at you, out of the picture frame, (as contrasted with) to the calm horizontals below. What an effect.

I like the photos better than the photoshopped one, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I saw the original first and that influenced how I see the photoshopped version. Once the intricacies of wave and sand are revealed, the palette-knife seems crude. If they had been reversed on your post, perhaps I would feel differently.

And I love the near-camoflage of the gull. It makes me laugh.

Lightening the shadow underneath the seagull did not increase the camouflaging of the seagull. I learned that it was the absence of detail in the shadow that catches the eye. Why does the camoflage/indeterminacy of the gull bother you?

I also like the diagonal line in the last image. I cropped it out of the first image because it was not in focus. I will play with the original image some more.

Another modification that I tried was to make the picture more ‘Cezanne-like’ by compressing the foreground and stretching the background vertically in its palette-knife version. It was not at all interesting which proves that you are right about the importance of the diagonal line in front. Even though I had done that compressing and stretching, I had not consciously realized the importance of the vertical line. I had thought that the appeal of the palette-knifed picture consisted of some ‘wide angle’ effect.

Does the vertical line create a ‘wide-angle’ effect?