Digital Impasto Study

Here was a test to try to recreate impasto on a painting in Photoshop. The idea was to sell the thickness of the paint. First I did a painting study in Photoshop, then I brought that into Designer, and created a height map based on differences between the painting and a blurred version of the painting. I had a couple outputs from designer (mainly height outputs) that I composed in Painter, and did a bit of final height map painting. The final piece was captured in Painter itself for the lighting, since other lighting attempts didn't look as good. This was just an initial test and I think the process could be improved to fake the "impasto" look. Let me know if you have any questions!