Something Different!

I don't know if I am a frustrated photographer or a frustrated artist but which ever it is I enjoy manipulating some of my pictures, from time to time. I do it as an attempt at creating what I saw in my mind's eye and not what actually appeared in the viewfinder of my camera. It's fun to alter an image into an abstract, line drawing or just reconfigure it's composition. However; I suppose the final judgement, on where to stop, is left solely to the creator and it will probably never satisfy every viewers taste. Not all photographs have great artistic potential and not all photographers choose to deviate from reality but sometimes it's rewarding to bend the rules.
I do much of my image manipulation with filtration and often combine filters from various software to achieve the desired effect. There are numerous companies offering image editing and enhancement tools that work great and don't take a PHD to master. I use Photoshop, Corel, Akvis and Nik from Google.
The pictures that I am putting on this post are sets of before and after or the original print and the altered print. I hope you find them interesting enough to try it yourself.
The first image of the Zebra grouping was shot at the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, Michigan. I chose to remove the background because it competed with the focal point --- the animals. Digital cameras have a much greater depth of field than a film camera so I eliminated the sharp background at the edge of the grass line and replaced it with a manufactured sky.
The skyline photos were shot in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The effects are similar and were achieved with combinations of line drawing and glamour filters.

BEFORE

AFTER

CHICAGO  BEFORE

CHICAGO  AFTER

DETROIT  BEFORE

DETROIT  AFTER

LAS VEGAS  BEFORE

LAS VEGAS  AFTER

LOS ANGELES  BEFORE

LOS ANGELES  AFTER

Bird's Eye View of Chicago