Painted Image Effect.

Tutorial

Click on thumbnailed images to enlarge

Before we can start, you'll require Topaz Vivacity which can be found HERE.

Hoekay, what we're trying to achieve:

Neat.

1. Grab your image. I'm using one of Kevin Devine, who's real awesome.

As you can see, the image isn't great quality. That'll be fixed though.

2. Sharpen the image as needed. I sharpened mine once.

3. Filter >> Topaz Vivacity >> Topaz Clean. This part depends on your picture, so adjust it to your liking. These are my settings though:
Threshold: 19.68
Clean Radius: 5
Sharpness: 1.68
Hit okay.

4. Now hit CTRL+J to duplicate the layer. On your duplicated layer, go Filter >> Artistic >> Cutout. This part also depends on your image. My settings:
Number of Levels: 8
Edge Simplicity: 2
Edge Fidelity: 3