In the minds of many people an image is not “Art” unless produced by some hand process like painting, drawing, etc.
I have had many photographs receive the compliment, “Gee, it looks like a painting!”, as if somehow painted images (no matter how poorly done) are the gold standard by which images are judged.
“Looks just like a painting” is not a compliment to me.
Lately I have discovered some Photoshop processing the does a terrific job of changing a photograph into a watercolor style image. The processing is flexible enough that feeling and mood can be modified to express what I want to say.
Here are some images that started as photographs.
photodyssey 