As I've let it be know in our local group Alien Skin software is a favorite of mine. Their rich histories of Photoshop Plug-ins are an indispensable item in any graphic artist's tool kit. The SNAP art plug-in is no exception.
SNAP art is a filter set featuring 10 fully adjustable factory presets. SNAP art specializes in drawing/art looking filters. It makes it easy to change any digital picture into an oil painting, charcoal sketch, comic book, colored pencil, pen /ink and a bunch more. The program allows you to save the adjusted filters so that you can use them over and over again and name them for the client or project that you're using them on.
The interface is very intuitive and responsive. Effects, brushes, colors, canvas and lighting are all easily adjusted with sliders.
The requirements are fairly simple for a product like this. Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer / Windows XP or better. You will need at least 512 mb of RAM, although if you're a serious professional more RAM is a must to speed up the render of larger files. We all know that you can do these types of effects in Photoshop with a little work. The reason I like this program so much is the ease in which it creates the effects and the quality of the out of the box effects it contains. More free time is your return on investment here. So if you don't have anything better to do than monkey around with Photoshop's factory filters this program is not for you, although if your like the rest of us and want to increase your workflow while maintaining a quality output, purchase this program now and never look back!