Photoshop technique

I know that two of my artist is painters (but still manage to get their work online perfectly) and painting is not digital art (per se). But I went on www.photoshopessentials.com and found two ways that was amazing:

1.  Turing a photo into a sketch image
2. Turing a photo into a oil painting
3. Turing a photo into a watercolor painting

I know their version is kinda cheesy in a way but, I can tweek it a little. SO, I can take simple picture and turn it either into a painting or a sketch. Neat huh? I don't need paint at all.

Also, I found out that DAZ studios is a combination of Maya, photoshop and (ever so popular) Zbrush.