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What I am trying to do is convert a photo into areas of flat colour with smooth edges.

Basically, turn a landscape or cityscape into smoothly contoured areas that represent the shapes in the original photo, but which are semi-abstracted by their complete absence of detail.

I'd want to use a simple palette of colours, that doesn't necessarily represent the real colours, though the similar tones in the original picture would tend to be the same colour in the output.

Any ideas most welcome.

Thanks

Photoshop (Elements) includes such a filter, but don't ask me its name. A more sophisticated solution is Buzz Pro from www.fo2pix.com. Another freeware alternative is Simplifier from http://photoshop.msk.ru

You don't need to achieve any other plug-ins, go to the root Photoshop's Filtre-Artistic-Cutout and voila!