Hi Rick,

There are a couple of ways to fill in the coverage. Some of the painterly effects cover better than others, though. Thicker paint looks such as Impasto or Oil will tend to cover a little better.

There’s also the lighting controls that will manipulate the highlights. This may be some of the cause of the speckles. These controls are demo-ed in the “Lighting For Textures” video, here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/WhsZAydy8ZU?rel=0

No matter what I try, there are ALWAYS tiny ares without coverage. Like you, I’m aiming for a look where people aren’t sure if it’s a photograph, but the speckles ruin it. I’ve tried altering their color, but it only makes it slightly less ugly; it does nothing to improve the realism. Nor does reducing opacity of the layer in Photoshop help (plu, I lose what I liked about the effect, as well).