Artistic inspiration can strike at any moment. That’s why you need to have the best apps for turning photos into paintings installed and ready to go on your phone at all times. These apps will turn your snapshots, selfies, and vacation pics into works of art in just a few taps!
You can use these apps when you want to impress your friends with great event photos or when you want to capture the breathtaking vistas on your next trip. The possibilities are endless, and so are the styles of art these apps will create. You’ll get watercolor effects, painted-canvas effects, and more—and they’re all super easy to use!
So whether you’re an artist trying to save some time or just a casual user looking for a new way to share photos with friends, one of these apps is sure to be perfect for you!
best apps for turning photos into paintings
Turning your photos into works of art will let you mix up your Instagram feed or wall decor with unexpected, eye-catching images. Get creative with style and color while sticking with your favorite subjects and themes. You don’t need to be a naturally gifted Picasso or have advanced photo editing software to give your images a painterly look, either. Instead, there are several apps you can use to add effects with one touch and then make detailed edits. Here are six of our favorite apps for turning photos into paintings.
1. Adobe PaintCan
Adobe PaintCan doesn’t simply apply a painterly effect to your photos; instead, it lets you use six types of brushes and effects to paint over your image. Colors are auto-chosen based on where you paint. You can also undo all of your work or use an eraser to undo a portion of your work.
When you first play around with Adobe PaintCan, you may feel like the image becomes too blurry and impressionistic. The trick is to use a two-finger motion to enlarge the picture. Then, whatever brush you’re using will cover a smaller area of the image, meaning you can paint in more detail. The app has a number of sample photos to play around with so that you can experiment before using your own photos.
2. Brushstroke
With Brushstroke, you can apply one of many painterly effects with one touch. There are several art styles and color palettes to choose from. You can transform your videos into moving paintings, too.
Included in the more than 50 presets are abstract, acrylic, gloss, lead pencil, oil and watercolor. After choosing your style, you can change the intensity of the effect. Then, adjust the colors and add texture to the background. When you’re done, sign your work before you share it online or have it printed out.
If you’d like to turn your image into wall art, Brushstroke has teamed up with CanvasPop so you can order canvas prints and have them shipped to your home.
3. Glaze
With Glaze, your photos-turned-paintings will look real enough to touch. You’ll be able to actually see the layered paint, just like on a real painting. Since many of Glaze’s effects have a lot of texture, they work best on images with contrasting colors and distinct shapes. There are a number of effects that you can apply with one touch. More than 30 styles come free with the app, and you can unlock more for a low fee. You can also stack styles to create presets.
With the Transparency Pack, you can use masks to apply effects to portions of the image. You can also save transparent layers for blending. Try out the pack for free. The best part about the app is that it walks you through how to use its features, and there’s also a user guide and a video tour for even more help.
4. Prisma Photo Editor
Prisma Photo Editor has over 300 filters, many of them modern and colorful. This is a nice change from other photos-to-art apps that veer toward the abstract and impressionistic. Some of Prisma’s filters preserve so much of the photo that it looks like a crisper, smoother version of itself, with just subtle artistic differences.
There are traditional painterly effects, too, and Prisma releases new filters all the time. You can emulate styles from history’s greatest artists, like Dali, Munch and Picasso. Once you’ve applied a filter, use sliders to make adjustments and edits. You can change settings like contrast, exposure and sharpness.
5. Tangled FX
Tangled FX adds a distinct effect to your photos that you won’t find on other apps. Images look dynamic and wild after being “outlined,” which brings the photo’s natural etching, fibers, strokes, swirls and webs to the forefront. You’ll notice details, shapes and movement you don’t see with the naked eye.
What makes Tangled FX a standout app is that it doesn’t have an array of painterly effects, but instead does one thing and does it expertly well. There are still 16 styles to choose from, but they’re all within that “tangled” realm. Quickly apply your chosen effect, then use advanced settings to make more tweaks and fine-tune. Save your custom presets for easier editing in the future.
6. Waterlogue
Similar to Tangled FX, the Waterlogue app focuses on one type of effect. Waterlogue is specifically for adding watercolor effects to your paintings, and within that, there are a lot of filters to choose from. The app comes with 14 presets, and you can further customize your images by controlling color, pen outlines and wetness. Play with effects to keep shapes distinct or to have colors run together and create a more abstract image.
The nature of watercolor effects makes them best for landscapes and still life photos. For vistas and street scenes, try to capture some of the blue sky and white clouds – contrast like that looks particularly pretty in watercolor. Waterlogue doesn’t have a ton of editing functionality, so you may want to use it in combination with your preferred editing app to make advanced changes.
Once you know which apps you’ll use to give your photos an artistic feel, go through your camera roll to find images you thought were too boring to post. Sometimes the most simplistic photos look stunning when given a painterly treatment. Also, while we encourage you to experiment with painterly effects on any and all of your photos, the ones that tend to look best have high contrast and basic shapes, like architecture, landscapes and portraits.
turn photo into painting app free
It may take artistic geniuses hours upon hours to complete their masterpieces, but you can now make one in minutes. Thanks to some photo to painting apps, you can use your smartphone to turn any selfie or photo into an instant painting.
Stunning filters will allow you to select between a wide variety of painting styles. Soon, you’ll be impressing all of your friends with your beautiful and creative pieces—whether you use them for profile pictures or hanging wall prints.
Here are the six best apps for turning pictures into paintings.
- Prisma Photo Editor
3 Images
Prisma Home
Prisma Flowers
Prisma Painted Flowers
Prisma kicked off the art-style filter craze because it is remarkably easy to use and does a few things none of the other apps on this list do.
With Prisma, once you choose a photo and a filter, it will apply the filter immediately and show you a preview of your final image. You can then slide your finger left or right to denote the intensity of the filter, from 0 to 100 percent. There are also the usual image editing options like exposure, contrast, saturation, and more.
The free version has plenty of great filters already. If you want to unlock over 500 filters and effects, you’ll need to subscribe to the Premium plan for $1.99 per week.
Download: Prisma for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
- PicsArt Photo & Video Editor
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PicsArt Homescreen
PicsArt Flowers
PicsArt Artistry Flowers
If you’re looking to do more than simply transform a photo into a painting, PicsArt is a fantastic option. The app functions as a full photo editing service complete with selfie and video editing capabilities, collage layouts, and a selection of beautifying tools and filters.
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Within these filters, you’ll find a few different options that will allow you to completely alter the appearance of your selected photo into that of an artist’s painting. You can edit the photo to near perfection and change the filter for pure artistry in minutes.
Download: PicsArt for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
- GoArt: Art Photo Editor
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GoArt Login
GoArt Flowers
GoArt Creating Blue Flowers
Another excellent app to help you turn a photo into a painting is GoArt. GoArt has been designed with a major focus placed on the ability to print the art that you create. This brings some excellent benefits and a few potential issues for your photo needs.
The app uses AI technology to convert the photo into an artistic piece. Although it creates a clean and quality image, this can take a few minutes to process, unlike most instantaneous options. However, like Prisma, GoArt allows you to adjust the intensity of the effects to ensure the resultant artwork is of your liking.
Once you’re finished, you’ll notice there’s a watermark on the photo. You can save up virtual coins in the app to remove it or upgrade to the premium version for its complete removal.
You can select from various art styles, including everything from expressionism to structuralism. Create masterpiece after masterpiece and frame them on your walls at home.
Download: GoArt for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
- PhotoLab: Art Picture Editor
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PhotoLab Home Page
PhotoLab Flowers
PhotoLab Creation Peach Flowers
If you love experimenting with funny, creative, and beautiful filters, PhotoLab: Art Picture Editor is the right app for you.
This is a great option for people looking to add a little something extra to their social media pages. PhotoLab is more than just a photo to painting app. The AI-driven tech is extremely easy to use and will automatically do edits, like cropping, for you.
From the app, you can easily upload your image to social media or share it on a platform specifically designed for sharing digital art. PhotoLab has a wide range of filters available, so you can try different ones to see which one suits a specific picture.
Download: PhotoLab: Art Picture Editor for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
- Insta Toon: Cartoon and Art Cam
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Instatoon Blank Page
Instatoon Flowers
Instatoon Oil Painting Flowers
Insta Toon has developed a strong fan following by providing a high-quality product that actually delivers exactly what you’re asking for. There are fewer photo editing tools available in this app, as it focuses strictly on turning your photos into paintings.
Simply upload an image from your camera roll or take a picture in real-time to get started. From there, scroll through the list of available filters until you find the perfect fit. There are a plethora of filter options, including black and white sketch designs, oil paintings, and comics.
You can save the new piece as a still image, GIF, or video, and share it with family and friends. You can also export in different resolutions, including SD, HD, and Full HD. This app is only available for iPhone, however.
Download: Insta Toon for iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
- BeCasso: Photo to Painting App
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BeCasson Main Screen
BeCasso Flowers
BeCasso Oil Painting
BeCasso is filled with premium artistic filters that are styled after your favorite artists, like Vincent Van Gogh and Picasso himself. After uploading your selected photo, scroll through a long list of different artistic techniques and select the filter that you love.
You’ll want to touch up your photos before uploading them, as most of the photo editing tools in this app are unlocked only after paying for a subscription. Check out our list of the best photo-editing apps for iPhone for different options.
One of the coolest aspects of this app is the partnership with MyPostCard. For a very small fee, the app will turn your new art piece into a postcard and send it to an address of your choice.
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