Have you ever taken a really great photograph, and wondered how it would look as a sketch or watercolor painting to hang on a wall? Or, maybe you’ve taken a great outdoor landscape photo that would be awesome as a coloring page so your kids could practice coloring the beauty of nature.
There are some amazing apps that allow you to create this type of art, right from your phone. I would like to share and offer directions for three of my favorites which are Waterlogue, Colorscape, and PaintMee 2.
Waterlogue – How to Turn YOUR Photos into Watercolors without Photoshop!
You don’t need to be a great painter to create beautiful watercolor images. I really like the Waterlogue app to create realistic watercolor transformations using any picture from your iPhone or iPad. There are several watercolor apps available now, but this one seems to have the most realistic watercolor look to me. It’s also cheap, very easy to use, and great for scenery, travel pics, and still life. It tends to lose definition on portraits, especially faces but that’s how real watercolor looks anyway. It seems to work best with simple photos since too many details tend to blend together and there isn’t enough contrast.
Load a photo from your iPhone’s camera library and play around with it. Change the settings until you find your preference. Try all of the different pre-set effects, pixel sizes, and amount of paint. Find what you like. This is art so beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
How to Turn any Photo into a Watercolor
- Download the Waterlogue app (it’s available for iPhone and iPad for $4.99). Make sure you are running iOS 10.3 or later.
- Go into the Waterlogue app and upload a photo from your camera by clicking the Camera icon on the bottom left. Then click Photo Library to access your Camera Roll. (Note: If the photo you want to use isn’t on your phone, you can email the photo to yourself, and then access on your phone.)
- Choose the setting you want. There are 14 pre-set effects available at the bottom of the screen to customize your watercolor. I recommend experimenting with the effects to discover which ones you like the most. So far I prefer Vibrant, Rainy, and Soaked the most. However, it really depends on the picture you’re using. It’s easy to try each one to see what you like. When you click the effect, you’ll see an example of how it will look in a separate square on the right. Click 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 to change from small to jumbo. This controls the number of pixels used in creating your watercolor photo. The larger the number, the more fine detail will be captured. The final dark to light setting controls the amount of paint applied. You can play with this to see what you like. Click Auto to go back to the original. I typically use the default here. Click to add a border. There is only one border choice, but hey this app isn’t Photoshop, and it’s only a $4.99 one-time charge. That’s a lot cheaper than Photoshop.
- Click the share icon to share on social media, or save and print it out so you can hang or frame it. The settings are here as well, to the right of the print icon. You can save in different sizes, and as a JPEG or PNG. The output is truly print-worthy on a good printer. I printed the tulip garden on 8 1/2” x 11” glossy photo paper, and it’s beautiful. You can also order some matte or glossy finish photos from your local photo lab or Shutterfly for less than $4 for 8×10’s directly from your phone. If you want to go bigger, 11×14’s are usually around $11 and 16×20’s around $16. They are perfect to frame for your walls or for gift-giving.
It’s so easy! I’ve really enjoyed using this app. Have fun with it, and don’t be surprised if relatives think there’s a real Monet in the family when they see your watercolors hanging!
Colorscape – How to Make Custom Coloring Pages from YOUR Photos
I have nieces that love to color, so I went searching for a way to create a custom coloring book from some favorite family photos. They are so quick to make, and are sure to provide hours of coloring fun. They would also make great keepsakes to frame (after the kids color them) or really cute gifts for grandparents or other family members.
I found a free app called Colorscape available for both iPhones and iPads. This app can turn any photo into a coloring page instantly!
How to Create Coloring Pages
- Download the free Colorscape app.
- Open Colorscape, Tap the + to get started.
- Click Photo Album to select a photo.
- Select your photo. The app creates the coloring page image.
- You can color within the app if you like, but you should skip this part if you’re printing for kids to color.
- Save it, share it, or print it.
- Repeat steps 2, 3, 4, and 6 until you have all of the coloring pages you want.
Try printing out several pages from various family photos, and make into a coloring book by stapling in the top left corner. If you want to get a little fancier than stapling, use a 3-hole punch and brass paper fasteners, or put them in a 3-hole punch folder with a clear cover. You could also take them to Staples and have them spiral bound together into a booklet. This will cost a little more, probably around $5 so you might want to print out at least 10-15 coloring pages for each booklet on heavier paper like card stock (print a title page too, something like “Smith Family Photos”). This is a great way to utilize special family pictures and perfect for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gifts. I printed some from our last beach vacation and added a title page “Jekyll Island Coloring Pages”. Theme coloring books using family photos from Christmas, Birthday Parties, Graduations, Family Reunions, Field Day and other school events would be fun for kids to color. Print some for elderly or Alzheimer’s patients to color their favorite pets, playground pages for daycare kids, bride and groom pics for the kids table at weddings. The possibilities are endless!
PaintMee 2 – How to Turn a Photo into a Painting
With PaintMee 2, paintings are actually PAINTED stroke by stroke from your photos right before your eyes. There are 92 style options with this app including oil paintings, chalk, charcoal, sketches, inks, crayons, wood carving, Monet, and pop art. You simply have to play around with it until you find your favorite, but trust me you will enjoy trying all of the options. It’s easy, fast, and only a $2.99 one time cost.
The finished paintings are stored internally as complete 3D models made up of thousands of separate paint strokes.
How to Create Your Painting
- Select Photos to open any photo from your camera roll, or select camera to take a photo. Or paste or drag it into PaintMee 2 from iPhoto for example.
- Select a focal point by placing your finger on the face or most important part of your picture. A circle showing the focal point will appear. Moving the focal point dramatically alters the resulting painting because your selected focal point will be the most clear portion of your painting.
- Select the paint palette to choose a Preset and watch as your photo is painted in that style. This is the fun part! Play around with the different painting styles. I like Expressive and Detailed Sketch for portraits, and of course Monet for landscapes. The presets can be finely tuned by selecting Tune, but this part isn’t really necessary. Altered settings can then be saved as a new preset. Your “painting” can now be saved in 4K resolution, uploaded, or printed.
- There is even an option to lower the painting speed for a more relaxed and meditative watching experience. This is when you are saving your painting as a “movie” Use the slider to control how fast you wish the painting to be completed, from as-fast-as-possible 5 seconds to a slower 60 seconds.
I hope you enjoy using these awesome apps. It’s truly amazing how we can create such beautiful art from photos!