Toon-FX

By Jennifer Allen on November 7th, 2011 Free for the next week, add a comic book style to photos. Having spent many years of my life trying to draw, I’ve come to accept that I’m never going to be a comic book illustrator, as much as I’d love to be. Apps like ToonPAINT go some way to repairing my bruised ego, however. It’s an app that allows users to create cartoon images from their own photos. Once the image is imported, the app converts it to a sketch format and opens up the possibility of coloring in the photo. Using some fancy image processing algorithms and a series of different colors, ToonPAINT opens ordinary photos up to the world of the graphic novel look. It’s all very easy to do but with some pretty cool results. It’s a neat app and doubles up as a great way to entertain kids who never fail to love coloring pictures in. ToonPAINT is normally priced at $1.99 but until November 12th, it’s available for free. Enjoy the artistic creations that this app can produce. $1.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Released: 2010-01-13 :: Category: Photography Read More

Want to add some social mobile fun to this Halloween? How about taking some of the snapshots you’re taking with your iPhone or iPod touch, and turning them into cartoon avatars for Facebook and Twitter? The process is easy, and all you need are a few apps. Once you have your photo, perform all of the necessary cropping and color adjustments in one of the many image editors available.  For this step in the process I’ve always used Photogene (iTunes link, $1.99). Photoshop Express is a good free alternative.  In Photogene, I auto adjust the colors and utilize a filter to sharpen the image.  This  sharpening helps out when the photo is converted into a drawing. I then crop the image, depending on what I want to use it for. If I’m creating an avatar for IM apps, I will typically use a 1:1 ration when cropping. If you just want this for a photo to post on someone’s wall, I find a 2:3 ratio works best.  Be sure to save the image back to the photo library before continuing. The second step in the process is to create a black and white pencil drawing of the image.  To do this, I use ToonPAINT (iTunes link, $1.99).  This app has the ability to fine ‘toon’ the results by adjusting what it refers to as the Edges, Gray and Black of the image. I’ve found that after making these adjustments, a final tap of the Soften button produces the best result.  From here, just save the image back to the photo library.  Don’t bother testing out your finger painting skills, color will be added next. The best way to add the color back to the black and white pencil drawing created by ToonPAINT is with your favorite layer-based painting app.  For this step, I recommend the New Yorker approved classic, Brushes (iTunes link, $4.99).  In Brushes, create a new drawing and immediately edit the layers of the drawing.  For the background layer, choose the original photo.  On top of that place the black and white drawing of the photo.  In Brushes, you can set the alpha of the backgrounds which will allow the layers to blend with one another.  By adjusting the alpha of the top layer to 70 percent, just enough of the colors from the bottom layer will bleed through. Sharing your masterpiece is the final step.  There’s a special Halloween version Read More

I rarely take photos with my phone because I am a lousy enough photographer with a real camera. The various app markets brim with software to help people like me. But I recently stumbled onto something far more useful: apps that take your lousy shots and help you turn them into something ridiculous, bizarre or maybe even beautiful. The short list includes, for Apple users, ToonPaint ($2), SketchMee ($3 for iPhones, $5 for iPads), Unicorn Shots ($1) and Color Splash ($2). For Android are free apps like PicSay and Pic Paint. On BlackBerry, Picture Magic ($5), Doodle ($1) and PhotoColor ($3) are worth a look. As is almost always the case, there are more, and better, apps in this category for iPhone users than for those with Android or BlackBerry devices. For people who are contemplating their next phone, the broader issue here may be worth quickly noting. IPhone app developers can create programs for one platform and just a few (very powerful) devices, and sell them on what is arguably the best software market, iTunes. Android and BlackBerry developers have a potentially bigger market, given the number of devices in circulation. But developers grumble about tailoring their apps to so many different types of BlackBerrys and Android phones, only to have the apps sell weakly on the less popular software stores — the Android Market and BlackBerry AppWorld. Those factors could change, of course, but for now it means Apple users will benefit from better software. Take, for instance, ToonPaint. The app lets you quickly choose an image from your iPhone and transform it into a cartoonlike sketch. Using a small range of options, you can tweak the thickness and spacing of the lines, and then apply a Technicolor dash. ToonPaint’s developers deserve high marks for making software simple enough to figure out on your own, yet not so simple that you feel as if you have exhausted its possibilities in one sitting. SketchMee is similarly good. This app turns your photos into pencil sketches of remarkable quality. You can adjust the pencil strokes in eight ways, and each option includes a brief tutorial that increases your odds of making art. I had recently taken a shot of my two youngest children with a friend. The framing was typically horrible and the flash reflected off of a cabinet behind my son. With SketchMee, though, it looked almost lovely. (SketchMee has Read More

Scott and Eric are back for another episode of the awesome podcast, “AppSlappy”. This week, the dynamic duo give listeners a run down of the recent outing of the next gen iPhone, which was only made possible thanks to an Apple engineer who (gasp) left the prototype phone at a California bar and Gizmodo eventually paying 5K for some hands-on time with the device. Other new news/reviews you’ll find in this episode include: You can download this week’s episode of AppSlappy directly and/or subscribe via iTunes. If you haven’t checked out the podcast yet, we highly recommend you give Scott and Eric’s show a try. It’s great for catching up on iPhone and app related content during the long commutes on those planes, trains and automobiles. Enjoy! Read More

...funzionamento è molto semplice, infatti basta scegliere una propria foto dalla libreria, o scattarla al momento, e successivamente scegliere la funzione MAGISKETCH, in questo modo l’applicazione crea l0 schizzo che voi potrete personalizzare a vostro piacimento cambiando colore o altro... Read More

In this week's romantical app roundup: Google, Buzzed! Phone trees, sheared! The Olympics, demystified! Doom II, taken down a notch! Your person, flailed around! Your visage, cartoonified! Sesame Street, Picasso'd! And more... To view this post as a single page, click here. Read More