ToonPAINT: Neat-Looking Sketches From Your Photos

by Pu on January 29, 2011

ToonPAINT by Toon-Fx was conceived as a tool to allow even people who don’t have a knack for drawing to come up with nice looking stylized pictures. Using image processing algorithms, ToonPAINT creates for you an easy to customize sketch.

As with all apps in the same league though, you have to make sure from the start you understand the difference between actual drawing and processing an image to make it look as if it was drawn. Usually, results are much better if you know how this kind of apps work and how and when they can come in handy.

Main Features

  • Up to 850×565 pixels resolution (3GS);
  • Zoom and pan;
  • Restore from previous session;
  • Undo/redo;
  • Basic and advanced settings;
  • Integrated guide;
  • Share via email, Facebook, Twitter.

Appotography Opinion

ToonPAINT is very simple to use and straightforward; yet, you have some reasonable control over your image. The effect is similar to what you would be able to achieve with a tracing tool in a vector editing software. ToonPAINT doesn’t actually turn images into vectors though; it only imitates the vector tracing style.

You start either with a picture you have previously taken or you take a snapshot with the built-in camera. With sliders you can adjust parameters — edges accuracy, amount of black/grey, etc. — but if you want even more control, you can switch to advanced settings and have at your disposal some more flexibility. After you apply the toon filter and your picture of choice is turned into a sketch-like image, you can proceed to apply color, if you wish. With a brush and a no-frills color-picking method, you can enrich your monochrome images. Getting the hang of the coloring process won’t be a problem, if you are already quite gifted in finger painting; it will be a bit harder if you are a total beginner, but the undo feature, with the possibility to zoom in and out and pan, will definitely help you. After you are done, you can save of share on Facebook and Twitter.

ToonPAINT by Toon-FX

Turn photos into sketches and apply color.

ToonPAINT by Toon-FX

At this stage, ToonPAINT is a cool little app you can use, for example, in combination with a strip creator app for developing your own instant comics. Many users in fact say they use this app especially for this purpose. However, there are a few things that could be improved even more to make ToonPAINT more functional. For example, it would be useful to have a preview in advanced settings to know exactly how your choices are actually affecting the image before applying them; a full-fledged undo command, to be used not only in the painting stage; full resolution, to make use of the images also outside your portable devices.

ToonPAINT allows the user to obtain very neat results, probably among the best on iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. If you want a photo-to-sketch app, Toon-Fx’s app is what you need.

Overall

Name: ToonPAINT
Developer: Toon-Fx
Compatibility: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad. iOS 3.0 or later.
Price: £1.19||$1.99||€1.59
Vote: 3/5

ToonPAINT - Toon-FX

ben February 1, 2011 at 2:23 am

This is app is so much fun! Gah! You can do a lot of things with it and your photos! I would love higher res, but still great!

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