11 Best Apps to Turn Photos into oil paint Paintings

11 Best Apps to turning  photos into art oil paint Paintings

Do you want to make your photos look like paintings? If so, there are lots of great apps out there that will do photos into art just that! In this guide, we'll show you 8 of the best apps for iOS and Android smartphones , as well as a couple of products for Mac and Windows computers. Ready to transform your photos into beautiful paintings? Read on!

Let’s dive right in!

 

Best 2023 Phone Apps to Turn Photos into Paintings in

If you want to turn your painting into a picture for free, there are several great iPhone and Android apps that can help. Some of the apps require a small payment to download, while others are free but require payment for additional features. Here are the best options: Some of the best iPhone and Android apps to turn paintings into pictures are free, while others require a small payment.

1. Colorcinch (Web)

If you're looking to give your photos a new look, try Colorcinch. This best-in-class tool comes with hundreds of effects that can turn your portraits and landscapes into incredibly realistic paintings and sketches. You can also adjust the intensity, color, and other details to create truly unique artwork.

Colorcinch also comes with a variety of hand-crafted frames, masks and overlays that you can play around with to further personalize your photos. 

2. Brushstroke (iOS) oil portrait canvas

If you want to turn your ordinary photos into beautiful works of art, Brushstroke is the perfect app for you. It's quick and easy to use, and the app will automatically start transforming your photos. In addition to this, there are a vast array of filters and creative applications that you can apply to your photos. This way, you'll get a different look every time. You can browse and select filters for color, canvas, and effects using icons, and then tap to add them to your photo.

At Brushstroke, we believe that an authentic artistic experience should be open to everyone. So, we provide a blank section on our app for you to use the touchscreen and sign your name below your painting when completing the photo-to-art process. Once you're done, you're free to share your painting directly on social media. We think Brushstroke is one of the best products on the app store for iOS.

3. Glaze (iOS) oil painting on canvas

The Glaze iOS app has been hanging around the App Store for several years now, but it’s still an impressive photo-to-painting app on iPhone.

Glaze provides users with a comprehensive set of image editing tools to apply painting styles to photos and fine-tune the outcomes.

The best thing about Glaze is that you can create custom art styles by blending existing styles in the Workshop mode. Then, all you need to do is apply the painting style to your photo, and it will look like the art in the Glaze menu. If you want to get really creative, you can edit your portrait photos in portrait orientation and your landscape shots in landscape orientation. The user interface and menu of Glaze are very intuitive, and provide easy navigation from start to finish. In the end, Glaze is a simple tool for exploring different ways to make your photos look like paintings.

4. Waterlogue (iOS) hand

There are many different media to create art – pencil, charcoal, pastels, acrylics, and oils. But, by far, one of the most mesmerising is the use of watercolours to bring art to life. Fortunately, the Waterlogue app for iPhone is an app that does a great job of transforming your photos into watercolour works of art. The Waterlogue app is comprehensive in its offering of various tools, including several watercolour painting styles presets that allow you to get the base look of your photos.

There are many different mediums for creating art – pencil, charcoal, pastels, acrylics, and oils. However, one of the most mesmerising forms of art is the use of watercolours. Luckily, the Waterlogue app easily transforms your photos into watercolour works of art. The Waterlogue app is comprehensive in its offering of various tools and presets for different watercolour painting styles.

5. Portrait Painter (iOS) custom oil portrait

If you want to create a painting resembling a real-life portrait, then you should download the Portrait Painter app. This app is available on both mobile and desktop platforms and is extremely popular for painting portraits using realistic brushstrokes. The user interface is straight-forward and includes an ellipse tool that allows you to mask areas of the portrait. Next, use the ellipse to set the detail level for the brushstrokes. The brushstrokes are then rendered very realistically and the finished product will resemble an oil or acrylic painting. Finally, you can choose the paint surface to get the desired effect.

Once you’re satisfied with the painting style created you can share your images directly to social media for the world to enjoy.

6. Tangled FX (iOS) digital oil painting

Tangled FX is an iPhone app that transforms even your least liked photos into unique paint-like canvases.

The app uses a straightforward user interface to offer 16 presets to turn your photos into painted scenes. Tangled FX has a large range of effects. I particularly like the fibre effects that use the existing lines within the photo to created fibrous textures across the scene. Here is an example of the app in action that only took a few seconds to complete

While that look may not be for everyone, it’s undoubtedly unique, and many will find at least a handful of images within their smartphone gallery worthy of this transformation.

Tangled FX boasts the ability to render photos within the original native HD format. Also, the app upscales smaller pictures before the transformation process to allow for greater detail – something that not even the native iPhone camera app can do.

As with many of these apps, Tangled FX provides flexibility to share your finished works with online content and their community.

7. Prisma (Android & iOS) oil paintings on canvas

Prisma is a remarkable app that’s available on Android and iOS – it even won an App Store ‘App Of The Year Award’ a few years back.

It’s no wonder, given that Prisma has over 300 painting and art-style filters available to transform your photos in countless ways. There’s so much choice here that you could spend a whole lunch break editing and converting a single photo to a painted masterpiece.

Having said that, once you get the hang of Prisma and find your favourite presets, you’ll likely stick to styles that you prefer the look of. But the choices don’t stop there as Prisma releases a new filter every day.

A feature that Prisma offers over other apps is the ability to transform your photos into paintings that adopt the style of histories most noted artists. Add a style like a touch of Dali or even Picasso to your selfie to update your profile pic with style.

The navigation of the app is straightforward thanks to s sensible menu system. It’s a powerful iPhone tool that creates a work of art with the click of a screen.

8. PicsArt (Android & iOS) oil on canvas

PicsArt is one of the iPhone and Android apps that provides a comprehensive toolkit for editing photos on the go. 

PicsArt is incredibly popular, with staggering numbers of downloads to date. Plus, on top of its filters, text options, collage builder and sticker maker, it also features the ability to turn the pictures from your camera roll into paintings.

With PicsArt, you can take a standard selfie and use any of the Canvas effect tools to add hand-painted and drawn finishes around and over the top of your photo. You can even add a background to photos .

While it’s a very comprehensive and capable app, there are many options to scroll through to get to the effects you want. It’s often the case with apps that do it all – not a huge negative, but if you wish to turn a photo into a painting, there are more straightforward options.

9. Adobe Paint Can (iOS)

Adobe is a household name for the comprehensive desktop and mobile image editing tools they develop for photographers and visual creators out there.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop will instantly sound familiar if you have had anything to do with photography. It turns out, Adobe also creates amazing apps for photo editing on the go.

Adobe Paint Can , the iPhone app, is no exception as it offers a very well thought out and executed mobile app. Paint Can provides you with the option to use existing presets or go manual and fine-tune the brushes’ size and the various styles you can add to your picture.

The best part of the Adobe Paint Can app is that you can spend as long or as little as you like converting your photo to a painting..

Also, you can choose to only convert a portion of your image to the painted render while retaining the details from your photo in other areas.

While it’s only available on iOS, the iPad crowd will love using it on a bigger screen or with an Apple Pen.

Free Desktop Software to Turn Photos into Paintings oil painting portraits

If you’re wondering how to turn a photo into a painting online by using your computer, there are a number of free sites that allow you to add realistic painting styles to anything you upload.

In addition, most of the popular photo editing software tools include some kind of portrait painting filter that gives that photo-to-painting effect you’re looking for.

Here are the two recommended options.

Adobe Online Photo To Painting Convertor oil canvas prints

Adobe develops software to manage and edit photos and graphic elements. They’re the industry leader who offers renowned software tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom. Adobe provides several free editing tools, including the Online Photo To Painting Converter – part of the Adobe Photoshop Express platform.

If you have any of the Lightroom or Photoshop versions , you can also convert your photos to paintings with the use of the software – but that’s a whole other guide.

The free converter is a simple application. Upload a JPEG or PNG file to the online site and then click the Art Effects tool kit. Then you select from Oil Painting, Cartoon, Colourize, Pop Art, or Stylize. There’s also a list of effects with each showing a preview of your image with the effect applied.

You adjust the intensity of the effect as some of them are strong to begin with. All that’s left is to download your finished painting.

While it’s a free-to-use service, you need to create an Adobe account to access its features – so not entirely no strings attached. 

Tuxpi Photo Editor oil portrait

 

Tuxpi is a free online photo editor offering a range of photo editing tools, including adding frames to your existing images.

If you want to use a computer to edit your photos, add text and apply a range of filters, it doesn’t get simpler than this.

Upload your picture and apply any of the 60 photo editing tools. Tuxpi allows you to add multiple effects on top of one another. For example, fade your photo’s edges, then apply the photo to paint process and frame it up. Plus, a preview of each change loads within seconds.

Download and share on your social channels to show your friends just how clever you are.

While Tuxpi is fun, there’s no fine-tuning of the effects’ strength, brush sizes or mask. Here’s a before and after shot with the help of Tuxpi – I’m really happy with the outcome.

Final Words custom oil

There’s a bunch of free and paid apps available for either iPhone and Android mobile platforms – many of which can be downloaded to tablets.

Converting your photos to paintings with just a few screen taps may seem a little like cheating to some. But in reality, it’s just another form of digital media that provides creatives with the tools they need to create amazing and interesting works of art.

Download an app and play around with transforming their favourite images into artistic paintings.

What do you think of apps like these? Have you tried making a picture look like a painting for do you have other apps you would recommend? What are the results of your attempts with painting tool apps? Join the conversation below.