Recommend: Waterlogue App

I was perusing through the top rated new phone apps, looking for something interesting to occupy me during waiting room visits, when I came across Waterlogue and got hooked.  It basically transforms your pictures into watercolors, using a variety of different watercolor painting 'filters'.  The part that makes it awesome, though, is that it actually does an incredible job.  It's beautiful and addictive, and only three dollars on your iPhone or iPad, hopefully they will expand to other devices as well.


Most watercolor filters, actions, apps, anything - are usually bland and blurry at best and just a mess at worst.  Waterlogue renders photos into paintings in what shows up as a step-by-step process that you can watch happening.  First, it draws the outline, then it paints on dabs of color, shades at a time, until the painting is complete.  It does take a while, there are wait times by device but mine runs about 20-30 seconds for each full render.  The end result is authentic looking and often gorgeous, plus the program has an option to export at full size giving you artwork that you can print.


There are twelve different painting type options, much like Instagram and it's filters.  Additionally, you can choose between three sizes (which change the level of detail), six brightness levels, and border/no border.  Since each image takes so long to render, a small preview example pops up as you select different customization options.


You can also run Waterlogue on your watercolors more than once to get even more interesting looking pieces.  Here is one that started off as a Mexican sugar skull and now reminds me of a Native American spirit.


You can also send your works of art directly to your Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr or as a postcard, in addition to saving it, emailing it, etc.  It is still a new app so there is the hope here for continued improvement and even more features.  I love it for adding a new dimension to my snapshots and Instagrams, and also I can see it being awesome for creating little graphics for the web, print, or scrapbooking.  Not to mention printing and framing them, you could make such adorable little miniatures - lots of possibilities that I hope to try out.

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