App Shoot-Out: PhotoCartoon VS ToonPaint
vs.
What do they do?
Both PhotoCartoon (or Photo to Cartoon) and ToonPaint turn regular photos into cartoon images. The approach with both applications is rather different, PhotoCartoon employing editing techniques found in other apps and software, such as color tolerance and smoothness, whereas ToonPaint automates the cartoon process and then allows users to add colour in whichever way they'd like.
Variety
Winner: ToonPaint
Although I like PhotoCartoon, it does produce similar results no matter how much you play around with the settings.
In contrast, ToonPaint starts with just transforming your photo to have ink lines which actually looks really good without any further editing in my opinion. But, you can then add colour selectively on your own with your fingers or apply color to all of the image, which looks really good. There are a lot of other features to do with adding the colour as well, like a colour picker which lets you select specific shades from the original photo.
Time
Winner: PhotoCartoon, unless you don't want to add colour to ToonPaint.
PhotoCartoon seems to take a while for the changes to kick in, but moving the sliders about to get your final effect is very quick and easy, which would certainly make it a winner for on-the-go editing.
If you want a simple monochrome look ToonPaint is just as fast, but if you'd rather take advantage of the colour features then you'll have to play around a little which obviously takes time.
Quality of finished image
Winner: ToonPaint
The finished ToonPaint images are of a much higher quality and look very slick. You can also save them in high-resolution as well if you'd prefer, but unfortunately users don't have that option with PhotoCartoon.
All I can say in PhotoCartoon's defence is the finished result is much more "sketchy" and authentic, so it could be more appropriate if you're looking for a cartoon effect from a sketchbook as apposed to one in a comic book.
User Interface
Winner: Tie
ToonPaint has more features than PhotoCartoon, so it's bound to seem a little more confusing on first use.
However, the apps do tie in this category as the UI with both is extremely simple and much more user-friendly than most photo applications I've been using recently.
Sharing
Winner: ToonPaint
You can share via email or to your camera roll with PhotoCartoon, which is a shame as it's so easy-to-use and would have made a good on-the-go sharing app that connects to social networks, it's particularly missing a trick not having it linked up to Twitter in this way.
ToonPaint on the other hand allows users to save to their camera roll, Facebook, Twitter or email, all I can say is it's a shame there aren't any specific photo sharing platforms included to share to as well.
Verdict
I've always been extremely wary about "cartoon" apps, having downloaded some last year that were of a really terrible quality.
However, both PhotoCartoon and ToonPaint are good apps and produce images I've been really happy with so far. Although worthy of having a shoot-out, at the end of the day they do both have very different features. ToonPaint is more focused on colour and creating a good quality high-res image, whereas PhotoCartoon is much more basic and authentic, with a focus on images with sketch-like black edges.
I definitely prefer the results I get with ToonPaint and would say from trying out a few similar apps in the past, such as Cartoon The World, ToonPaint is the only cartoon-like app you're ever going to really need. It's easy to use, you can share images to a range of platforms and the results are of a really high quality - if you want to add colour yourself, you do have to play around and "finger paint", but the zoom and pan features don't make this too hard and the final images are worth it in the long run.
Sample photos
PhotoCartoon
ToonPaint
- PhotoCartoon
- ToonPaint