Best Apps to Turn Photos Into Drawings

In today’s post, I am excited to dive into a fantastic selection of mobile apps designed to bring a creative twist to digital images. Whether you’re a student looking to enhance a project or just someone who loves experimenting with visuals, these apps can transform your ordinary photos into striking cartoons, sketches, and drawings.

This capability is especially valuable in educational settings, where visual aids and creative projects play a crucial role in learning. These tools are straightforward to use, requiring no prior technical skills, making them perfect for users of all ages. We’ll explore each app’s unique features, from simple cartoon filters to advanced artistic effects, ensuring you find the right tool to unleash your creativity.

Best Apps to Turn Photos Into Drawings

Below is a collection of some of the best apps to help you turn photos into drawings, cartoons, and sketches. Students can use them to create beautiful works of art to use in their multimedia projects or in activities that involve comic strips, digital storytelling, presentations and many more. 

1. Clip2Comic 

Clip2Comic enables you to turn your photos into cartoons and sketches. Clip2Comic offers various comic styles to enhance your images. You can choose among  different cartoon effects to add to pictures. Clip2Comic also works with videos allowing you to transform your videos into cartoons. Here is how Clip2Comic works: choose a photo or video from your camera roll, select the effects of your choice (e.g., comic, poster, sketch, or caricature), adjust the outlines of the picture, add color filters, and save your final product as a video or image.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android ; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

2. My Sketch 

My Sketch is another good app to help you turn photos into sketches and drawings. The app offers over 20 different types of sketches and supports both photos directly taken from camera or uploaded from photo album. You can adjust the brightness and contrast of your sketches and once done you can share your final result through email, or on social media websites. You can also save and print you sketches. The app retains the original quality of the photo.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android; Price: $1.99 .

3. ToonMe Cartoon 

ToonMe Cartoon is an app that lets you easily turn photos to cartoons and drawings. The app uses a sophisticated AI-driven algorithm to produce cartoonized pictures with hand-draw quality. Simply upload your selfie and let the app does the rest. The app is free to download but offers various in-app purchases.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android alternative ; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

Related: Some of the Best AI Art Generators (Text to Image)

4. ToonCamera 

ToonCamera lets you transform your photos and videos into cartoons. You can select among numerous cartoon effects, use unique line art styles, and apply real-time cartoon and art effects to your camera feed. You can also convert photos saved in your library to create beautiful works of art.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android; Price: $2.99.

5. Prisma 

Prisma is a photo editor that offers powerful editing features to use to create amazing digital art. You can use Prisma features to add styles to your photos and turn them into beautiful cartoons or sketches. Some of the features provided by  Prisma include vivid frames, background editing, the ability to replace background of photos with pre-made options, and many more.

Age: 12+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

6. Photo to Cartoon 

Photo to Cartoon, as its name indicates, converts photos to cartoons. You can use photos from your album or snap a new photo using the camera of your mobile device. The app offers several types of cartoon styles, professional coloring pages , different filters and tools, a huge library of stickers and fonts, and several other interesting features to help you instantly turn photos to sketches and cartoons.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

7. Pencil Photo Sketch

Pencil Photo Sketch allows you to create pencil sketches of your photos. The app offers different sketch styles including: pencil sketch, light sketch, cartoon art sketch, color drawing effect, crayon effect, and many more. Pencil Photo Sketch also offers over 10 editing options and 20 photo filters. Simply select a photo from your library or take one using your camera and click to apply a pencil sketch effect.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

8. Sketch Me 

Sketch Me is another good app that allows you to turn photos into sketches. Some of the features it offers include: seven different sketch effects, adjustable sketch parameters, split screen mode where only one half of the photo is shown in sketch, an easy to use interface, and many more.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android alternative; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

9. Painnt 

Painnt is a photo editor that lets you turn your photos into cartoon photos and sketches. The app features over 2000 filters ranging from classical art to cartoon sketches. There is also the possibility to create custom filters out of any image or painting. Painnt free version adds a watermark to your photos. You need to upgrade if you want to remove the watermark and unlock full access to the app’s features.

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android alternative; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

10. Watercolor Effect Art Filters 

Watercolor Effect Art Filters is another handy app to transform your photos into beautiful pieces of art. The app offers a wide variety of art effects to apply to your images. There are over 15 amazing cartoon filers, tons of stickers and photo effects, and practical tutorials to help you learn how to create beautiful artwork. 

Age: 4+; Compatibility: iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android alternative; Price: Free, offers in-app purchases .

Final thoughts

I hope you have found this overview of cartoon and sketch conversion apps helpful and inspiring. Exploring these tools can add a layer of fun and creativity to various projects, from multimedia presentations to personal artistic explorations. It’s thrilling to see how easily accessible technology can foster creativity in education and beyond, turning simple photos into eye-catching pieces of art. Whether you are an educator, a parent, or a student, these apps offer a wonderful opportunity to enhance your creative projects.