Visionist — for adding texture
There is no shortage of “painterly” art apps around, and they all have subtle differences. In this case the category is one for adding a painting style effect to an existing image that you supply, rather than a generic blank canvas painting app or even one where you use touch to apply brushstrokes. Thus their byline “Tap your Photos into Art”.
Visionist has been around since 2018, so a bit of a recent player compared to the offerings from JixiPix Software which I’ll get to in due course.
The texture offered here is a bit of a one-trick pony, but there are multiple options for blending that in with your source image, which they call the Transfer Mode and Style Strength.
When you first import an image, you are shown that at the top and your style choices along the bottom. There is no way to sort or favorite these. The free ones are displayed first followed by the extra ones which can be unlocked via an In-App Purchase of $5.99 AUD.
You can also use the Mix Styles function which takes an extra tap when you agree to its explanatory dialog box. But it’s not clear how that will affect the image. The four blend options are Hard Light, Soft Light, Luminosity and Full. You have to tap the menu to change between each one — no dragging allowed nor live preview.
There is no undo function, but there is a Reset Style which takes you back to the original import without having to reimport it from your camera roll again. So points off for not having a way to rollback. But I’ve been doing this so long I can recall apps that just removed your imported image entirely!
There’s a nonstandard zoom function. A single tap zooms in a preset amount right to the center and there does not seem to be a way to change either of those properties. Once zoomed in, you can’t scroll to check other parts of your image.
In fact there’s no preference screen at all. So you can’t change output format or size. There are of course other image utility apps for that but it's convenient to have those options in the app.
If you look closely, the textures have some repetition, which is not great for flatter areas. When you export, you get a reasonably high-resolution file. I imported my logo as a PNG and got a 4096 × 4066 JPEG. It has an sRGB color space embedded for those interested in such things.
Visionist test on the Uncaught Exception logo.
When experimenting with this app, it’s quite possible to achive some quite dirty or grungy looks. There was a complaint in an App Store review that mentioned that the sample images shown with faces seemed like false advertising because they didn’t have enough dark gouges shown that this app’s effect could introduce. The developer 3DTopo replied that the reviewer just hadn’t explored the overlays enough, and it was possible to get a face without too many enhanced wrinkles.
The fact is, you can get overly enhanced wrinkles from many apps especially ones that have sharpening. A masking feature would be welcome here, and there are quite a few blur apps that have that feature so it can’t be that hard to implement compared to working with video or 3D perhaps.
Repeating areas can get you down. We need more randomness!
My first Visionist image.
Final Thoughts
I am happy I bought this one, even with its flaws. I love having too many choices so I have supported the developer by buying the IAP. This group makes Oilist and Comicbook, but I visited their site and there is no mention of Visionist, so that doesn’t bode well. It appears that Oilist is their darling so I hope the algorithms from this app get incorporated into that one if this is abandoned. Sorry if that seems like a downer but that is the harsh reality of many creativity apps.
Enjoy wrinkling your images.
Addendum
I heard back from the developer and he is planning updates to Visionist at some future date. Good news!