Like most dog owners, I absolutely love taking pictures of my dogs and my dogs’ friends (my friends’ dogs, lol). Most of us are carrying around our mobile phones and snapping pictures of our dogs every time we are somewhere particularly beautiful, aren’t we? Or any time they are being particularly cute?
I publish some of these on WDJ’s Instagram page, @DogsOfWholeDogJournal. It takes an effort to not publish all the heavily filtered versions of some of my favorite photos that I create with a super fun app called Prisma. If you, like me, are addicted to taking your dog’s picture and you don’t already have this app, download it now! It’s free, and has about a dozen or so filters that you can play with to create artworks of your dog. If you get really excited about it, you can pay for an upgraded version that has many more filters that you can apply.
Once the app is loaded, you can take any photo on your phone and apply any filter that you like. Some apply wild colors or textures to the photo. Some turn the photo into a pencil sketch, or a heavily pixilated, almost abstract artwork. I love the ones that make the most vibrant colors in the photo even more dramatic. But you can also apply a very soft effect, just barely altering photos in a way that makes it harder to determine whether a piece of art is a photo or has been painted. (I actually used the app to create the image of Otto that has appeared in WDJ’s masthead for the past few years!)
Once the filter is applied, you can edit it, toning down the effects or magnifying them as you see fit. There are sliders for adjusting the overall exposure, contrast, brightness, saturation, vibrance, color “temperature,” and more. And you can save as many versions of the photo that you create as you like! I have no affiliation or link or interest in the company that makes this app, I’m just an appreciative user. If you are, too, go to WDJ’s FB page and look for a post about Prisma, and share an edited photo of your dog there!
Hi Nancy. Seems the Prisma app is no longer free. There’s a free trial for 3 days, then $49.99 per year. Just FYI . . .
Oh snap! I’ve had the free version on my phone for years, and recently paid *$29.99* for a one-year upgrade that gives me access to filters. I grabbed my older Android phone (no longer working as a phone, just as a camera and music streaming device on wifi) that has had Prisma loaded on it for a few years, and it’s still working there.
Your note made me wonder if the price is different for the Google app store vs. the Apple app store. I went to the Google app store and the first thing I saw was a 4.6-star rating from me from four years ago, lol. But then several bad reviews, warning of double-billing and other hijinks. UGH. It’s been worth it for me, but as with all apps that can be loaded on one’s phone, there are apparently some possible costs and risks. — NK
Edit: “…recently paid $29.99 for a one-year upgrade that gives me access to *MORE* filters…
It only has a 3 day free trial in the App Store, then $2.99 a month 😝
Try Oilist. It’s a free app that lets you play with photos and make them look like oil paintings in various artistic styles. Examples here:
https://www.instagram.com/winifred_and_theodore/
Not free either 🙁 $2.99 in App Store
Shucks, Sue. It used to be free. But $2.99 ain’t bad. 😁
Well thank you good to know.
I have been using Prisma for years to make wonderful “works of art” out of photos of my dogs (some very suitable for framing!), and for several years I have had really nice calendars made using the edited Prisma photos. I’ve tried other photo editing apps, but don’t like the results, or ease of use, as much as I like Prisma. While disappointed in the increasing price over the years, I like the results I’ve gotten from it so much that, for me, it’s worth the price of the $29.99 annual subscription. Interesting comment about possible double billing, though. My subscription for Prisma, and one other app, recently renewed, and I’ve been trying to figure out what my total (high) charge is for, so I need to look into a possible billing error.
I was able to get this for $19.99 for the year on iOS. I had clicked out of the 3-day trial offer and another window popped up where I could choose $29.99/year with a 3-day trial, $19.99/year (80% savings), or $7.99/month. The 80% savings was based on $19.99/12 for $1.59/mo compared to the $7.99/mo. Heck, I’ve paid wayyyy more for software for the PC. (Actually, spending only $20 for computer software is pretty dang cheap.) 🙂