Apps for Artists: Top Five Art Transformation Specialists Top 5

Creative Apps for Visual Artists
Nancy Freeman 

Top Five Transformation Specialists:
An image can start with a photo, a digital "start-from-scratch" drawing or painting,  or a scan from a piece of artwork. Once you have a pre-existing image, the options to transform it are literally endless. The transformation specialists are the apps that do only one thing, but do it very well. There are many other editing apps that change the colors or add a texture over the picture (in fact almost all of them offer such tools), but the transformation specialists distort or provide textures in a different way. Most of them also have a camera function, if you need to take a photo. My top five favorites are:

"Splash" uses LiquiPad HD and Percolator

"Grand Entrance", uses Popsicolor, iColorama

"Pastel Self Portrait", Goomified

Abstract pastel, uses Fluid FX

"Impending", uses MarbleCam, Color Lake, much photoshop

Percolator
Playing on the idea of brewing coffee, this entertaining app mostly makes circles. Using three different variables, each of which has three sub-variables (each of which has many different options), it turns an image into a field of circles, from fine to coarse. There are some nice effects in the mix, and some excellent animations as it does it's work. I've used it in many of my  finished digital images.

Popsicolor
Made by the same team that made Percolator, Popsicolor does a quite credible job of turning an image into a loose, impressionist two-tone watercolor. I sometimes use it to essentially posterize a complex subject to isolate different value areas, which it does in fine style.

Goomifier
This app was probably made primarily to turn your face (or your friends' faces) into rubber, which it does very well. However, it can also come in very handy with abstracts, or even for curving or straightening parts of any kind of picture. Its underlying mesh is quite robust, and can produce extreme distortions without losing the original information. (You may not be able to see the details, but they're still there.) Many photo-booth type apps are similar in effect, some with more kinds of pre-made effects, but without the fine control. Much fun.

Fluid FX

Made by Autodesk, this excellent app has many effects that you can use. Most of them, although fun and entertaining, are not often very useful for producing art. However, there are some very good liquid effects, and a few that will stay put as you develop other parts of the composition. I've spent many happy hours with this one. 

Color Lake

If you need some watery reflections, this app does an amazing job. With a good range of controls, it produces excellent screen saver types of images where the reflection portion stays in motion. You can send a finished image to the Camera Roll, but a screen grab generally looks more natural, although the resolution is lower.