PhotoArtista - Haiku

The computer and specialized applications have now gone so far that it's possible to create paintings from regular pictures and no one can tell they're fake. This is a neat way of enhancing pictures before uploading them to different social networks, and PhotoArtista - Haiku is a powerful application to help generate stunning art effects.

The setup process required to make the application work is over before you realize, with the chance to instantly take it for a spin. A cool visual interface shows up on launch, with custom elements, and helpful descriptions shown for all functions on mouseover. The overall layout is intuitive, and there's no problem getting the hang of things.

Sadly, you can only process one picture at a time, but effects can be saved as presets and quickly applied to other pictures later on. A file can either be added through a drag and drop operation, or the browse dialog. File support leaves much to be desired, but you can work with some popular formats like JPG, TIFF, and PNG for both import and export.

The application comes with a decent variety of presets of its own, and you can save yours as well. These are structured in two categories, namely abstract and stylized. A simple selection of a preset applies it, with a dedicated button you can hold down to view the original image. There are also tons of tweaks to be made.

Found in a side panel, properties help define strength of effects, with some standard values like shadows, mid, highlights, and full. Various sliders are available like wet edge, vibrancy, paint fill, variation, outline detail, and even the type of paper the picture is on. In case you lack inspiration, you can hit the "randomize" button for a unique style with every click.

PhotoArtista - Haiku deserves at least a try if you want to give a personal, artistic touch to pictures with little effort. It works great with all kinds of pictures like landscapes or portraits, while the level of customization is sure to help generate more unique pictures from a single starting image.