Waterlogue App Review

Waterlogue is an iOS app that turns photos into images that look like watercolors. It has a very simple interface, and is easy to use. It can turn an otherwise drab photo into something a little more interesting:

There is often some hand-wringing when technology like this comes along. “If we can automate painting and drawing, then they’ll stop teaching it in the schools!” I suppose the same hand-wringing occurred when photography came along. “No one will ever put paint on canvas again!” Obviously this did not happen; in fact, the opposite happened. Because of photography, painting was no longer the most optimal way to produce a likeness of something, and so painters became free to explore everything besides producing a likeness. The result was a renaissance in abstract painting.

Will this app produce a similar digital renaissance? I’m guessing no, but for a lazy, reluctant artist such as myself, it sure is fun to play with. I studied watercolor in college and it was my least favorite medium to work in. You have to let each brushstroke dry before starting the next, a skill that requires more patience than I could ever muster up. But I’ve always appreciated the heck out of a good watercolor painting. There’s no way this app could replace actual watercolor painting, but I could see using it for making some fun prints to hang around the house. Here’s a print of an orange that I made to hang in my kitchen:

Some advice: Sometimes the images come out a little too “watery.” For the orange print I actually edited it with procreate to bring out some more definition. It seems that simple images with well defined lines and compositions work best. Another fun thing is to run a typography based image through the app. I typed the words using my favorite vector app, iDraw, then converted to pixels via procreate, then “waterlogued” it:

This app does one thing, and does it exceptionally well. I recommend it to anyone that likes to tinker around with art and photography apps.