Comparison

Pastello vs PaintMee 2

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pastello

Transform your photos into stunning dry media art, mimicking styles like pastel, charcoal, and colored pencil. This app offers a professional workflow with customizable layers and one-click presets for creating expressive, traditional-looking artwork.

Highlights
  • Photo to Pastel, Chalk, Charcoal, Crayon conversion
  • Layering of different dry media
  • Customizable stroke direction, size, and volume
  • One-click presets with customization options
  • Traditional sketch styles and DaVinci effect
  • Professional workflow for artists and photographers
Read full description

Transform photos into a fine art drawing with Pastel, Pencil, Chalk, Charcoal and Crayon Introducing Pastello, a brand-new companion app to JixiPix’s Impresso Pro. Pastello takes you back in time to the 15th century. Away from brushes and large strokes and into the realm of dry media with color that is both brilliant and subtle. The “Dry color method” made famous by Leonardo da Vinci is so powerful in its simplicity and beauty with its black and red chalk and yellow pastel highlights. Later, artists would paint charming portraits in a smooth heavily blended fashion. Move forward a few centuries later and pastel quickly became filled with brilliant color and crisp detail. Fast forward to today and a digital age has made it so you, the artist, can mix and match media that is difficult or impossible in a traditional setting. Pastello makes it simple and convenient to take an image and change it into Pastel, Chalk, Charcoal, Crayon, Colored Pencil and Graphite drawings. Use alone or combine these medias using powerful layers to produce interesting expressive sketch effects filled with colorful personality and passion. And the best part is Pastello does all the work. With Pastello, photographers and artists can now go beyond the camera to turn image files into creative works that resemble traditional handmade media using a professional workflow that is easy and comfortable to operate. Pastello has a pro workflow that automatically transforms a photo into a pastel drawing and places it on an art paper with options to customize. The Pastel can then be changed to Chalk, Charcoal, Colored Pencil, Graphite, Conte or Crayon using Layer styles. The medias start out delicate like traditional drawings do, then allows you to build them up using fills, shading and detail layers. The medias are beautiful as they are, or mix them for an expressive artwork. Pastello includes plenty of traditional sketch styles as well as a DaVinci effect using a mixed media of pencil, charcoal, crayon and old paper. It’s easy to use! We have mixed the media into one-click presets with all the freedom to customize, blend and fine-tune for your own unique artwork filled with age, depth and timeless beauty as if created by the renaissance artist himself. Pastel Styles: Colored Pencil, Graphite, Charcoal, and Chalk come with a fill and detail option that can be layered for infinite variation. Conte has a dynamic sketch feature that lets you fill in shadows, mid-tones and highlights with crosshatching or scumbling. All with the ability to change stroke direction, size, volume and variation. Pastel—(Soft) is a soft, buttery consistency and intense color. This effect is dense and filled with the grain of the paper. Chalk—(Hard Pastel) is a light dusty effect with little specks of preserved paper. This chalky pastel is known for it’s soft strokes and velvety texture. Charcoal—creates a velvety black charcoal effect with shades of grey. Use it for warming up the under painting of a composition, or to complete a finished charcoal piece. Colored Pencil—creates soft colorful strokes in the drawing that can be layered to build up color then burnished with a light Pencil Layer, or the Smudge tool. Pencil—creates pencil drawings with fluid outlines and soft, limpid tonal shadings for a drawing filled with warmth and charm. Conté—is a beautiful crayon media for enhancing highlights, midtones and shadows in drawings using classic colors. Crayon—creates a colorful waxy base to a drawing, then burnished it with a Conte White for highlights or Bistre for shading.

About

PaintMee 2

Transform your photos into unique works of art with various styles and a powerful focus system. Experiment with different artistic expressions and create personalized paintings. Save your creations in high resolution or as a movie of the painting process.

Highlights
  • 92 tuned example styles
  • Focus point system for expression
  • Up to 5 focus points
  • Unique results with each use
  • Save painting process as movie
  • 4K resolution rendering
Features
Read full description

True Art happens when your mind is invited into a piece. When there is something intriguing, provoking, ambiguous or incomplete. Now YOU can make true art in an instant – and have fun while doing it. Your tools are STYLE and FOCUS. For a photo, choose a style and set a focus point. Moving the focus point dramatically alters the resulting painting. Use this very powerful tool to make the painting truly yours. Features • 92 carefully tuned example styles. • Styles range from oil paintings through sketches, ink splatter and wood carvings to downright craziness. • Use a powerful focus point system to control expression. • Place up to 5 focus points. • Different results every time, even for the same style. • Watch the painting take shape stroke by stroke. • Advanced users: fine tune styles to get that perfect look. • Advanced users: create your own styles and add them to the list. • Save the entire painting process as a movie. • Render and save painting in 4K resolution.

Screenshots

PaintMee 24 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: PaintMee 2 at $5.99 against Pastello's $29.99. PaintMee 2 also leads on device support (3 vs 1). Pastello's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Pastello costs $29.99 and PaintMee 2 $5.99 up front. PaintMee 2 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pastello asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Pastello against 4.7 for PaintMee 2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 44 and 123 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 79% and 79% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Pastello versus PaintMee 2: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPastelloPaintMee 2
Price$29.99$5.99 — better
Rating4.8 (44 ratings) — better4.7 (123 ratings)
Positive reviews78.9% of reviews — better78.6% of reviews
Number of ratings44123 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size123 MB51 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJixiPix, LLCStudio Mee

Customer experience

Pastello

All ratings43 ratings
Positive93.0%
Neutral2.3%
Negative4.7%
Written reviews19 reviews
Positive78.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative21.1%

PaintMee 2

All ratings123 ratings
Positive92.7%
Neutral5.7%
Negative1.6%
Written reviews14 reviews
Positive78.6%
Neutral7.1%
Negative14.3%

In-app purchases

None

Pastello

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

PaintMee 2

One-time1
  • High Definition Export$9.99

Questions

Is Pastello free?
Pastello costs $29.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is PaintMee 2 free?
PaintMee 2 costs $5.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Pastello or PaintMee 2?
Pastello is rated higher. Pastello averages 4.8 out of 5 from 44 ratings, while PaintMee 2 averages 4.7 from 123 ratings.
Do Pastello or PaintMee 2 have ads?
Neither Pastello nor PaintMee 2 shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pastello or PaintMee 2?
Pastello ships an update every 3 months, and PaintMee 2 every 3 months. Most recently, Pastello was updated on October 21, 2026 and PaintMee 2 on October 20, 2026.

Other comparisons