Comparison

Aestheticam vs Rake Plus

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

Head to head
About

Aestheticam

This app intentionally degrades your photos with unique filters and effects. It offers presets like deep fry, glitch, and VHS, along with face distortion and random overlays. A chaos slider and shake-to-reroll feature add to the unpredictable, often hilarious, results.

Highlights
  • 10 quality-lowering presets
  • Face detection with distortion effects
  • Random cursed emoji and meme overlays
  • Chaos slider for extreme effects
  • Shake to reroll for new results
Features
Read full description

a camera app that takes the worst photos imaginable most camera apps try to make you look better. i didn't do that. i made an app that takes a normal photo and turns it into something you can't show people without an explanation. nobody asked for this garbage. it's not a bug. it's the whole thing. what it does: → 10 presets that lower the quality of your photo in specific ways deep fry compresses it until it looks like a threat. glitch splits the colors apart and rearranges pixels. vhs adds tracking errors from a format that died in 2006. vaporwave puts pink grids on everything. nuclear meltdown is all of them at once and i'm sorry. → face detection that works against you the app finds your face using legitimate technology, and then makes a choice you wouldn't. it adds laser eyes. or copies your face 6-12 times. or melts it downward. it's precise about this, which somehow makes it worse. → overlays cursed emojis. random memes pulled from a folder i named myself. procedural word art with rainbow gradients. vaporwave grids. stars. things you didn't ask for, applied anyway. → chaos slider subtle is fine. normal is reasonable. maximum is for people who say "just do whatever" and then immediately regret it. at maximum the app itself starts glitching. the ui breaks. your phone vibrates. there's music. it's committed to the bit. → shake to reroll if you don't like the result, shake your phone. same photo, different disaster. the randomization is deep enough that you'll never get the same thing twice. accountability is hard.

About

Rake Plus

Features
Read full description

Change the light, the air and the focus of a photo after you took it. Rake Plus reads how far away every part of your picture is and works from that, the way a real lamp, real fog and a real lens would. Four tools, all on your device. Portrait photos carry the depth your iPhone measured when it took them. Any other photo works too: Rake Plus estimates its depth on your device. CLEAR — take the haze out Haze, smog and smoke thicken with distance. Clear measures how much haze lies at each distance in your photo and removes it by distance: far hills and skylines come back, and the foreground is left alone. Strength sets how much; Protect keeps the far distance and the sky from turning grainy. RELIGHT — move the light Drag a lamp across the picture and watch the light wrap around a face and cast real shadows. • Five looks in one tap: Rembrandt, Butterfly, Split, Softbox and Flash, a flash on the camera. • Three lights like a studio: key, fill and rim. • Drag a light to move it; pinch to pull it toward you or push it behind your subject. • Power in stops, depth, size for crisp or soft shadows, warmth, and shadows on or off. • Original sets how much of the photo's own light to keep. AIR — fog, mist and shafts of light Fill the scene with fog that thickens with distance, so your subject stays clear while the background fades. Add a sun, and the fog catches its light: trees, windows and your subject block it, and the light falls through the gaps in shafts. • Density, where the fog starts, glow and warmth. • For the sun: power, depth, size, warmth and how strongly the beams show. LENS — move the focus after the shot Tap where the photo should be sharp. Everything else blurs the way a real lens would: the farther from the focus, the softer, with your subject's edges kept clean. On Portrait photos of people, the outline your iPhone saved keeps the blur off the hair. • Aperture, and how deep the sharp zone is. • The character of the blur: round or bladed, an anamorphic oval, cat's-eye discs at the edges, and the swirl of old portrait lenses. • Glow: how brightly lights spread into discs. TOGETHER The tools stack in order: haze removed first, then your light, then the air, then the lens the whole scene is seen through. Hold Compare at any time to see the photo as it was shot, and undo or redo any change. Save to Photos adds the result at full resolution as an edit of the original, which Photos can revert, depth and all. IN PHOTOS TOO Rake Plus is also in the Photos app: open a photo, tap Edit, then the ⋯ menu, Extensions, Rake Plus. A photo you edited with Rake Plus opens there with its settings, so you can change them later. RAKE PLUS PRO — four more tools, Live Photos, borders and Recipes, one purchase An optional one-time in-app purchase. Try every Pro tool and a Live Photo merge on your own photos in the app first; the purchase is needed to save or share, and to use them inside Photos. • WINDOW: sun through blinds, panes or leaves, bending over your subject and shading the wall behind. • WEATHER: rain or snow through the scene, hidden behind your subject, fading the distance. • GRADE: colour your subject and the distance apart, with no mask to draw. • MOTION: a short looping clip from the still — a push-in, a sway or a Vertigo zoom. • LIVE PHOTOS: merge the three seconds into one picture: smooth water, passers-by taken out, or light trails. • BORDERS: white or black, with the camera and its settings written underneath. • RECIPES: save an edit, every tool as you set it, and put it on other photos in one tap. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Everything happens on your device, including estimating depth. Photos come in through the system picker, or from Photos when you edit there, without access to the rest of your library, and nothing is uploaded: there is no server to upload to. No account, no credits, no subscription, no ads. TIPS • Portrait-mode photos work best. In Photos, they are the ones with the ƒ depth control under Edit.

Screenshots

Aestheticam4 screens
Rake Plus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Rake Plus at none against Aestheticam's shown. Rake Plus also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Aestheticam's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 8 days). On price, in-app purchases and device support 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Aestheticam ships an update every 2 days, Rake Plus every 8 days. Both last shipped on October 26, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Aestheticam versus Rake Plus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAestheticamRake Plus
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.3 (18 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews70.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings18 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterEvery 8 days
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS26.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size70 MB53 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperNicholas Lee Designs, LLCPablo Miranda

In-app purchases

None

Aestheticam

No in-app purchases

None

Rake Plus

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Aestheticam free?
Aestheticam is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Rake Plus free?
Rake Plus is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Aestheticam or Rake Plus have ads?
Aestheticam shows ads; Rake Plus does not.
Which is updated more often, Aestheticam or Rake Plus?
Aestheticam ships an update every 2 days, and Rake Plus every 8 days. Most recently, Aestheticam was updated on October 26, 2026 and Rake Plus on October 26, 2026.

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