Charcoal Booth Pro vs Photo Widget
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Charcoal Booth Pro
Transform your photos into expressive charcoal drawings with various paper-and-pencil styles. This app offers fast, visual editing with split previews, curated presets, and adjustable blending. Save your favorite settings and share high-resolution before-and-after images.
- Charcoal art creation
- Portrait and landscape conversion
- Paper-and-pencil styles
- Live split preview
- Curated presets
- Adjustable blending
- Save favorite settings
- High-resolution sharing
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Create polished charcoal art in seconds with Charcoal Booth Pro. Turn portraits and landscapes into expressive charcoal drawings with distinct paper-and-pencil styles. Designed for fast, visual editing: • Compare the original and edited image with a live split preview • Explore curated presets made for different photo styles • Blend the effect with your original for a subtle or bold finish • Save favorite effect settings in My Looks and reuse them • Share a labeled before-and-after image • Undo, redo, and resume your last edit • Save and share at high resolution • Edit across compact and expanded layouts with keyboard shortcuts • Process photos directly on your device Choose a photo, try a preset, and adjust until the result feels right. The focused editor keeps the image and its transformation visible throughout the process. The paid edition is ad-free, so you can stay focused on your edit.
Photo Widget
Display your favorite photos directly on your device's home screen and today view. Customize widgets with up to six images, view them in full screen, and organize them into lists for quick access. Supports dark mode and allows unlimited widget creation.
- iOS 14 Home Screen Widgets
- Customizable Today View widgets
- Display 1-6 photos per widget
- Fullscreen photo viewing
- Unlimited widget creation
- Organize widgets into lists
- Dark mode support
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Those Widgets are compatible with the new iOS 14 Home Screen Widgets. Thanks to this application (and the other Widget apps from PacoLabs), you can now customize the Today view of your device, by adding custom widgets for some specific purposes. From anywhere in your device, with a simple top to bottom swipe, you'll have access to your own information and actions. Each Photo widget allows to view one or more photos from the photo library of your device. This is the quickest access to the favorite photos of your beloved family and friends. Add from 1 to 6 photos in each widget, in order to maximize the available space. Those photos can be viewed in fullscreen by touching them. The application is really easy to use and is adapted to the fresh look of your device. Dark mode of iOS13 is supported. You can add as many widgets as you want and they will be displayed in up to 3 different lists. Those same lists will be available in the Today view and in the application (although it is possible, if you want, to hide some widgets in the Today view). To avoid overloading the Today view, when too many widgets are displayed, an intuitive control will allow you to navigate from one widget to another. Even if the main purpose of the app is to view the widgets in the Today view, it can also be very handy to view them directly in the application (a long press on a widget in the Today view will open it directly in the main application).
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Photo Widget at 3.9 against Charcoal Booth Pro's 1.0. Photo Widget also leads on review sentiment (36% vs 0%) and ratings volume (301 vs 2). Charcoal Booth Pro's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 2 months). On ads, 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
Charcoal Booth Pro costs $1.99 and Photo Widget $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Photo Widget holds the better App Store score, 3.9 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Photo Widget has 301 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of Charcoal Booth Pro's written reviews are positive against 36% of Photo Widget's.
Charcoal Booth Pro ships an update monthly, Photo Widget every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Charcoal Booth Pro | Photo Widget |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | $0.99 — better |
| Rating | 1.0 (2 ratings) | 3.9 (301 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 36.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 301 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 25 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 福恩 毛 | Francis Bonnin |
Customer experience
Charcoal Booth Pro
Photo Widget
Bugs and requests
Charcoal Booth Pro
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Photo Widget
Reported bugs
10 issues- Widget doesn't appear in widget menu when adding to home screen
- Black screen display issues
- Photos disappear after several days of use
- Large widget displays as black box
- Multiple widgets show identical images
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- App crashes or fails to load photos
- Blurry or low-quality image rendering
- Widget not compatible with iOS versions below 14 (not clearly labeled)
- Only allows adding one photo despite claims of multiple
- App doesn't show up when searching widget menu
Requested features
10 requests- Photo shuffle/slideshow capability
- Image resizing options
- Named photo arrays for easier widget selection
- Share functionality when tapping photos
- Swipe through photos in widget sets
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- Pin lock security for app
- GIF support for animated displays
- Home screen widget support (not just Today view)
- Better image quality and resolution
- Improved watermark design or removal option
In-app purchases
Charcoal Booth Pro
No in-app purchases
Photo Widget
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Charcoal Booth Pro free?
Is Photo Widget free?
Which has better reviews, Charcoal Booth Pro or Photo Widget?
Do Charcoal Booth Pro or Photo Widget have ads?
Which is updated more often, Charcoal Booth Pro or Photo Widget?
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