Comparison

Pop Dot Comics vs Pencil Camera HD

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

Head to head
About

Pop Dot Comics

Transform your photos into vintage comic book illustrations with bold outlines, vibrant colors, and classic halftone dots. Add speech bubbles and sound effects to create fun, newspaper-worthy art.

Highlights
  • Create comic book style illustrations
  • Apply thick outlines and bold colors
  • Add benday dots and halftone effects
  • Include speech bubbles and sound effects
  • Choose from 5 comic styles
  • Adjust outlines, color, and borders
  • Save and share creations
Features
Read full description

Create a comic worthy of the Sunday newspaper or your favorite pulp-fiction cover. Pop Dot Comic is a fun way to create comic-book style illustrations from your snapshot or ones taken of your friends and family. Pop Dot Comic applies thick outlines, bold colors, and plenty of benday dots to newsprint or pulp papers to give every creation the look of one that’s been printed or published. In the past, halftones were tediously inked in by cartoon artists or created in darkrooms. With Pop Dot Comic you can easily and quickly convert your photo into a comic book drawing that’s worthy enough for the Sunday newspaper or your favorite pulp-fiction cover. With a library of included “Fun Stuff”, custom messages can be added to speech bubbles and sound effects will give your creation “POW”. When your finished creating a comic book photo save it to your library or post them to your friends and family for funny moments. 

COMIC STYLES
 • Sunday Comics — Creates a Cartoon Photo 
 • Halftone — Transforms a photo into a Halftone Newspaper Photo
 • Pop Comics — Converts photos into a bright Pop Art Lichtenstein-style Cartoon
 • Pulp Comics — Renders a Cartoon with Vintage Color on Aged Pulp Paper
 • Noir Comics — Creates a contrasted toned or blk/white Comic with selective color like those used in the Sin City series Pop Dot Comics is a professional cartoon effect that can be done directly on your iPhone, iPad and Mac. •Convert all your images and pictures into cartoon-style effect quickly •Choose a preset for a quick start •Use large photos for a high-end result! •Crop your photo to remove unwanted parts of an image •Choose between 5 comic styles: Sunday Comics, Halftone, Noir Comics, Pop Comics, Pulp Comics •Make adjustments to outlines, color, border width, border inset and pulp papers •Choose between Dots, Lines and Halftones •Edit and resize “Fun Stuff” and “Bubbles” with an easy one-finger gesture •Share via Email, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr •Save to Camera Roll Easy to Use •Tap to edit type in speech & thought bubbles •Long Press to delete fun stuff and bubbles •Pull edges of fun stuff and speech bubbles to resize •Touch and hold center to move FEATURES
 Benday Dots — like those used in the traditional printing process. Benday Dots are two (or more) different small, colored dots combined to create a third color. Back in the day, pulp comic books used Benday Dots in primary colors to inexpensively create the secondary colors such as flesh tone.

 Fully adjustable control on all aspects of the process: Dot or Line size, Outline size, Color variation, Border: Width, Inset, Color & Corner Radius. 

INCLUDES
 Newsprint and Pulp Papers

 UNIVERSAL FEATURES 
All JixiPix Apps come with: Superior Customer Service, Support for High-Resolution Images & Output, Undo/Redo, Randomize Button, Quick Presets and the ability to create Custom Presets, Cropping with the ability to specify aspect ratio, Quick Preview, Email, Print, and the ability to post directly to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. We also have an online art gallery and invite our user’s to display their artistic creations on it: http://www.flickr.com/groups/jixipixcreations/

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 “JixiPix turns any photo into a masterpiece. All that is required of you is the appreciation — we’ll take care of the rest!” JixiPix.com “Creative Tools for Creative People" Photography | Artistic | Graphic Apps
 MAC • iPad • iPhone

About

Pencil Camera HD

Transform your photos and videos into artistic creations with real-time cartoon and sketch effects. Explore a variety of unique filters and adjust image parameters for endless creative possibilities. This app offers an intuitive interface and HD output for fun, artistic media creation.

Highlights
  • Real-time cartoon and sketch effects
  • 15 unique artistic filters
  • Adjust brightness, contrast, and contour
  • HD quality photos and videos
  • Slideshow with random effects
  • Supports iPhone and iPad
Features
Read full description

Be an artist! At least for the moment... Take pictures with amazing effects with a realtime preview. Pencil camera is not just another boring photo editing tool. It's a cool, stylish and real fun app for your iPhone and iPad. Grab pictures you've taken or pick them from gallery. For inspiration, there is a slideshow of your random photos with random effects applied.  User Reviews: "Wooooooow really really cool!" "Pretty awesome app. Me and my wife love all the effects. Well worth the $1.50. " "Awesome, artistic photos" Features: - 15 amazing effects, not only sketch-like effects. For example get pictures/videos from your holiday on Mars or Antarctica  - stylish compact wooden interface - change brightness, contrast and contour in real time for endless possibilities - we support both iPhone and iPad devices - interface fully supports awesome Retina displays, no more pixelized buttons on your new iPad - make incredible HD-quality home videos directly in Pencil Camera - and be sure that this is FUN! - take pictures of world or yourself - just switch between front and back cameras - bored by playing with the app? Press Slideshow and get inspired by innovative photos! Like us on Facebook to be in touch: https://www.facebook.com/PencilCameraHD Support: Do you miss something in the app? Let us know, we are working hard to improve it! It can be your idea what you will find in the next version. Do you have a problem? Let us know on ljezny@gmail.com. We will do our best to get rid of it.

Screenshots

Pop Dot Comics4 screens
Pencil Camera HD4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Pop Dot Comics at free against Pencil Camera HD's paid. Pop Dot Comics also leads on ratings volume (177 vs 8). Pencil Camera HD's advantage is chart position (#171 vs unranked). On rating, review sentiment, update cadence and ads 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

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Pop Dot Comics against 5.0 for Pencil Camera HD. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pop Dot Comics has 177 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 78% of Pop Dot Comics's written reviews are positive against 79% of Pencil Camera HD's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pop Dot Comics ships an update every 4 months, Pencil Camera HD every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Pop Dot Comics versus Pencil Camera HD: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPop Dot ComicsPencil Camera HD
Price$2.99 — better—
Rating4.9 (177 ratings)5.0 (8 ratings) — better
Positive reviews77.7% of reviews79.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings177 — better8
Update frequencyEvery 4 months — betterEvery 5 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
Best chart rank—#171 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size68 MB48 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJixiPix, LLCljezny

Customer experience

Pop Dot Comics

All ratings177 ratings
Positive97.7%
Neutral1.1%
Negative1.1%
Written reviews269 reviews
Positive77.7%
Neutral8.2%
Negative14.1%

Pencil Camera HD

All ratings8 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews317 reviews
Positive79.2%
Neutral9.1%
Negative11.7%

User reviews

Pop Dot Comics

From 177 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive interface
  • 🎨 Wide variety of artistic filters and effects
  • ✨ High-quality output results
  • 🎭 Great for pop art and comic-style transformations
  • ⚙️ Highly customizable with many adjustment options

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes, especially when editing text
  • ⏱️ Slow processing times between effect previews
  • 📉 Quality degradation when saving to camera roll
  • 🖼️ Results don't always match preview thumbnails
  • 💾 Loss of work when app crashes before saving

Pencil Camera HD

From 8 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Unique and creative photo effects
  • 👍 Easy to use interface
  • 💡 Interesting real-time video filters
  • 🎨 Artistic and sketch-like results
  • 🎨 Wide variety of filter options

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
  • 🚫 Unable to save or export photos
  • 🚫 Incompatible with portrait orientation
  • 🚫 Limited editing capabilities beyond filters
  • 🐢 Slow performance and lag

Bugs and requests

Pop Dot Comics

Reported bugs

12 issues
  • App crashes frequently during text editing
  • App crashes when saving or rendering images
  • Photos fail to load from gallery on some devices
  • High-resolution export produces pixelated images
  • Saved images appear different from in-app preview
Show 7 more
  • App crashes when adding and moving text elements
  • Rendering hangs or gets stuck
  • Crashes on iPhone 5 and older devices
  • Text editing causes app to close unexpectedly
  • Stability issues on iPhone 4S
  • Gallery import functionality broken on some devices
  • Occasional freezing during effect application

Requested features

17 requests
  • More speech bubble and caption options
  • Ability to adjust colors in specific areas (e.g., faces, lips)
  • Multi-cell page layouts and storyboard creation
  • Vaporwave aesthetic filter option
  • Text without word bubbles option
Show 12 more
  • Ability to rotate paper textures
  • Easier text size and rotation controls
  • Zoom capabilities
  • Brightness, saturation, and contrast user controls
  • Ability to import custom elements
  • Double dialogue bubbles
  • Direction control for speech bubbles
  • Larger halftone dot options
  • More varied caption directions
  • Simultaneous editing of multiple photos
  • Storyboard functionality
  • Better style preview with consistent sample images

Pencil Camera HD

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes when trying to record video
  • Unable to access camera roll to import photos
  • Filters not working as expected on some devices

Requested features

4 requests
  • More advanced editing tools
  • Ability to rotate and resize photos
  • Option to save photos at higher resolutions
  • Improved video recording quality and stability

In-app purchases

None

Pop Dot Comics

No in-app purchases

None

Pencil Camera HD

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pop Dot Comics free?
Pop Dot Comics costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pencil Camera HD free?
Pricing for Pencil Camera HD is not currently listed on the App Store.
Which has better reviews, Pop Dot Comics or Pencil Camera HD?
Pencil Camera HD is rated higher. Pop Dot Comics averages 4.9 out of 5 from 177 ratings, while Pencil Camera HD averages 5.0 from 8 ratings.
Do Pop Dot Comics or Pencil Camera HD have ads?
Neither Pop Dot Comics nor Pencil Camera HD shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pop Dot Comics or Pencil Camera HD?
Pop Dot Comics ships an update every 4 months, and Pencil Camera HD every 5 months. Most recently, Pop Dot Comics was updated on October 8, 2026 and Pencil Camera HD on October 16, 2026.

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