Photographic Effects vs IllusionCam
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Photographic Effects
This app allows you to apply unique artistic effects to your photos. Choose from bass relief, contour, pseudo colors, or deformation to transform your images. Save your creations or take new photos to process.
- Apply Bass Relief effect
- Create Contour drawings
- Generate Pseudo Color images
- Deform images with barrel distortion
- Select images from archive or camera
- Save processed images
Read full descriptionHide full description
Effects is a Digital Image Processor (DIP) for iPad. It allows to select an image from the archive, or to shot a new photo with the internal camera, then process it using one of four different image processing algorythms. The four processing effects are: 1) Bass Relief: creates a new gray scale image with an Embossing effect. It is suitable for any kind of image, provided it has a good contrast. 2) Contour: creates a drawing obtained detecting the border lines between areas with different brightness. Best results are obtained with images with a strong contrast. 3) Pseudo Colors: creates a new colored image, converting different brightness levels of the original picture into different color hues. It can produce many different color combinations on the same image, giving a kind of Kandinskij effect. 4) Deformer: introduces a barrel distortion, compressing some portions of the original image, and inflating other ones. This effect is specially suitable for close-up portraits, and creates very funny variations. When the application starts, you are prompted to choose the image source: archive or camera shot. Once you ha picked an image, you are prompted to choose one of four processing methods. Touch one of the four sampling images to select the type of effect you prefer. When selection is done, the desired effect will be applied to the picked image, and the result shown. If the selected effect is Pseudo Colors, you can change the brightness-to-color translation, simply touching the resulting image one or more times. At this point, if you like the image produced, you can save it in the local archive, pressing the Save Image button. Then, you can get a new image to process.
IllusionCam
Read full descriptionHide full description
Turn your camera into a live illusion studio. Step in front of the lens and watch reality bend in real time. EFFECTS • Rainbow Silhouette — body tracking wraps you in living rainbow light • Time Echo — dreamy, colorful motion trails follow every move • Neon Edge, Lines, Thermal & Fireworks • Random mode auto-cycles through the effects CAPTURE & SHARE • Snap photos and record video of your effects • Save to your library and share anywhere Every effect runs live, right on your device. Open, point, and play!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: IllusionCam at Free against Photographic Effects's $0.99. IllusionCam also leads on update cadence (monthly vs every 38 months). Photographic Effects's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ads (none vs shown). On device support and iOS requirement 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
IllusionCam is free to download; Photographic Effects costs $0.99 up front. IllusionCam sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Photographic Effects asks for nothing beyond the download.
Photographic Effects ships an update every 38 months, IllusionCam monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Photographic Effects | IllusionCam |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 1.0 (4 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 38 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 46 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Luigi Fonti | Dynamic Upgrade |
In-app purchases
Photographic Effects
No in-app purchases
IllusionCam
- Fireworks Effect$2.99
Questions
Is Photographic Effects free?
Is IllusionCam free?
Do Photographic Effects or IllusionCam have ads?
Which is updated more often, Photographic Effects or IllusionCam?
Other comparisons















