Comparison

Photographic Effects vs IllusionCam

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read 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.

About

IllusionCam

Features
Read 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

IllusionCam4 screens

Verdict

The call

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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Photographic Effects ships an update every 38 months, IllusionCam monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Photographic Effects versus IllusionCam: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPhotographic EffectsIllusionCam
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating1.0 (4 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings4 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 38 monthsMonthly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS16.0 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size1 MB46 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLuigi FontiDynamic Upgrade

In-app purchases

None

Photographic Effects

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

IllusionCam

One-time1
  • Fireworks Effect$2.99

Questions

Is Photographic Effects free?
Photographic Effects costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is IllusionCam free?
IllusionCam is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Photographic Effects or IllusionCam have ads?
IllusionCam shows ads; Photographic Effects does not.
Which is updated more often, Photographic Effects or IllusionCam?
Photographic Effects ships an update every 38 months, and IllusionCam monthly. Most recently, Photographic Effects was updated on November 1, 2026 and IllusionCam on November 5, 2026.

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