How To Make A Photo Look Like A Cartoon

Many social media websites allow their users to create avatars — cartoon-like images of the person or user. Avatars are in wide use on all sorts of websites, including Facebook and Bitmoji. Your online cartoon counterpart can go on loads of adventures across a variety of sites, and lots of people enjoy making new avatars for their various social media platforms. With the help of one of many online platforms, you can create your own cartoon self with or without a photograph.Creating a cartoon avatar is very easy, and you can do it with free software and websites found online. In this article, I’ll show you the basics of creating a cartoon avatar for yourself, both from a photograph and from scratch.

How to Create an Avatar from a Photo

Using an app to turn your photo into an incognito cartoon representation is actually pretty easy and doesn’t require an advanced art degree. Check out these easy steps to find out how.

Step 1: Find the Right Photo

If you’re going to create a cartoon photo, then you should find a reasonably good photo of yourself that gives off the right vibe. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to transform a stock photo of some guy we found on the Internet.

Step 2: Pick a Cartoon App

With so many apps available, finding the right one may prove hard. To see a list of all available apps, type “cartoon avatar photo maker” into the search bar of the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.

Your choice will depend on the cartoon character style you’re looking for, as well as the level of control and the number of editing options that you want in your software. A couple of examples you can try are Cartoon Photo Editor by Game Brain and cartoon photo by Pixelab. Both are photo editors and free to download from an app store.

For purposes of this article, we’re going to use Cartoon Photo Editor.

Note: If you have an iOS device, you may want to check out:

Cartoon Face animation creator by VicMan LLC
Clip2Comic & Caricature Maker by DigitalMasterpieces GmbH
Sketch Me! by Bluebear Technologies Ltd.

Most photo editor apps like the ones mentioned are free to download, but keep in mind that in-app purchases often apply.

When you download the app you like, simply follow the setup process and ensure that the app has access to your phone’s photos. Each app will have an upload option. Tap that and upload the photo you want to use.

Step 3: Convert Your Photo

Now we’ve got the photo in the app. As you can see from the screenshot, Cartoon Photo Editor has a bunch of instant filters at the very bottom of the screen that we can apply (much like Instagram or Snapchat), as well as a slider section that will allow to manually adjust different values to create the ultimate image.

Step 4: Save Your Work

Once you’ve got the cartoon looking the way you want it to, just tap the download button (the large arrow pointing down) to make a copy of the cartoon image on your device, or tap the share button (the three circles) to put it online instantly.

It’s that easy! Thanks, Internet guy- I hope you like your cartoon version!

Other Options

If you’d rather not install any software or use an app, there are lots of web-based services that will generate an avatar for you based on your photograph. Let’s take a look at a few options to see what that might look like.

BeFunky One-Click Converter

BeFunky is an online graphics service with a lot of different features and options, and one of the options they have is a one-click photo cartoon maker. This is an upgrade from their free product, but you can try it at no cost. The image above is a sample of the final output. As you can see, it’s got a totally different feel than the previous cartoon, so you may want to play around with different options to choose the style for you.

Cartoonize.net is a free service that will let you use one of several different cartoon filters on your image. You can also download their full package which has hundreds of features. The image above shows one of their sample filters.

LunaPic

LunaPic is another online photo editor with the ability to turn photos into cartoons. The site has a wide variety of other editing tools as well. The above image is the default cartoon filter.

Create an Avatar Without a Photo

Another option you may want to check out is a cartoon avatar creator. These apps don’t require a photo or any artistic ability and let you pick and choose the features that best represent you.

There are character creators for different artistic styles. Try Cartoon Maker – Avatar Creator by Picfix Art Studio for generic cartoon avatars that kind of remind us of the Wii-moji. If you prefer anime characters, you may want to check out Avatar Maker: Anime by Avatars Makers Factory. And of course, apps like Bitmoji have an internal cartoon creator.

Cartoon avatar creators are convenient if you want a simple representation of you that isn’t really your photo. Avatars like these may come in handy when you need one for public forums or other online places where you want to keep your identity a secret, but still want to express your real and true self.

There are also some websites you can use to turn your photo into a cartoon. We wrote a tutorial article on websites where you can cartoon yourself for free!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I turn my photo into a cartoon without using third-party apps or websites?

Although cellphone editing tools have become way better than they used to be, they don’t yet allow us to convert a photo into a cartoon avatar. Perhaps we will see this native functionality because you can add stickers and other popular additions using the Android Gallery at least.

Final Thoughts

Many camera apps have “artistic” filters that you can use on existing photos. Rather than downloading another app, you may want to check to see if you already have these capabilities. You’re more likely to have these types of filters if you have a different camera app than the one that came with your phone.

Finally, if you are using your stock camera, you still have options. Simply check out the recommended apps or try out some new ones. Most are free from your app store, so try out a few until you find the one that’s right for you.