S3 tech blog

Want a profile picture that stands out? Here are a few apps that can swap faces, turn your picture into a work of art, or just replace your face with a collage of emoji.

If you want a great profile picture, sometimes it’s best to simply take a great photo. But if you want something unique, the following apps can give you a bit of a shortcut. Some take your photo and transform it into something else entirely, while others help you take the best photo possible. Let’s get started.

Face Swap Live Lite (iOS, Free, Android Coming Soon): Swap Your Face with Anyone Else’s

Switch faces with anyone. Whether you want to put your face onto a celebrity’s body or just swap faces with your friends for fun, Face Swap Live Lite makes it easy to swap faces not only in photos but even in videos.

Check out the official gallery, if you want some idea of how this can work. Face Swap Live is $1, but there’s also an ad-supported free version. Android isn’t supported yet, but is reportedly coming soon. Interested users can sign up for a newsletter, to find out when the app is released.

If you’d rather not wait, and like doing things yourself, you can always read our tutorial for swapping faces yourself, with GIMP. It will take longer, but it’s free and works on all desktop computers right now.

Pikazo (Android, iOS, $1-$3): Make Your Photos Imitate Art

What if you could turn any photo into a work of art that closely resembles paintings by famous artists? Pikazo is a mobile application development or web application development aiming to do just that, allowing you to upload your photos to a neural network that can mimic the styles of famous artists including Vincent Van Gogh.

If you want a visually striking profile picture, it’s worth a shot. The app costs $1 on Android and $3 on iOS – read into that what you will. Check out the project’s homepage for some examples of how this works.

The tech behind this is pretty cool: it’s a sort of artificial intelligence. Here’s an interesting demo of this technology being put to work on a video feed, from the app’s creator Karl Stiefvater:

Photomoji (iOS, Free):  Turn Any Photo into an Emoji Collage

Great art is one thing, but maybe you find emoji’s a more accurate representation of your thoughts and emotions. You’re not alone, and Photomoji is a free app that turns your photos into a montage of the tiny icons. Just install the app and feed it your images.

The tech will analyze your photo and use the wide variety of emoji on your phone to stich it together as a collage. If you’re interested in how this looks, there are plenty of examples on the project’s homepage, so give it a quick look. The results are certainly unique, if nothing else.

SunCalc.org (Web, Free): Find out When the Sun Is Setting

Maybe all of these apps for tweaking photos aren’t to your taste, and you’d rather take an actual photo yourself – preferably at sunset. SunCalc.org can help by letting you know precisely when sunset is going to happen, so you can take the best photo possible. Just search for your location, then explore the timeline to see when the sun is setting.

The magic hour, when photos tend to look amazing, is highlighted on the timeline in blue. You can also see when to expect the sunset, dusk, and dawn, among other things. Dive in and see what you can learn.

9-Eyes.com:  Amazing Photos from Google Street View

If you’re trying to find the perfect cover art, sometimes inspiration can come from the weirdest places. Like Google Maps’ Street View, for example.

9-Eyes is a Tumblr blog dedicated to compiling images from Google’s Street View that could pass as photography. It turns out that a car travelling down every road on earth, constantly taking photos, will occasionally happen upon some truly amazing shots.

Scroll through this and you’ll see a wide variety of “photos” from around the world. If nothing else it’s a good way to get the feel of travelling without leaving your desk, but you also just might find something you love. Add it to your profile and start some conversations.

How Do You Make Your Profile Photo Remarkable?

Cool Websites and Apps tries to highlights things this site has never featured before, meaning a few great tools were left out. For example: there tools for instantly re-sizing your photos for every social network, and tools for adding a ghost to your Facebook profile photo.

But we also want to learn from you.

Are there any cool apps for creating profile pictures that we missed? Let’s talk about them in the comments below, because I always love the chance to learn from you.

Source: makeusof