iColorama from the Beginning

A beginner’s guide to turning photographs into creative artwork
By Rachael Sokolowski

iColorama is one of those apps that can be both exciting and overwhelming the first time you open it. It is a full-featured art app with an enormous range of tools for changing tone and color, adding texture, creating painterly effects, distorting images, blending photographs, drawing, adding text and building artwork from scratch.

There two versions are iColorama (built specifically for iPad) and IColorama S (built specifically for iPhone). The interfaces are different. Make sure you you download the correct version for your device.

"Which app do I download?"

• If you are working on an iPad: Download iColorama. It is optimized for a larger screen and works beautifully with the precision of an Apple Pencil.
• If you are working on an iPhone: Download iColorama S. The menus are streamlined so your fingers don't block your art while editing on the go.
• Note: The App Store treats these as separate purchases.

Be aware this is not a simple app. With dozens of menu choices and hundreds of effects, the temptation is to start tapping everything. A better approach is to learn a small group of tools first, understand the basic workflow, and then explore.

This guide follows that approach. Rather than trying to explain every feature in iColorama, I’ll concentrate on processing photographs and on the tools that can get you creating quickly.

First: Don’t Let the Interface Intimidate You

iColorama is designed for creative exploration rather than technical precision. The iPhone and iPad interfaces look different because screen space is limited on the phone, but the basic functionality is the same.

When you first open the app, concentrate on the main menu. You do not need to understand every button before you begin.

The iColorama main menu. On the iPhone, screen space is limited, so focus on the main categories first.

The Main Menu

• Tone — color filters, tonal changes and black-and-white treatments.
• Preset — templates, borders, patterns, grids, color overlays and quick artistic treatments.
• Style — painterly effects and simulations of different artistic media.
• Effects — layers, glow, blur, denoise and other image effects.
• Adjust — exposure, HDR-style treatments, sharpening and tonal adjustments.
• Brush — painting and drawing tools.
• Form — crop, mirror, distort, warp and transform tools.
• Texture — papers, bokeh, smoke, lightning, fireworks and other overlays.

Most iColorama editing follows the same pattern: choose a main category, select an effect or preset, adjust the available controls, preview the result, and then either apply it or try something different.

Opening an Image

Start by choosing Image from Library and selecting a photograph. When iColorama offers several image sizes, choose the highest resolution available, especially if you may eventually print the finished image.

For your first experiments, choose a photograph with good lighting, a clear subject, and enough color or tonal variation to make the effects easy to see.

Understanding Presets and Adjustments

Many iColorama tools contain scrollable submenus filled with presets. Tap a preset to preview it. Depending on the tool, you may then be able to change opacity, gamma, contrast, lightness, sharpness or other settings.

Opacity is one of the most useful controls in the entire app. An effect that looks too strong at 100 percent can become much more interesting when reduced to 50 or 60 percent.

Tone > Enhance opens a scrollable set of presets. Tap one to preview it.

Apply vs. Save: An Important Distinction

All edits in IColorama are non-destructive. Think of iColorama as putting a clear plastic sheet over your original photo. When you pick a filter, change colors, or add a texture, you are drawing on that clear plastic sheet. Your original photo underneath is completely safe and unchanged until the filter is applied.

Any change you see on your screen is just a temporary preview. If you don't like it, you can hit "Input" or choose a different slider, and the change vanishes instantly.

The change only becomes permanent when you tap the Apply button , a check mark at the top right of the screen. Once you hit Apply, you can layer a brand-new effect on top of it.

After choosing a preset, controls such as opacity, gamma and contrast let you refine the look.
 

Save exports the current preview to your Photos library.

This makes it easy to keep several versions without committing to an effect. Try an effect, save it, try something different on the same starting image, and compare the versions later. 

A Simple Starting Workflow

1. 1. Tone > Enhance: choose a preset that gives you a good starting point.
2. 2. Adjust > Tone Lab: refine brightness, lightness, contrast or overall tone.
3. 3. Adjust > High: add sharpening if the image needs more definition.
4. 4. Adjust > HDR: experiment with additional local contrast and detail.
5. 5. Style > Coherence: introduce a more artistic, painted quality.

You do not have to use every step on every photograph. Think of this as a starting recipe rather than a rule.

Tone Lab is useful for refining the brightness and overall tonal character of an image.

Creating a Painterly Image

Painterly treatments are one of iColorama’s strengths. Start with a photograph that has a clear subject and interesting color relationships. Make any basic tonal adjustments first, then move into Style.

Try Painterly, Coherence, Water or Mosaic. Use opacity to determine how much of the original photograph remains visible. For a more natural result, begin around 50–70 percent. For a more abstract image, push the effect higher. You can apply one style and then add another, returning to Tone or Adjust afterward if the image needs correction.

Less is often more. A strong filter may be impressive for a few seconds, but reducing its strength can preserve the character of the original photograph while still giving it a handmade quality.

Style > Coherence can turn a photograph into a softer, more painterly interpretation.

Try the Same Photograph More Than One Way

One of the best ways to learn iColorama is to process the same photograph with different styles. The two landscape examples below use different Style treatments. Neither is “right.” The point is to notice how each treatment changes texture, detail and mood.

Style > Painterly applied to a landscape.

The same landscape with Coherence demonstrates how different styles can change the feel of the image.

Turning Photographs into Cartoons

Cartoon treatments work particularly well with portraits, pets and objects that have clear outlines. Simple backgrounds and good contrast help.

• Classic Cartoon: Style > Coherence, then Style > Edges, followed by Tone > Vibrance.
• Bold Pop Art: Style > Posterize, then Edges for stronger lines, followed by high Vibrance.
• Anime-inspired: Style > Simplify, then a softer Edges treatment; experiment with Tone > Enhance and Posterize for flatter areas of color.

Combining effects can push a photograph toward illustration.

Going Further: Forms and Distortion

Once you are comfortable with basic processing, iColorama becomes much more interesting. The Form menu allows you to distort and transform photographs in ways that move beyond conventional photo editing.

Portraits, architecture, geometric objects, strong lines, centered subjects, horizons, flowers and even text can all become raw material for distortion. Very busy or low-contrast photographs tend to be harder to control.

Making Something from Nothing

You do not even need to begin with a photograph. iColorama can create abstract artwork from a blank image.

1. 1. Open a new blank image.
2. 2. Add color using Tone > Cine.
3. 3. Move into Form and experiment with Deforms, Tunnel or Escher.
4. 4. Continue transforming the image until something unexpected begins to emerge.

This is where iColorama becomes less like a photo editor and more like a digital art studio. A gradient or field of color can become a texture, an abstract background or a finished image.

You can also begin with a blank image rather than a photograph.

Blending Images

Blending is another powerful way to move beyond a single photograph. Blend loads a second image over your current image and lets you combine the two using blend modes such as Normal, Multiply, Overlay and Screen.

It is useful for composites, adding textures, replacing skies and creating collage-like images. Think of Blend as placing one transparent sheet over another and deciding how the two interact.

Blend = layer them. Mixer = mix them. Mixer can combine several images more automatically, with less precise control over placement.

Blending a photograph with a painterly effect.
 

Textures, Effects and Brushes

Once you understand the core workflow, explore the parts of iColorama that are simply fun. Textures can add paper, bokeh, fireworks, smoke and other visual elements. Effects can erase or modify parts of an image. Brushes allow you to paint and draw directly into your artwork.

These tools become especially useful when combined. You might create an abstract form, use it as a texture over a photograph, erase part of the texture, and then finish with a brush.

Textures and effects can add atmosphere and unexpected elements to an image.

A Few Tips Before You Dive In

Start with one effect and learn what it does before stacking several more. Use opacity. Save multiple versions and compare them later. Try the same effect on different types of photographs. And do not be afraid to make something strange—distortion and experimentation are part of what makes iColorama interesting.

The Most Important Thing: Explore

The sheer number of choices in iColorama can make the app seem complicated, but you do not need to learn all of them. Begin with Tone, Adjust, Style and a few favorite presets. Then add Forms, Blend, Textures and Brushes as you become more comfortable.

There is no single correct iColorama workflow. Try something, adjust it, save a version, combine it with something else, and see where the image takes you. That sense of discovery is the real strength of iColorama.

Quick Reference: A Beginner’s iColorama Recipe

1. Open an image at the highest available resolution.
2. Make basic tonal adjustments.
3. Try one Style effect.
4. Reduce opacity if the effect feels too strong.
5. Apply it only when you are ready to build on it.
6. Save versions as you experiment.
7. Try Form, Blend, Texture or Brush when you are ready to go beyond the photograph.
8. Keep experimenting.

Start simple. Save often. Combine effects. Experiment fearlessly.