PicsArt Photo Studio

PicsArt Photo Studio
Web address	picsart.com
Slogan	PicsArt, where everyone becomes a great artist
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Photography, Drawing, Editing, Social Community
Registration	Optional
Available in	English
Created by	Hovhannes Avoyan, Artavazd Mehrabyan
Launched	November 7, 2011
Current status	Active

PicsArt is a free, all-in-one, photo-editing and drawing app and a social network. It empowers users to transform photos into works of art, express themselves, inspire and get inspired in turn. The app combines a vast variety of features into a highly acclaimed user-friendly interface. PicsArt features a photo editor, drawing tool, and a collage maker in addition to various camera enhancements including a video feature.

The PicsArt Photo Studio (PicsArt) app is available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows 8.1. Currently, the app is distributed through the App Store (iOS), Google Play, Amazon.com, the Windows Phone Store, and the Windows Store.

The app includes hundreds of individually customizable masks, effects, borders, frames, clipart items, fonts, a fully equipped drawing tool, a collage maker, a video feature and many other editing tools.

PicsArt’s social network lets users accumulate followers and followings, share photos and drawings, interact with other users and join contests. In the Contest section, users can find photography, drawing, and design challenges. Users can also directly share their images instantly on other social networking services like: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, Foursquare, WordPress, DeviantArt, Dropbox and more.

PicsArt also publishes the PicsArt’s Daily Journal,^[1] with photography and drawing tutorials, news, interviews, feature articles, and galleries that promote art and users from the community.

History

2011

PicsArt was founded by Hovhannes Avoyan and Artavazd Mehrabyan. It was first launched in November 2011 for Android devices.

2012

In 2012, the app rapidly gained popularity, achieving 35 million installs in its first year.^[2]

2013

The iOS version was released in January 2013 for the iPhone, then expanded to include the iPad in May 2013 ^[3] By January of 2013, PicsArt had almost 2 million unique daily users and 4 million registered user.^[2] In April 2013, PicsArt hit 50 millions installs. In October 2013, PicsArt released its first issue of PicsArt Monthly - downloadable monthly magazine.

By its two-year anniversary, in November 2013, PicsArt reached 90 million installs, nearly tripling in size from its first year. Active monthly users approached 30 million.^[4]

In December, PicsArt was released for Windows Phone.^[5][6]

2014

In January 2014, PicsArt was released on all devices that support Windows 8.^[7] By March 2014, PicsArt continued its rapid growth reaching 100 million installs on Android with over 30 million active users, over 60,000 images uploaded daily and a community of over 11 million PicsArtists ^[8] In June 2014, PicsArt was released on all Windows 8.1 PCs, devices and tablets. This marked PicsArt’s first leap from handheld phone devices and tablets onto personal computers.^[9] Nearing its third birthday, PicsArt has achieved 175 million installs with over 50 million monthly users and 19 million PicsArtists in its social network. The app has maintained and increased its rapid growth rate of over 7 million installs per month.

2015

In February of 2015 the company has announced the closing of a $10 million funding round from Sequoia Capital. ^[10] This is the first outside investment for this Armenia-based (an Eastern European country that is emerging as a strong contributor of tech to the startup world) company. The company is growing strong with over 200 million downloads and over 60 million active monthly users.

Ratings

By January 2013, PicsArt was the top application listed in Google Play’s Photography section in every market where Google Play was available. By the same date, the app had garnered over 500,000 reviews, and reached an average rating of 4.7, compared to rival Instagram’s 4.6, and Adobe Photoshop Express’s 4.0 rating.^[2]

As of August 2013, the app accrued 933,450 reviews on Google-Play.^[9] The iOS version of the app was listed among the top 200 free apps on iTunes.^[11]

As of July 2014, PicsArt surpassed Instagram as the top free photo app on iPhone and 5th top free app overall in the US.^[12]

As of October 2014, the app had more than 2,800,000 reviews on Google Play with over 2,000,000 of them rating the app with the maximum rating of 5 stars.^[9]

Photo Editor

Effects, Masks, and Other Features

PicsArt includes numerous individually customizable effects grouped in eight main categories: Fx, Blur, Artistic, Pop Art, Paper, Distort, Colors, and Corrections. The effects vary from creative filters such as vintage ivory, dodger, and black and white to more artistic effects such as cartoonizer, sketcher, fattal, pencil, holgaart, face fix, color splash, and paper effects among many others. Effects can be applied to an entire photo or partially, using an effect brush.

The PicsArt Photo Editor also includes over 100 masks, numerous frames, borders, lens flares, clipart items, backgrounds, call-outs and more, all of which are customizable. The app allows to add text and photo to an image.

PicsArt tools include Crop, Flip/Rotate, and Resize in addition to a number of advanced tools like: Shape Crop, Free Crop, Clone, Stretch, Curves, Color, Enhance, and the Selection tool.

With corrections, users can fix a face, change eye-color, hide blemishes or add a tan to someone’s complexion.

Collage Maker

The collage maker allows users to create collages. Users can mount their photos as a grid or on a variety of backgrounds and frames.

The Drawing Tool

PicsArt has a fully equipped Drawing Tool. The tool offers 21 customizable brushes and numerous stickers, callouts, fonts and text tools. The Drawing tool allows user to organize his/her drawing into layers, all of which can be hidden, merged, or rearranged. Users can draw on a blank canvas, upload a photo and paint over it, or use a Camera Brush for drawing while shooting.

Video

The Android version of the app includes a video feature which creates time-lapse videos of user’s drawings being made. Users can also export these videos to platforms like YouTube.^[13][14]

The PicsArt Camera

The PicsArt Camera enables you to take and preview pictures, perform digital zoom, and apply masks and effects live while you shoot. Users can also use DrawCam to draw directly on a live camera while they shoot.

Sharing

All images can be shared directly from the app on a variety of social networking services, such as PicsArt, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.

The Social Network

Registered users (PicsArtists) have instant access to the PicsArt Social Network. The Social Network is free and available for anyone who is 16 years old or older. All photos on PicsArt are under 24-hour review for mature content. Registered users upload images to their personal pages and have the ability to like and comment on each other’s work. Users can follow their favorite PicsArtists as well as amass a following of their own. The Social Network is organized into sections: Explore, My Network, and Contests.

Explore

In the Explore section, users can browse streams of photos being uploaded by other users in the PicsArt community. Users can browse through four sub-sections: Featured, Recent, Tags, and Artists.

Users can also access posts from the Daily Journal by clicking on banners at the top of the Explore section.

My Network: Following Stream

In the My Network section, a user can see a stream of photos that have been posted by his following (users that they follow). Like-wise, a user’s photos will appear in the My Network section of another user who is part of the former’s followers.

Contests

PicsArt offers three different regular contests: the Weekend Art Project, the Drawing Challenge, and the Graphic Design Challenge.

The Weekend Art Project: The Weekend Art Project is a weekly photography contest that takes place over the weekend. Each week there is a different theme. Themes alternate between specific subjects and approaches.

The Drawing Challenge: The Drawing Challenge is a weekly drawing contest in which participants use the PicsArt app to draw works of art based on weekly themes that span a vast array of subjects.

The Graphic Design Challenge: The Graphic Design Challenge is a bi-weekly contest in which participants use the PicsArt app to create graphic designs by combining images, texts, clipart, and editing and drawing tools. Each contest has a different theme.

PicsArt Monthly

PicsArt Monthly is a monthly photography and art magazine published by PicsArt Photo Studio. The magazine features artwork and artists from PicsArt’s social network, provides step by step tutorials on photography, photo editing and drawing, conducts interviews with famous photographers, and shares tips on travel photography and DIY design tutorials.

The magazine is released every month and can be downloaded at PicsArt.com/magazine.

The Daily Journal

The Daily Journal offers regular photography and drawing tutorials, news, contest related posts, interviews, and galleries that promote photography shared in the PicsArt community. Posts from the Daily Journal can be accessed through banners in the Explore section of the app, or online at http://blog.picsart.com/.

Tutorials – These tutorials explore both the technical mechanics of photography as well as approaches and techniques in various contexts. Additionally, the blog includes step-by-step drawing tutorials to accompany the theme of each Drawing Challenge, and pictorial tutorials posted by users, which reveal how they created their entries for the week’s contest.

News – The Daily Journal posts regular news regarding App updates, major events from the PicsArt community, and “Week in Reviews” which recap the events of the previous week.

Interviews – The Daily Journal features interviews both of professional photographers and of notable PicsArtists from the community.

Galleries – Regular galleries are posted that promote some of the best photos shared by users. Each gallery has a theme.

Contests – Announcements regarding contest rules, themes, and winners are posted regularly on the Daily Journal.

Features – Feature articles on PicsArt span a variety of subjects, from art to travel and lifestyle. Photography articles written by pros are staples, as are posts that explore seasonal themes, trends and pop culture. Another common form of article are pieces that highlight and promote specific users or artwork from the community.

References