Icon8 is a hot new service which turns an ordinary smartphone selfie into a great piece of artwork. It’s so stunning that pics can be compared with the drawings of Mondrian and Picasso. You’ll get to choose from beautiful available filters. Currently this service is available for Telegram and Facebook messenger but developers are working on adding support for more platforms.

Let’s have a look at history of the developers:

The developers of Icon8 decided to focus on selfies as 30-40% of all photos on social medias are selfies. The selfies uploaded by the user and those of their friends are very dear to them. So they decided to focus on selfies.

It is not so easy for them to make good looking neural styles for different faces. They specifically train their neural networks on different faces to render each of the facial features as good as possible. They also keep experimenting with lots of different pre and post processing effects to make styles beautiful.

One more interesting thing about them is that they believe in “Less is better”. With that in mind they only provide filters that works best for the users, not making them choose from 30 or more of them. (Even if an app offers 30 or more filters only a couple of them looks good, others are just waste of space and time.). They provide 6 filters at a time and keep on refreshing the filters with new ones every 2 – 3 days. The R&D team is actively working on making a filter for every kind of person and taste.

Why to use Icon8:

If you are still not tired with social media trend of paintbrushed looking photos and selfies, than this is a great new thing for you to try. All you have to do is attach an image in the conversation with the bot and it will send back an edited image instantly.(Time depends on the server load.)

The first image that you’ll receives will be edited with a random filter. The system applies filter that best suites the photo. But still there are 6 filters to choose from according to your taste. Like prisma, there is a small logo on the bottom right of the pic but still we can’t complain as it’s a free service.

After the release of Prisma, there are many same to same copies out there in the stores, but Icon8 is a better alternative because it saves space (Less filters) and is fast (Due to less server load). It is a kind of app which gives you better and better filters, the more you use it. This leaves behind the people with poor engagement.

Lets see what makes Icon8 a unique thing:

1. It will offer you new filters everyday

Most developers simply bloats their app with a huge amount of filters which makes it heavier on the resources. Icon8 offers few and this is what makes it high performing and not so overwhelming to the new users. You won’t be wasting time trying different filters. It offers only 6 filters at a time, but it replaces old filters with new ones every few days.

2. It is a messenger – first

The app stores are filled with too many apps that it’s too overwhelming to choose which app to install. And most people don’t like installing new apps on their phone. This is where Icon8 wins over others. You don’t need to search and download Icon8. It’s a messenger based service, just start a conversation with the bot from your messenger and start using the service.

3. It is optimized specially for selfies

Other photo editing services are made for editing all types of photos while Icon8 is optimized specially for selfies and hence it can processes the selfies faster than others. Most of the active users on social medias are around 18 – 24 years of age and around 30% of their pictures are selfies and they spend 54 hours of a single year taking selfies. By the way selfies generate most amount of likes, shares and comments.