Liangzhu Photo To Cartoon

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on November 06, 2009

Liangzhu Photo to Cartoon claims to offer tools to transform a normal picture into a cartoon. However, it becomes clear rather quickly that this is nothing more than a glorified collection of filters.

The program's sparse interface was the first clue that things weren't quite right. With a real lack of direction and flow, we needed the online Help file just to get started. Our picture appeared in a Before-and-After split screen, which we thought was a smart design choice, though that was the last time this program pleased us. Its cartoon-making tools are nothing more than the same generic image filters we've seen on countless other photo-editing suites. While it offers sliders for dialing in the right look, the Pencil Sketch, Pen Sketch, and Pen & Ink filters don't seem to produce anything remotely cartoon-like. We'd expected the program to generate anime-style images, but all we got was a weak drawing-like rendition. The program offers some features for erasing and editing the actual picture, but they don't change the fact that the images it produces aren't really cartoons. This program and its incapability to generate acceptable or even recognizable cartoons constantly disappointed us. Any decent photo editor can do everything it does, and more.

Liangzhu Photo to Cartoon claims to have limited trial functionality, though we didn't find any limits, other than its basic failure to do its job.