Painterly turns photos into digital paintings with brush strokes

Painterly is a desktop app designed to turn ordinary images into digital paintings, one brush stroke at a time. Instead of using generative AI, the software relies on a greedy algorithm that tries random strokes on a canvas and keeps only the ones that make the result look more like the source image than before.

That process can be slow by design. According to the project, a high-quality painting may take several minutes to hours, depending on two factors: the size and complexity of the original image and the level of detail the user wants. One example shown by the developer uses 51,750 brush strokes.

Painterly is positioned as a hands-on tool for experimenting with photos, whether they are family pictures, vacation shots, or other images users want to reinterpret as painted artwork. The project recommends either buying the program or downloading the demo to get started, with further details available in its documentation.

The app is currently in early access. The developer says the roadmap lists features planned for the full release, while a changelog tracks updates between versions. Users are also invited to submit bug reports and feature requests, though they are asked to first check they are on the latest version, review existing open issues, and confirm whether a request is already on the roadmap.

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