Every Éphé painting begins with your photograph. The style system lets you shape how that photograph becomes a painting — from the weight of the brushstrokes to the color of the light.
There are two dimensions to choose from: Style (how the paint is applied) and Palette (the color treatment). Mix any style with any palette.
Styles
Style controls the brushwork, the level of detail, and the overall feel of the paint on canvas. Think of it as choosing the painter's hand.
Classic
Dreamy
Signature
Modern
Style
Classic
Soft, luminous, and intimate — like a portrait from the early 20th century.
The most refined style. Brushwork is looser than a photograph but gentler than Balanced — soft transitions, warm light, simplified backgrounds. Everything feels unified and calm, as if painted on a quiet afternoon in a warm studio. Busy scenes get simplified into their essential shapes. Backgrounds soften into atmosphere.
Best for: Portraits where likeness matters most. Children's faces, family groupings, anyone you want to look like themselves while still feeling unmistakably like a painting. Also works beautifully with older or black-and-white photographs — the warm, limited palette brings them to life.
The look: A confident single-sitting portrait by an early 20th century realist. Warm, balanced, slightly desaturated. The kind of painting that makes people stop in a hallway and ask who painted it.
Style
Dreamy
Light dissolving into color. Monet's garden, Morisot's parlour, Sargent racing to finish before the light changes.
Loose, shimmering brushwork built from dabs of broken color placed side by side. Forms emerge softly — present but elusive, like a memory you can almost touch. There is no sharp detail anywhere. Features dissolve into warm color and atmosphere. The whole surface vibrates with the energy of paint applied quickly and intuitively.
Best for: Scenes with beautiful light — golden hour portraits, garden settings, window light, outdoor gatherings. Subjects where mood matters more than precise likeness. Also stunning for flowers, landscapes, and candid moments where the feeling is more important than the detail.
The look: A painting that belongs in a gallery of French Impressionists. Luminous, poetic, and unmistakably handmade. Every inch of canvas carries visible paint texture and atmospheric softness.
Style
Signature
Our default. The one we'd pick if we were painting it ourselves.
Bold, confident alla prima brushwork — the kind of painting that gets done in one sitting with a loaded brush and a clear eye. Strokes follow the form of the subject, building structure through color rather than blending. You can see every mark the brush made. The surface feels thick and sculptural, but the subject is clearly recognisable.
Best for: Anything. Portraits, kids, couples, pets, landscapes. This is the most versatile style and produces consistently beautiful results across every kind of photograph.
The look: Painterly but grounded. Your grandmother would recognise who's in the painting. An art collector would want to touch the surface.
Style
Modern
Mid-century modernism meets portrait painting. Bold shapes, confident color, graphic clarity.
The most stylised option. Subjects are simplified into broad planes of interlocking color — faces built from a few decisive strokes, clothing and backgrounds reduced to bold color fields. Think of the Bay Area Figurative painters: David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Diebenkorn's figurative work. The composition feels graphic and intentional, with strong shapes and clear value structure.
Best for: People who want something that feels more like modern art than traditional portraiture. Strong, simple compositions work best — a single figure, a clear silhouette, a face with good light. Busy, cluttered scenes may lose legibility.
The look: A painting that could hang in a 1960s living room or a contemporary gallery. Warm, nostalgic, and quietly sophisticated. You know who it is, but it's built from color and shape rather than detail.
Palettes
Palette controls the color treatment applied to your painting. Every palette works with every style, but some combinations are naturally more harmonious than others.
Original
Your photo's colors, translated into paint.
Preserves the hues, tones, and temperature of your original photograph — just rendered in oil paint rather than pixels. If your photo has warm afternoon light, the painting will too. If it's cool and overcast, that'll carry through.
For black-and-white photographs, Original introduces a warm, limited painter's palette — ochres, umber, and muted rose — rather than producing a grey painting.
Best for...
When you already love the colors in your photo and just want it to look like a painting. The safest, most predictable choice.
Less ideal for...
Images with harsh artificial lighting, heavy shadows, or colors you wish were different. Original translates your photo's palette faithfully — if the colors don't feel right to you now, they won't feel right as art. Try Golden to warm things up, or Muted to soften them down.
Pairs well with...
Every style. This is the default for a reason.
Muted
Your photo's colors, just quieter. Restrained, understated, timeless.
Takes the colors already in your photograph and gently desaturates them — as if every pigment was mixed with a touch of grey or raw umber before being applied. The same hues and relationships are preserved, but nothing reads as vivid or punchy. Shadows become quieter and more neutral. Highlights soften toward warm cream. The overall effect is calm and understated, like a painting made with a well-worn palette where every color has been gently knocked back.
Best for...
Photographs where you love the existing colors but want them a step softer — not shifted to pastels or golds, just dialed down. Portraits with busy or colorful backgrounds that you want to quiet. Any image where subtlety is the goal.
Less ideal for...
Images that are already quite muted or desaturated — the effect may be too subtle to notice. If your photo needs more color, try Vibrant or Golden instead.
Pairs well with...
Classic (a refined, understated portrait) and Signature (visible brushwork with a calm, cohesive palette). Particularly nice with photographs that have slightly oversaturated digital color you'd like to tame.
Golden
Vintage warmth. Faded film. Sun-drenched nostalgia.
Shifts everything toward the warm, golden tones of vintage Kodachrome and Ektachrome — the way photographs looked in the 1970s before digital cameras cooled everything down. Whites become warm cream. Greens go olive. Skin glows with amber warmth. Shadows lean toward warm brown and burnt orange.
Best for...
Outdoor portraits, family gatherings, anything shot in natural light. Particularly beautiful with golden hour photography or images that already have a warm tone you want to amplify.
Less ideal for...
Cool-toned or overcast photographs where the warmth might feel forced. If your photo was taken under grey skies or fluorescent light, Golden will push everything toward amber and it may not match the memory. For cooler, quieter color, try Muted or Original instead.
Pairs well with...
Classic (for a timeless, vintage portrait feel) and Signature (for something bolder with warm undertones).
Moody
Dutch Golden Age. Candlelit warmth. Vermeer, Rembrandt, Frans Hals.
Deep, saturated darks — rich umber, olive, burgundy — with warm, directional light catching on faces, hands, and fabric. Highlights glow with creamy white and pale gold. Where your photo has vivid color (a red scarf, a blue dress), that intensity is preserved — bright against dark, the way a tulip glows in a Dutch still life.
Best for...
Intimate portraits, indoor scenes, low-light photography, close-ups. Images with a clear subject against a relatively simple background. Moody turns ordinary household lighting into something that feels painted by candlelight.
Less ideal for...
Wide-open outdoor scenes, bright beach days, large group shots in full sun. The dark, atmospheric treatment fights against compositions that are inherently bright and expansive. If your photo is full of sky and sunshine, consider Golden or Original instead.
Pairs well with...
Classic (soft brushwork with deep, rich color — the most natural combination) and Modern (bold, graphic shapes emerging from dark, atmospheric depth).
Vintage
Faded, sun-bleached, gently weathered. A painting found leaning against a country house wall.
The palette of vintage botanical prints and aged floral wallpaper — soft greens, dusty rose, warm cream, faded coral, and gentle ochre. Colors feel like they were once vivid but have been mellowed by time and light. Nothing looks freshly saturated or digitally bright. Shadows are warm and muted: soft olive, dusty mauve, pale umber.
Best for...
Garden scenes, children in nature, anything with greenery or flowers. Also unexpectedly beautiful for simple portraits where you want a timeless, heirloom quality — the faded warmth gives paintings the feeling of having always existed.
Less ideal for...
Bold, high-contrast images where you want the color to punch. Vintage softens and fades everything by design — if your photo's strength is vivid color or dramatic light, that energy will be mellowed away.
Pairs well with...
Classic (a warm, aged portrait feel) and Dreamy (for something that looks like it was painted in a garden a century ago).
Vibrant
Bold, saturated, alive. Color straight from the tube.
Amplifies the colors already in your photograph — pushing saturation so every hue reads with confidence. Greens are truly green. Blues are truly blue. Skin carries real color variation: warm golden light, pronounced rose in the cheeks, cooler tones in shadow. Shadows are deep but full of color — rich plum, dark teal, warm burgundy — never flat or muddy.
For black-and-white photographs, Vibrant interprets tonal values as rich, saturated color — warm golds in the highlights, deep colored darks, and vivid hues for clothing and surroundings.
Best for...
Photographs with color you love and want to see amplified. Colourful clothing, rich interiors, autumn foliage, anything where the existing palette deserves to be louder. Also the best choice for breathing life into black-and-white or faded old photographs.
Less ideal for...
Quiet, intimate moments where subtlety matters more than saturation. Vibrant amplifies everything — if your photo is gentle and soft-spoken, the extra color may feel louder than the memory. Try Muted or Original for something that lets the moment breathe.
Pairs well with...
Signature (bold brushwork meets bold color — the most energetic combination) and Modern (graphic shapes with strong, decisive color).
Choosing a combination
If you're not sure where to start:
- Just want a beautiful painting? Signature + Original. It's the default for a reason.
- Timeless family portrait? Classic + Golden or Classic + Original.
- Something dramatic for a statement wall? Signature + Moody or Signature + Vibrant.
- Soft and dreamy nursery art? Dreamy + Pastel.
- Modern art vibe? Modern + Vibrant.
- Heirloom feel for a grandparent's photo? Classic + Vintage or Classic + Vibrant (especially for B&W photos).
- Tame oversaturated digital color? Signature + Muted or Classic + Muted.
Every combination produces a piece of digital art that looks like a real oil painting — thick paint, visible brushstrokes, canvas texture. The only question is which version of that painting feels most like yours.
Classic (style) + Original (palette)
Dreamy (style) + Original (palette)
Signature (style) + Original (palette)
Modern (style) + Original (palette)
Classic (style) + Muted (palette)
Dreamy (style) + Muted (palette)
Signature (style) + Muted (palette)
Modern (style) + Muted (palette)
Classic (style) + Golden (palette)
Dreamy (style) + Golden (palette)
Signature (style) + Golden (palette)
Modern (style) + Golden (palette)
Classic (style) + Moody (palette)
Dreamy (style) + Moody (palette)
Signature (style) + Moody (palette)
Modern (style) + Moody (palette)
Classic (style) + Vintage (palette)
Dreamy (style) + Vintage (palette)
Signature (style) + Vintage (palette)
Modern (style) + Vintage (palette)
Classic (style) + Vibrant (palette)
Dreamy (style) + Vibrant (palette)
Signature (style) + Vibrant (palette)
Modern (style) + Vibrant (palette)
Make your masterpiece
No design skills. No perfect lighting. No decisions to agonize over. Just upload the photo and see what happens. Your first image is free. After that, images start at $1. There's no reason not to try.