Lensa AI Review – The Good, the Bad, and Everything in Between (2024)

There are many apps in the market that can change your photo and make it more attractive. One of the most popular ones is the one we reviewed today, Lensa AI. If you saw your friend with an amazing avatar pic, it just might be Lensa AI.

With AI, anyone can create magic with their photos. Just find the right avatar and you’ll have the right profile pic. And Lensa doesn’t just create avatars but also beautifies pics with artificial intelligence, so you look naturally beautiful.

Everyone looks beautiful on Instagram. And I’m not even talking about movie stars – your high school friends look like they’re celebrities. How do they do it? Everyone knows about filters, they’re old news now. AI is the hottest trend these days.

What is Lensa AI?

Lensa AI is developed by Prisma. You might remember Prisma from 2016 – it blew the internet with its amazing photo editing capabilities. The same Prisma launched Lensa in 2018. If you thought Prisma was something else, you’ve got to check out Lensa as it is AI-powered, making it even better.

At the core, Lensa is an image editing app. You can upload your selfie, remove imperfections from it, and create avatars. It works on photos as well as videos.

Is it popular? Oh yes, celebrities like Chance the Rapper, Jimmy Fallon, and Lilly Singh have used Lensa AI. If you’re into photo editing, it’s definitely worth a try.

Lensa grew in popularity pretty quickly and you can see everyone from NBC to CNN talking about it. Whether they talk about the ethics of AI art or how easy-to-use the app is, Lensa sure caught the attention of big players.

Key Features

• Offers magic avatars to transform your selfies into artistic portraits
• Creates AI portraits in no time
• Automatically retouches your selfie to enhance facial features and remove blemishes
• Removes or replaces background from images
• Enhances photo quality by adjusting lighting
• Adds a blur effect in photos
• Lets you modify facial features such as enhancement of lips and reshaping of jawline
• Applies virtual makeup to photos

Pros

• Powerful AI features that edit images effortlessly
• User friendly interface and easy-to-use app
• Realistic retouching so your photos keep looking natural
• Gives you control over effects and adjustments
• Comes with a 7-day free trial

Cons

• No free plan
• Asks for 10 selfies for the creation of an avatar
• Privacy concerns

How I Tested Lensa AI

I have been using Lensa for almost a year now. I also used Prisma before this and I think Lensa is a step up. I use AI-generated pics for my Instagram and TikTok but you can use it for absolutely any purpose.

While it does a lot of other things, I especially like Lensa for its Magic Avatars. I create different avatars for my dog and me. Yep, it creates avatars for pets too! There are so many styles to choose from and the avatars are pretty accurate.

I also use Lensa to touch up my pics before I post them on Instagram. Whether it’s a selfie or a food pic, you can blur out the unwanted elements and create just the right Instagram-worthy photos in no time.

My Experience with Lensa AI

I love Lensa and I think it’s definitely worth a try. But it gets kinda boring after some time. So yeah, get a one-time subscription and you probably won’t need to repeat it, especially since there are so many new photo editing apps coming up.

You’ve got to try it once though. It’s captivating and you’ll find yourself spending hours playing with it, generating the right pics. Selecting 10-20 pics for a magic avatar is a pain but once you do pick the right selfies, you can generate as many avatars as you like.

I played with Lensa for about a week like crazy. Then it lowkey started wearing off. I still use it to touch up my pics occasionally but the charm of magic avatars is something that will wear off pretty soon. I would still recommend it though – if you haven’t used it, try it and you’ll love it.

Pricing

Lensa is free to download. However, to use it, you’ll need to spend $29.99 per year. There’s a free 7-day trial on this plan. It will give you access to photo and video editing tools of Lensa AI.

However, to generate Magic Avatars, you’ll need to pay more. The Magic Avatars pack costs $7.99 for 50 images.

Lensa says that generating Magic Avatars requires a lot of computation power and that’s why they charge extra for the pack.

It’s a bit expensive, yes. But I think Lensa is worth it.

How It Works

Magic Avatars do seem like magic but there’s Stable Diffusion at the back. It’s a deep learning AI model that generates images. It learns from the images available on the internet to train its AI system.

Stable Diffusion uses the LAION-5B database. This database has a massive collection of digital art that’s used to train the AI model to generate art based on some keywords or example art.

In case of Lensa AI, it scans your selfies and runs it through the AI model to generate avatars that look like you.

There are concerns over the use of Stable Diffusion as it uses human work to train itself. These ethical concerns are complex and ongoing. Meanwhile, Stable Diffusion is being used in other apps and technologies as well.

Controversies

Lensa AI has faced several controversies, mainly related to its use of AI and data privacy.

Ethical concerns

To create Magic Avatars, Lensa uses generative AI technology. In the initial days, it sparked a lot of controversy because AI image generation was rather new back then. However, now image generation has been accepted in mainstream technology.

Lensa AI isn’t the only one using AI image generation. There are other popular tools such as Dall-E and Midjourney.

Data privacy

The privacy policy of Lensa AI states that the company may keep your images and personal data even after you’ve deleted your account. These images could be used by their AI model for training. This raises privacy concerns.

If you’re a privacy-conscious user, you might want to read their privacy policy before using the app.

Why Use Lensa AI

Lensa does have privacy concerns. But it is still one of the top AI-powered image editing apps. Why? Because it makes you look beautiful. Whether you want to look like a medieval hero or an enchanting queen, it will give you that look.

You can use it to retouch your photos without using heavy and complicated tools such as Lightroom or Photoshop. Plus, you can edit videos too.

Using Lensa AI

Using Lensa AI is pretty simple. To retouch a photo, just upload a photo and select a filter.

To generate Magic Avatars, select 10-20 selfies and the right AI models to generate the avatar.

User Experience

Lensa has a 4.6-star rating on the Apple App Store and a 4.1-star rating on the Google Play Store. While most of its reviews are positive, some users find it not-so-impressive

Many praise the app for its innovative features and ease of use. They particularly speak about the Magic Avatars feature. Magic Avatars are creative and can personalize your selfie in just the way you want. The high-quality avatars are loved especially by social media enthusiasts and digital artists.

However, some users have reported issues with the app’s functionality and pricing model. There are complaints about slow loading times, especially with Magic Avatars. Some users also feel that the app’s pricing is too high. Plus, users need to pay extra for Magic Avatars apart from the subscription.

Tips to Get the Most Out of Lensa AI

Lensa AI has many amazing photo editing features. Here’s how you can get the most out of Lensa AI.

Select high-quality selfies

The Magic Avatars feature needs 10-20 selfies. If your selfies are not clear, it will ask you to upload more. To get the desired results quickly, upload only high resolution clear selfies.

Use different poses and backgrounds

When you use different head poses and backgrounds, AI will be able to capture your face more clearly and generate more diverse avatars.

Use advanced photo editing tools

Lensa offers many photo editing capabilities. You can smoothen your skin, remove blemishes, and enhance facial features. When you use these settings, your pics will come out looking 10x better than the original.

Blur the background

If you haven’t tried it already, make sure you try the background blur feature. It creates a more professional-looking image. It also works for social media platforms.

Color correction

You can experiment with color correction settings to enhance the overall tone and mood of your photos. Adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and other factors to get the right effect.

Enhance your videos

Lensa also works on videos. It lets you apply filters and effects to videos to make them more beautiful and exciting.

Take annual subscription

The annual subscription is cheaper than 12 monthly subscriptions. If you like retouching your photos, you’ll need to have this app for a year anyway. So it’s best to pay for the annual plan.

When you move on

When it’s time to move on to another app, make sure you delete your account with Lensa AI. Most people just uninstall the app.

That will not remove your data from their servers. Their privacy policy states that they generally delete user data when the account is deleted, so it’s best to delete the account instead of only removing the app.

Lensa AI Alternatives

Yes, Lensa AI is great, but it’s not the only image editing app in the market, especially with the rise of AI. You’ll find many great AI-powered image editing apps. Let’s discuss some alternatives for Lensa AI.

Picsart

PicsArt is an image editing app similar to Lensa AI. It comes with features such as filters, effects, text overlays, stickers, and drawing tools. All these offerings allow users to create unique and attractive content. PicsArt also supports layering and blending modes, so you can perform complex edits easily. Picsart is available on iOS, Android, and desktop.

While both PicsArt and Lensa AI offer photo editing capabilities, PicsArt has more editing tools and a social media component. On the other hand, Lensa is more focused on selfies and generating AI-powered Magic Avatars. Picsart has some free offerings that will let you retouch your images for free.

FaceApp

FaceApp is another popular mobile app that uses AI. It can transform photos by applying various filters and effects. It is particularly popular for its highly realistic age transformation feature. You can see how you may look as an older or younger version of yourself.

It also lets you swap your gender by adding or removing facial hair and changing your jawline. And pretty much like Lensa, it can also apply makeup and change background. It’s easy to use and lets you upload a photo and apply effects in no time. It’s available on iOS and Android platforms.

FaceApp is a bit different than Lensa because while the former focuses on facial filters for aging and gender effects, Lensa is more about selfies and creating Magic Avatars.

Prisma

Prisma is an offering by the same company that developed Lensa. Prisma creates artwork from your selfies.

The app gained popularity in 2016 when it was launched as it transformed photos into artwork. Your photos would look like they were painted by a professional painter.

While the interface of Prisma is pretty much like Lensa, the former focuses on turning photos into oil-painting-like images while the latter creates avatars using AI.

Prisma also uses AI to transform photos into paintings. Like Lensa, Prisma also doesn’t offer any free features so you’ll need to subscribe before you use it.

Conclusion

I have used Lensa AI and found it to be a fun app that uses AI to create Magic Avatars. It also offers image editing capabilities. It’s pretty easy to use and all you have to do is upload your images. It can blur backgrounds, erase unwanted elements from photographs, enhance features, and more.

While it has some amazing features, it is somewhat expensive. You need to buy a subscription for photo editing and additional Magic Avatar packs to generate avatars.

There are also some privacy concerns regarding Lensa regarding the user data it stores. Despite these concerns, it is a rather popular photo and video editing app that has been used by over a million users.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)