Top 10 Best Image Processing APIs: LunaPic Photo Effects, Microsoft Computer Vision, and Others

Image processing refers to the technique of carrying out some operations on a digitized image with the intention of enhancing its quality, analyzing its contents, or achieving other objectives. With image processing APIs, you can process digital images easily and sidestep the need of developing your own processing algorithms from scratch.

So, to help you in identifying the right API for your use case, we assessed numerous image processing APIs available on the Rakuten RapidAPI platform, which is the biggest online API marketplace, based on the following criteria:

API features: We surveyed the vital features of each of the image processing APIs.
Price: We looked at the cost of entrenching each of the APIs into applications.
Ease of use: We evaluated the ease of fetching the APIs’ features and adding them to applications.

Finally, we created the following list of the top 10 best image processing APIs:

Top 10 Best Image Processing APIs

TL;DR: Here’s a table summarizing our key findings.

API	Features	Price	Ease of Use
LunaPic Photo Effects API	Add a wide range of amazing effects and filters to images easily	Pay-per-use plan of $0.01 per use and monthly plans of $50 and $100	Easy
Microsoft Computer Vision API	Access advanced algorithms for processing images and returning useful information, such as extracting visual effects, generating image descriptions, and more	Free and varying monthly paid plans from $19.90 to $199.90	Easy
ImageToSvg API	Convert raster images to SVG	Paid monthly plans of either $4.99 or $9.90	Easy
ColorTag API	Detect colors within images, generate color tags	Free and varying monthly paid plans from $18 to $250	Easy
Image Labeling API	Add semantic labels to images	Free and varying monthly paid plans from $9.99 to $999.99	Easy
Plot2txt API	Analyse and process images, such as convert colored images to black and white, extract keywords from images, filter images, and more	Free and varying monthly paid plans from $15 to $500	Easy
Cre8tiveAI PhotoRefiner API	Convert images from low resolution to high resolution	Free and varying monthly paid plans from $240 to $5,000	Easy
Any Image to Text or Words with Coordinates API	Convert any type of image to text or words	Free for 50 monthly requests, then $0.025 for each, or $0.02 per use	Easy
Colorme AI API	Add colors to black and white images automatically	Free and varying monthly paid plans from $10 to $150	Easy
IMG4Me – Text to Image Service API	Convert a text into an image, customize the visual appearance of the generated image	Free	Easy

1. LunaPic Photo Effects API

The LunaPic Photo Effects API allows you to add a wide range of amazing effects to your images easily.

API features: With the LunaPic Photo Effects API, you can either post an image from a URL or upload an image file for processing. It offers beautiful art effects to enhance the quality of your images. You can choose any of its over 100 filters to enhance the visual quality of your images. The API allows a maximum image size of 1500×1500 pixels.

Price: It offers a pay-per-use plan of $0.01 per use. You can also subscribe to any of its monthly paid plans, which are priced at $50 and $100 per month, allowing you to make 100 and 500 daily requests, respectively.

Ease of use: There is well-explained documentation to ensure you embed the API without any programming obstacles.

2. Microsoft Computer Vision API

The Microsoft Computer Vision API offers advanced algorithms for processing images and returning useful information.

API features: The Microsoft Computer Vision API lets you extract a rich set of visual features based on the image content, generate a description of an image in human readable language with complete sentences, generate a thumbnail image with user-specified width and height, and use the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technique to detect text in an image and extract the recognizable characters into a machine-usable character stream. The image to be processed can either be uploaded or posted from a URL.

Price: As long as you make less than 5,000 requests per month, you can use the API for free. Otherwise, you can subscribe to any of its paid plans, which starts from $19.90 per month to $199.90 per month.

Ease of use: There is detailed documentation to make consuming the API flawless and fast.

3.ImageToSvg API

The ImageToSvg API is a simple API that allows you to convert raster images to SVG.

API features: With the ImageToSvg API, you can convert a raster image to the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) image format easily. You can either upload the image file from a local storage or load it from a URL.

Price: There is no free plan for using the API. If you pay $4.99 per month, you’ll be restricted to 10 requests per day. Otherwise, you can pay $9.90 per month and get unlimited requests.

Ease of use: There are endpoints descriptions, code snippets, and other materials to help you in integrating the API with ease.

4. ColorTag API

The ColorTag API provides you with a powerful way of detecting colors within images.

API features: With the ColorTag API, you can generate a list of hex RGB values and text labels that can be used as tags for the uploaded image file or the image loaded through a URL. It returns a JSON object that contains the image color tags. The API can sort the generated color tags by relevance or by weight in the image. It’s suited for offering descriptive color statistics for images, such as creating color tag clouds to allow searching by color, assessing a picture and getting its dominant colors, and more.

Price: If you make less than 500 calls per month, you can use the API for free. Beyond which, you can subscribe to any of its paid plans, which starts from $18 per month to $250 per month.

Ease of use: There are integration samples, response samples, and other resources to help you in consuming the API with a few lines of code.

5. Image Labeling API

The Image Labeling API uses state-of-the-art machine learning technology for classifying a wide range of unique labels across several categories.

API features: With the Image Labeling API, you can easily add semantic labels to your images. You just need to provide the image URL and it’ll be passed through the machine learning model.

Price: The free tier is capped at 5,000 requests per month. To get more requests, you can subscribe to any of its paid plans, which ranges from $9.99 per month to $999.99 per month.

Ease of use: There is request examples, response examples, and other useful materials that make utilizing the API effortless and fast.

6.Plot2txt API

The Plot2txt API lets you carry out analysis and processing of images and other binary documents like audio files by employing an amalgamation of a wide range of modern technologies.

API features: With the Plot2txt API, you can convert a colored image to black and white, identify circles in an image, filter orthogonal lines from an image, summarize and extract pixel regions from an image, identify and mark lines in an image, extract keywords from an image, and filter an image based on pixel blob size. You can also use the API to convert speech from audio file to text, group images around dominant colors, and more. It accepts PNG or WAV files as input and returns JSON gzip’d collections of text and images.

Price: The free version is restricted to 20 requests per month. Beyond which, you can subscribe to any of its paid plans, which starts from $15 per month to $500 per month.

Ease of use: There is detailed documentation to ensure you get up and running with the API within a few minutes.

7. Cre8tiveAI PhotoRefiner API

The Cre8tiveAI PhotoRefiner API is a simple API that allows you to convert images from low resolution to high resolution.

API features: With the Cre8tiveAI PhotoRefiner API, you just need to upload a low-resolution image and it’ll be processed into a high-resolution image asynchronously. After the image has been processed, you’ll get a URL for downloading it.

Price: The free version is limited to 5 requests per month. Otherwise, you can subscribe to any of its paid plans, which begins from $240 per month to $5,000 per month.

Ease of use: You can get up and running with the API easily—there is sufficient documentation to help you to overcome any challenges.

8. Any Image to Text or Words with Coordinates API

This API lets you perform image recognition and convert any type of image to text or words.

API features: With the Any Image to Text or Words with Coordinates API, you just need to upload an image file and convert it to words or convert it to text. Furthermore, it also gives the coordinates—left, right, width, and height. The API supports three languages, which are English, French, and Hindi.

Price: As long as you make less than 50 requests per month, you can use the API for free. Beyond which, you’ll pay $0.025 for each additional request. You can also opt for the pay-per-use plan, which is priced at $0.02 per use.

Ease of use: There is expansive reference documentation to eliminate any hurdles when implementing the API.

9. Colorme AI API

The Colorme AI API lets you use a powerful artificial intelligence technology to add colors to black and white photos automatically.

API features: With the Colorme AI API, you can add colors to an image from a URL or a file upload. The colorized image is returned in JPEG format. The API gives better results on images with high resolution that conspicuously feature natural scenery and human subjects.

Price: The free tier is restricted to 50 requests per month. Otherwise, you can choose any of its paid plans, which are priced from $10 per month to $150 per month.

Ease of use: There is easy to follow documentation to help you in getting up and running with the API within the shortest time possible.

10. IMG4Me – Text to Image Service API

The IMG4Me – Text to Image Service API is a simple API that enables you to convert a text into an image.

API features: With the IMG4Me – Text to Image Service API, you just need to provide the text and it’ll be converted into an image. It will return a URL to the generated image. Furthermore, the API comes with various options for customizing the font color, background color, type of font, font size, and type of format (GIF, JPG, or PNG) for the generated image. It’s suited for preventing robots and crawlers from retrieving your sensitive information, such as email addresses, articles, or web contents.

Price: It’s offered for free.

Ease of use: There are code snippets, SDKs, and other materials to assist you in integrating the API within a few minutes.

Conclusion

That’s Rakuten RapidAPI list of the top 10 best image processing APIs. With the above APIs, you can process, manipulate, and convert images to improve their quality and enhance user engagement.

What’s more, you can click here to check other useful image processing APIs on the expansive Rakuten RapidAPI platform.

All the best.

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