ArtRage and Digital Painting for iPad and iPhone

ArtRage and Digital Painting for iPad and iPhone

Drawing of a dwarf.

I was intrigued by the differences between ArtRage and other art apps like ProCreate and Sketchbook
Pro so I got my hands on a copy and this is what I have learned.

I discovered that with ArtRage has some areas that sets it apart from other apps on  market such as access to a tool box with a wide range of brushes, pencils, markers, airbrush, etc. that feel more like the real thing than just about any app I have tried so far. ArtRage includes important features found in other strong drawing/illustration programs such as layers, history tool and the ability to save your work in different file formats. But in the end even with all of the bells and whistles there is one thing hold ArtRage back from making it a real "go to" app for me.

Playing with brush settings.

Pros:
Tool Box - ArtRage comes loaded with a ton of tools available for artists who use a wide range of media. You can spend hours exploring the settings as you try different brushes, markers, pencils, airbrushes, etc. and before you know it you could look up and realized that you have lost a hour just trying them all out (like I did) as you find out what each tool can do. Due to all of the rendering required for each brush however you will notice a slowdown using this app on iPad 3 or older iPad devices. The publisher recommends closing all other apps and restarting the application if a slowdown does occurs. This does help
with slow down, but I notice that there is a slight lag even on the first iPad Air and the iPad mini.

Cons:
The publisher states in its FAQ that the slowdown is created on purpose to mimic the speed of using actual drawing media, but some of the slowdown feels as if it is going well beyond mimicking the slower pace of the media and instead feels more lagged than purposeful. It would be nice if the speed could be significantly increased if desired. The average user will notice this "slow down" making drawing/painting very frustrating. However, if you are very meticulous in your work I don't think you will notice the slow down quite so much.

Improvements:

iPhone drawing.

The brushes themselves are very customizable. When using the watercolor brush you can adjust brush size, pressure, the load (how much paint is on the brush), bleed and even make adjustments to the paper to determine if the paper is wet or dry. Some implements, like pastel or crayon, only allow you to adjust the size and pressure which makes sense when using dry media over wet media. It would be interesting if some of these tools had extended options such as... using baby oil with oil pastel to give it a softer and more even finish or maybe a water based colored pencil where you can color in part of a drawing and add a little water to soften the edges.

Overall I think that ArtRage is a very good program if you are running the latest and greatest versions of iPad and iPhone (the iPhone app is also very good as far as iPhone drawing apps go.... I have a iPhone 6 (not the 6 plus) and I am not a fan of drawing on that size of a screen.

4 out of 5 stars

InkPen: A Vector Based Drawing App for the iPad

Creating geometric shapes, organic forms and manipulating text. 

There are a number of apps out there that allow you to edit images and paint pictures digitally for the web, but when it comes to preparing images for print you are still dealing with a raster based image that become pixilated when it is enlarged. Creating images using programs like Adobe Illustrator creating vector based images, images created using paths rather than brush strokes can be enlarged without the image degrading.

Up to this point I haven't found a vector based drawing app that had a similar feel to Adobe Illustrator and included a layer option until Inkpad... and best of all it is FREE!!

Just like Adobe Illustrator, Inkpad lets you create anchor points that you can manipulate both geometric and organic shapes.  You can add text and bend it around shapes, combine shapes, add gradients and objects colors. You can also import images into Inkpad and use the brush tool to trace around them creating more free-form objects giving it more of a hand drawn feel. When you finish your work you can export it as a SVG file that is a vector based file format that can be used in Illustrator.

 Pros:

• You can create vector based images that you can work on on your iPad and move it over to Adobe Illustrator.
• The program easy to use.
• The program is FREE!!

Con:

• When opening images in Illustrator I have noticed a problem with the text part of the file. The letters came out jumbled, but the rest of the image usable.

Over all this a great program if you are looking for a vector based program to use on your iPad. Oh, did I mention it was FREE!!

5 out of 5 stars

Review of Inspire Pro for iPad

Inspire Pro gives you limited options when drawing.

Searching through Apps Gone Free on iPad I ran across this program and decided that since it was free for the day I would give it a shot. On first glance Inspire Pro reminds me a lot of Tayasui Sketches without the bar showing on the drawing tools.

Inspire gives you three primary options when it comes to drawing and painting 1) Wet Brush, 2) Dry Brush and 3) Eraser Tool. Under wet brush and dry brush you have a few options that involve a regular brush, airbrush, shapes, pencil and crayon. Beyond that each brush has a limited amount of sizes to choose from. You can adjust the size of the mark and the rotation giving you a small amount of flexibility, but that is about it when it comes to tools.

There is a great color pallette option, but that is about all that Inspire Pro has going for it. The app looks like it was developed to be used on the iPhone which makes sense, but it don't hold up when it came to the iPad.

Pros:

1. It will probably work great on an iPhone or iPod Touch to draw and sketch.

Cons:

1. The graphics used in the program are blurry and uninspiring.
2. Limited tool options and no layers make it something I don't want to draw on.
3. The $9.99 price tag is way to high for what you get (I could purchase Procreate and ArtStudio at that price point and be set for drawing tools.

 

1 out of 5 stars

 

ArtStudio App for iPad

I have read a lot or reviews with contrasting opinions trying to tell me which art program is the king of drawing programs for the iPad, Procreate and ArtStudio. Each program has its pros and cons, but today I am going to take a look at ArtStudio.

ArtStudio is a long standing app for the iPad. The program is advertized as a sketching, painting and photo editing program with a wide range of features. The program offeres over 450 brushes (only 150 of them are free), palm rejection, pressure sensitive styluses optimization, layers, masks, creating lists of your favorite colors, auto save, shapes, a wide range of tools, filters and the ability to export yoru work as a JPG, PNG and PSD file.

First Reactions: Bluetooth Stylus

ArtStudio has the most "Adobe Photoshop-like" interface of any program I have for iPad to date.

There are a lot of options that allows you to customize the program from activating palm rejection, programing gestures and what they do in the program, customization for multiple Bluetooth styluses, and the ability to adjust the layout. I tried going into the settings and setting up Wacom stylus which I was able to activate, but it requires you to go into the brush settings as well and enable the size and opacity of the stylus which was very confusing. I expected to see the brush settings under settings, but you have to double click on the pencil in the toolbar and go through a lot of options and the Stylus Pressure options are easily overlooked.

Selecting colors and saving them to your favorites.

 First Reactions: Drawing and Painting Tools

Like in Sketchbook Pro and Procreate, ArtStudio lets you create a number of layers, re-order them easily and re-name them so you can keep track of what is what. You can adjust their opacity, link them, duplicate and delete layers easily. You can use the pencil, brush, wet-brush, spray paint, dot, gradient and paint bucket to help you add a wide range of marks in a wide range of colors to your work. I found that the ability to manipulate your drawing and painting tools were limiting compared to Procreate, but was better than other Apps like Sketch Club and Sketchbook Pro.

First Reactions: Color Palette 

The color palette is where ArtStudio really shines in my opinion. I really like the layout, the ability to go between two sets of colors, Color1 and Color2, and the ability to save colors to a toolbar found on the right hand side of the screen. You could go back and forth from HSV and RGB color giving you a wider range of color options. This is also well integrated with the gradation option allowing you to use two colors, Color1 and Color2, as part of your gradation.

First Reactions: Photo Editing

Another area that ArtStudio shines is in its ability to edit and correct photographs. Similar to Adobe Photoshop, ArtStudio allows you to import photographs and correct the brightness/contrast/exposure as well as manipulate color balance through curves. The program also come with "auto" correct options for contrast, color and white balance that I found to be hit or miss.

ArtStudio is a great app for editing photographs on the go.

Pros:

1. Color Palette is very organized and allows you to customize your colors so you can access your favorites with ease.
2.  As far as iPad programs go ArtStudio allows you to correct photos with easy before you upload them to the web. Don't get me wrong, ArtStudio is not a substitute for Adobe Photoshop, but it is a very good option for mobile devices.

Cons:

1. Setting up a Bluetooth stylus was a lot harder than it needed to be and didn't seem to work as well as other programs like Procreate and Sketchbook Pro.
2.  Brush and Drawing Tools were a not as solid and making adjustments is more difficult than it is in Procreate and Sketchbook Pro.

Overall:

I would definitely recommend ArtStudio for someone who wants a very solid and well rounded art program that can be used for drawing, painting and especially photo editing you get a lot for only $4.99. If you are looking for something to sketch with or do digital painting I would still stick with Procreate.  

4 out of 5 stars

Remote Access for Photoshop Using Air Keyboard for iPad and Andriod

Air Keyboard lets you use your mobile device as keyboard.

Okay. Almost everyday I check a website called AppsGoneFree to see, well, what apps have gone free! Today I stumbled across and app called Air Keyboard which allows you to use your iPad as a wireless keyboard for your Mac or PC. I thought Air Keyboard was something cool to try, but it is not something I would normally put on ArtTech Review until I went through the apps settings. In the app's settings I found that you can change the layout of your iPad to do a number of things. Air Keyboard lets you create a full-keyboard, compact keyboard, control your Windows' Media Player (I have a PC at home and I am assuming you can control iTunes on the Mac), just a touch pad and a layout for computer gaming all at your finger tips. This alone makes it a useful app, but it is what you can do with Photoshop that makes it a worth wild pickup for the digital artist.

Air Keyboard lets you access the Adobe Photoshop toolbar.

After going through the settings I realized that Air Keyboard allows you to access your Photoshop toolbar and a mouse from your mobile device allowing you to use Adobe Photoshop remotely. I tested the app on my own computer and I discovered that yes Air Keyboard allows me to Photoshop very easily! To get the app to work with your computer you must install Air Keyboard's software on your computer first. Once installed it should find your computer or laptop as long as you are connected to the same wireless network. If you can not find your computer you can manually enter your computer's IP Address. If you don't know how to find your IP Address click (here) and use the following website to find it.

Pros and Cons for Air Keyboard for the iPad.

Pros

1. The app is very inexpensive ($1.99 when I checked) and easy to use.
2. Air Keyboard lets you control Adobe Photoshop's toolbar!
3. The ability to design and customize Air Keyboard layouts.

Cons

1. Even the compact keyboard is difficult to type on due to its size. I can only image it will be even more difficult if you have an iPad Mini.

4 our of 5 stars

A First Look at the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom

The Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom out of the box.

Last night I had an opportunity to preview the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom almost a month before it hits the stores on October 7th.  Being obsessed with finding the best styluses on the market I have compared a wide range products, but the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom is in a class by itself.

For me the only thing that was missing from most styluses is the ability to adjust the pressure and relative thickness of my mark without having to go back and forth constantly making subtle changes to the settings in the whichever app I was currently using. After extensive research I discovered pressure sensitive styluses that used Bluetooth 4.0 technology that gives the user more control over his or her marks. So I picked up the Pogo Connect and used it pretty rigorously for a few months and found that it has some connection problems forcing me to take the battery out in an attempt to re-connect the stylus with the iPad. The Pogo Connect also has a programmable button that allows you to execute a command, usually undo, but I found myself constantly hitting the button and undoing my work.

The Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom connects to the iPad instantly and works without any problem what so ever. The Intuos comes with its own protective case, two additional nibs and a AAAA batter that I have never used before. The Intuos is weighted towards the tip and feels more like a pen or a marker rather than the Pogo Connect that felt like a very light hollow tube even with the AAA battery inside. The tip of the Intuos Creative Stylus is much finer than the Pogo Connect so I have a better idea where the stylus is hitting the surface of the iPad. The Intuos' tip is denser and does not flex as much as the Pogo Connect making the connection to the iPad stronger and my marks more direct.

The Intuos has two-buttons that come standard with most of the Wacom styluses (dating all the way back to my first Wacom Tablet in 1999). The first button is lower and closer to the head, but with enough of a lip to stop your finger from running over it. The second button further back on the stylus raised up significantly and takes a conscious effort to push keeping you  from bumping into it on accident. You can go into the settings of most of the drawing apps mentioned above and change the button's settings as needed (I set the low button to redo and the raised one to undo).

The only issue I had with the Intuos Stylus Connect was a clicking noise that would happen when I picked the stylus off the iPad and pressed back down the make dots  rather than straight lines. If you keep the Intuos Creative Stylus connected to the iPad as you draw you will not notice any noise or tapping sensation.

Pros and Cons for the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom.

Pros

1. Nice weight to the stylus making it feel more line a real pen. The weight of the stylus is also distributed more to the point then the back end making it easier to use than other styluses I have run across.
2. Instant connectivity! I have only really used it with Procreate, but it connected instantly and never disconnected from the device like the other Bluetooth 4.0 styluses I have used in the past.
3. The two buttons setup allows you to program each with a number of different options allowing for greater persionalization.
4. A solid carrying case and two additional nibs which is great if you use your stylus a lot and worry once the nib wares out you will have to wait for another one to be shipped to you.

Cons

1. The clicking noise created by lifting your stylus and tapping it on the screen is a little distracting, but I am sure I will become used to it in time.
2. The price tag. I feel that $99.95 is a little high for a stylus, but other styluses like Pogo Connect go for $79.99 and with the case and the additional nips I would pay the extra $20 and get the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom.

Over all the Intuos Creative Stylus from Wacom is the best stylus I have used to date and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sketching on the iPad. If you are going to fork over $70+ for a Bluetooth 4.0 stylus anyway I would fork over the extra $20 for the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom, you will be happy that you did.

Update: I have used the Intuos Creative Stylus by Wacom for a few weeks now and I love it. The stylus seems to be much more sensitive then the Pogo Connect and it connects instantly to Procreate and it hasn't disconnected once while using it! The only problem is the AAAA Alkaline battery that Wacom uses to power its device. After only two weeks of use (spearing used) the battery is already dead. Doing a little research not every store carries AAAA batteries and there are no rechargeable batteries so the cost can get pretty high over time . The Pogo Connects for example lasted over a month on a single AAA battery giving you some confidence that you can use it for a while before it begins to run down.

The Intuos comes with a slot to hold your AAAA battery so you can either take the battery out when it is not in use or keep a second one with you if you worry about it dying on you. Because of the issues with battery life I am going to have to lower my rating from 5 stars to 4.

4 out of 5 stars

The Big Picture: Art Games for Kids and Adults

As an art educator I have witnessed first hand the power of  games and how they can be used to teach students. If a students becomes engage in the game and retains important information it makes my job a whole lot easier. I use Apps Gone Free almost every day searching for new an interesting apps for my own personal use, art apps to review and games to play. In my search have found a number of art games and interactive apps that teach students about color theory and art history.

Here are a few of the apps that you can use with your kids or test your own knowledge of art history.

Color Vacuum 

Color Vacuum introduces kids to RGB color mixing.

Color Vacuum ($0.99), an iPhone and iPad app, encourages kids to pick up and capture colors using the device's digital camera. The app lets kids see how Red, Green and Blue are used to create other colors through RGB color mixing method. The app also measures color intensity and saturation. As you move the view finder in the center over an object the color being captured appears in the center of the device's viewfinder in a small bubbles. The color shown in the bubble is captured and broken down into RGB color in tubes at the bottom of the screen.

The instructions are a little fuzzy and an adult will probably have to walk the student or their child through the app and show them how it is use.

Pros

• Uses a very interesting and stylized interface to teach kids about RGB color.

Cons

• The app  is a little to confusing for kids to grasp on their own without help from an adult.

I give Color Vacuum...

2 out of 5 stars

Blendamaze

Blendamaze mixes color theory and a traditional roller ball game together.

Blendamaze ($2.99) is a tilting board game that invites the player to role a white ball into different pallets (areas of color) to explore color mixing. Once the ball drops into the pallet it sinks in, the ball changes its color to that of the pallet and gets kicked back out somewhere else onto the wooden. When you get to higher levels you can role the white ball into different pallets and begin mixing colors. As the ball roles around on the board moving from one pallet to the next it creates a streak of color on the wooden board showing the path the ball has taken. The game has different categories such as Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Complimentary colors with about 30 different games per category. Depending on how well you do in each game your receive stars to track your progress.

Pros

• A very simple application that teaches the fundamentals of color and color mixing.

Cons

• If you don't like "tilt and roll the ball through the maze" games then you probably won't like Blendamaze.

I gave Blendamaze...

4 out of 5 stars

Art Race

Art Race is a great brain teaser for art lovers!

Art Race (Free) is a wonderful flashcard game testing the player's ability to pairing an artist with an artwork. The game places a single image on your screen along with two artists' names. A timer counts down limiting your time to choose (or use Google to search for the answer) which artist you believe made the work. There are also stars to keep track of your score. If you get too many answers wrong then you will have to start that section over again.

Once you score enough points a new game level will open with new works of art and artists to choose from. The game has five painting levels ranging from Art Lover to Master, two sculpture levels with Appraiser and Expert and an architecture level that reads "coming soon". A great way to test your knowledge or prepare for an Art Appreciation exam.

Pros

• A great app for art and art history lovers!

Cons

• Needs more minority, female and contemporary artists to help round it out. 
• Needs embedded information on artists or movements or at least a link to the artist's Wikipedia page! 

I gave Art Race...

5 out of 5 stars

Van Gogh: Painted with Words

A well structured time line of Vincent Van Gogh's life.

Van Gogh: Painted with Words ($4.99), a biography on the artist's life, telling Van Gogh's life story and breaking down his work into various themes. The user can follow the timeline in sequential order or jump around from section to section. The app is also allows you to view Van Gogh's work in themes set to music so you can look at the work rather than following the biography.

Pros

• Great imagery and well laid out, the app gives you a variety of ways to interact with it and the audio intro is a good overview of Van Gogh's life.

Cons

• I don't know if the app has enough to justify its $4.99 price tag.
• The app is bright and colorful making the user think that it is good to use with children, but the level is really young adult and up.

I gave Van Gogh: Painted with Words...

5 out of 5 stars

Rembrandt

Rembrandt has great high def (HD) images and video links.

Rembrandt ($0.99) is an extensive collection of works by the master covering a wide range of media (painting, drawing, printmaking, etc) using high def (HD) quality images. The app also has a video section covering a number of art movements that link to YouTube. Its make, LOVA, has created similar apps for Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Manet, Titian, etc at $0.99 each. There is also an Art History Interactive which highlights 50 masterpieces for western art.

Pros

• Amazing HD quality images and the YouTube video library is pretty amazing as well!

Cons

• I watched some of the videos (awesome), but it would be helpful to know which videos would be appropriate for students in advance and which where not. 

I gave Rembrandt...

5 stars out of 5

Here are just a few of the educational art apps I have run across while researching studio apps for the iPad, iPhone and Android devices. Once I have a collection of 4 or 5 new educational apps and art games I will post them again to the site. Thanks for reading!

LiveSketch HD for the iPad: Mimicking Drawing Tools without Control

Most drawing apps give you a wide range of tools, choices of color and the ability to create your work using layers, but like Zen Brushes, LiveSketch HD is good at doing one thing and one thing only... creating work that looks like a mathematical mess rather than a true artistic creation.

LiveSketch HD allows you to draw lines on the screen that look like a cross between graphite drawing and vine charcoal, but rather than leaning on the strengths that each medium brings to the drawing board (no pun intended) it falls somewhere in the middle. Drawing with LiveSketch HD allows you to sketch, change colors and incorporate backgrounds and that is about it.

The line work is very stylized, but again the quality is entirely to uniform to make for a good drawing app. I spent time exploring the app and all its functions, but I was quick to realize that the app itself is very limited.

LiveSketch HD brings a charcoal look to their app.

The Pros and Cons for LiveSketch HD

Pros

1. The app creates a unique line that I have not run across in any other sketching app and does a great job of mimicking charcoal or a soft sketching pencil being dragged along its edge.
2. The app is relatively inexpensive ($1.99) and if you really like the look of the marks than it might be worth the price.

Cons

1. The app has no brush options allowing for little variety when it comes to line and value
2. LiveSketch HD has no layers and it only allows you to export your work to either the iPad's gallery or send it out via email.

Over all I feel that this app is entirely to limiting to recommend it unless your are really taken with the line quality and look the app provides. Don't let the fact that Japanese artist Yoshitoshi ABe used this app in a YouTube video be the only thing that persuades you to purchase this app. 

I give LiveSketch HD...

1 star out of 5

Paperless - Draw, Paint and Sketch App for the iPad

Drawing of my beautiful wife using Paperless.

While searching the vast reaches of iTunes I occasionally stumble upon an app that reminds me of other apps that I have already reviewed. Paperless - Draw, Paint and Sketch for the iPad OS 4.0 or later reminds me of other apps I have reviewed, but not in a good way.

If you have even thought about sketching on your iDevice you have run across Paper by 53 which is one of the staples when it comes to digital sketching on your iPad. Like Paper, "Paper-less" creates sketchbooks for you to organize your work by title so you can find your project later. Just like Paper and Sketches, two apps that faced off on my blog a few weeks ago, uses a basic array of drawing tools. Paperless feels a lot like Paper in its utilization of pencil, pen, brush, a marker and an eraser tools to create an edit marks. Unlike Paper, Paperless comes with all the drawing tools pre-loaded where you have to purchase tools in Paper by 53.

Paperless does allow yo to change brush settings, but not on every brush.

Paperless has re-do and undo buttons that allows you to go back or go forward up to 15 changes. You can use the color tool to organize colors by using a color palette of recently selected colors for quick access later on. You can adjust the each brush tools' opacity, shape, smoothness, etc. as you go into and lay-down marks. I did find however that when you made changes to size of the brush or its opacity that the brush itself didn't always change. I was sketching a tea kettle on my stove as I started to play with the app I decided the outline was to thick. I thinned the line and it took about 10 marks before the line actually thinned. I would continue to make marks and after 5 or 6 marks it would become thick and the next 4 or 5 would change to thin without any adjustment to the app on my part. I know that some apps utilize pressure sensitive styluses that can adjust to changes in pressure, but at the time I was using a standard stylus that does not register the change.

I decided to really see what this app could do so I drew a picture of my beautiful wife Malinda. I started with a blue layer as an under drawing, outlined it with black and added a third layer for color.I quickly realized that you can not change the order in which the layers are stacked, so I had to trace the image with black underneath the blue under drawing. Going back and forth, turning the blue layer on and off was very frustrating. I appreciate that Paperless allows you to create layers, but not being able to change the order of the layers ruined a good sketch. Unless you go into the app and figure this out on your own there is no way to tell. You are very limited with three layers so I decided to go in and add a background to the image after I started the sketch. I then realized that if you change the background it will cover over whatever is already there instead of adding a new background on a separate layer.

Paperless does allow you to create a sketchbook to store your sketches as well as lets you name each sketchbook adding pages to it as you go. I decided to add my sketch of Malinda to my "ArtTechReview" sketchbook when low and behold I discovered that you had to create the book first and add pages as you go. Unfortunately that meant that I could not add Malinda to my collection! :(

Pros and the Cons for Paperless...

Pros

Paperless lets you create sketchbooks to organize your work.

1. The app is fairly inexpensive as far as drawing apps go and it comes with a lot more options out of the box than similar apps like Paper by 53.
2. You can create sketchbooks to organize your work and personalize your projects as you move along.
3. There are a number of build in controls to edit different drawing tools allowing the artist to change opacity, size of the brush, brush thickness, etc.
4. You can access a number of colors that you have previously selected which keeps you from having to use the eye-dropper tool to select previously used colors.

Cons

1. Layers! I can't tell you how upset I was when I discovered that my under-drawing was stuck on top and that you could only use 3 layers in your work. For someone who uses 10-20 layers per drawing this felt very limiting.
2. Brush controls were very limiting. I also discovered that only certain adjustments could be made in each tool. The pencil for example only allowed you to adjust the size of the mark and nothing else. The brush allowed you to adjust the thickness, opacity, softness, etc, but these options were left off other tools. I understand that there are only so many adjustments that could be made with a real pencil, but it would be nice to experiment a little more.
3. Not being able to add pictures to sketchbooks unless you build the sketchbook first.
4. You can rotate the iPad, but not the canvas with your fingers. If you notice I have one vertical picture and two horizontal. The tools do not move and re-adjust themselves like they do in most drawing apps that I have tried. 

Over all I would go with Sketches over both Paper and Paperless if I wanted a good sketching app. Sketches is a buck cheaper than Paperless so if you want a basic and easy to use app then go with Sketches and leave Paperless in the nether regions of iTune's app store .

I give Paperless for the iPad...

2 stars out of 5

Installing Art Work with My Measures & Dimesions for the iPhone, iPad and Android

My Measure can help arts pre-plan their spaces.

I stumbled upon an app the other day that had practical applications for interior designers and a home contractor, but I see it as tool for the studio artists or art teachers prepare for an upcoming exhibition or mural projects. My Measures is an app that allows it user to take a picture, attach arrows to show height, width and depth of walls, windows or objects as you plan your exhibition. You can adjust the arrows' length, change their colors, create angles and add text/notes for later.

There are two versions of My Measures to purchase from the app store. The $2.99 version of My Measures allows you to add arrows, change colors, add measurements and change text as well as share your images with others via email. If you want to link your images to cloud apps like Dropbox and export your work as PDFs then you will need to purchase My Measures Pro for $5.99.

There is not a lot else to this program, but measuring, adding text, exporting images, but if you are an art who is to do a lot of pre-planning to prepare for an exhibition it is a good purchase. You really don't need to purchase the pro version unless you really want to spend an extra three dollars. If you have Dropbox on your iPhone or iPad already just back up your photos from My Measures and you really won't need the pro version at all.

Pros and Cons for My Measures...

Pro

1. My Measures is a great tool for interior designers, contractors and artists who need to map out a space before preparing a show.
2. The app is inexpensive and if you use it the app is worth the $2.99.

Con

1. The app is pretty useless unless you are an interior designer, contractor or an artist who is planning for a show so unless you are going to use it a lot I wouldn't bother purchasing it.

This app is great for someone who needs to take a lot of measurements of interior spaces and plan for shows. If you want to keep images in one space without having to organize a lot of random pieces of paper or on different pages in various sketchbooks.

I give My Measure...

5 out of 5 stars