ProCreate Review for the iPad

ProCreate lets you arrange you work into sketchbooks.

ProCreate is a digital drawing and painting app for the iPad that brings with it some of the best qualities of the iPad and an estranged relationship with Adobe Photoshop that lends itself to posting images on the web rather than creating images for print.

I stumbled across Procreate while I searched for free apps on AppsGoneFree and decided that I would give it a try. I had been using Sketchbook Pro for the iPad to teach my museum sketching classes and found that working on the iPad gave the opportunity to keep a lot of practice sketches on hand for examples on hand, I was able to zoom in and out of my drawings to show greater detail and finally the back lit screen helped make the image easier to see. I found the back lit screen especially useful when the gallery was a little dark to help protect sensitive works on paper like photographs and watercolors.

ProCreate lets you organize and name layers.

I started playing around with ProCreate, but like most digital painting apps geared towards professionals there was a bit of a learning curve. I saw that like Sketchbook Pro allowed me to adjust colors, create layers, adjust brush sizes and opacity, etc, but I wanted to learn more about the program through text and videos so I started to watch videos on YouTube and I discovered that Procreate has an iBook that can be downloaded directly from the program to help you get a better feel for all of its options.

Like Photoshop, ProCreate allows artists to create his/her own brushes with varying degrees of grain, textures, stroke length, etc and makes it easy for artists to share ink blots and marks that can be used to create brushes on your own. I also discovered that ProCreate allows you to export your images in a variety of formats giving you a multitude of options beyond ProCreate's native file type. You can export it as a JPEG, PNG and even a PSD and PDF allowing you to export your images in Photoshop while retaining all of your layers.

ProCreate has a wide range of brushes.

Now for the good, the bad and the ugly of ProCreate

Good
Lots of brushes which you can customize on your own allowing you as the artist to have access to a wide range of make-making tools.
Layers that can be rearranged and renamed so you can organize your image before you export it.
Being able to export your image in a wide range of formats (ProCreate, JPEG, PNG and PSD) give you a lot of options for sending and displaying your work.
Syncing with Drop Box allows you to back up your files, retrieve shapes and textures to create brushes and helps you back up your work in case something does happen to your iPad.

Bad
Even through you have canvas options that does take advantage of your retina display it is limited when it come to canvas size as it relates to pixel depth. You can create an 8 x 10 inch canvas with 300 dpi, but it limits the number of layers that you can use to 9 so it still can't do what you can do in Photoshop.
When you are sketching or painting in ProCreate it does tend to self-select colors so if you select a color other than the one that you are working with you will have to go back into your colors, use the eye dropper and re-select your color which can be frustrating when you are trying to add detail.
The eraser tool does not always work correctly and you sometimes have to go back and forth between the brush and the eraser to get it to work. Something I hope they fix with an update soon.

ProCreate lets you adjust brushes and create newones.

Ugly
The only thing that I have come across so far that really bothered me was that you loose a lot of color depth when you go from ProCreate to Photoshop and have to covet the image from RGB to CMYK. I make several illustrations using ProCreate that I wanted to make into t-shirts, but when I converted the Photoshop file from RGB to CMYK I lost a lot of the brightness when I got it back from the printer.

Over all ProCreate is a wonderful program and I use it all the time. I would highly recommend ProCreate for artist and illustrators who are creating work for the web and not for print. I am created a YouTube video posted below!

Update: Procreate has added Full-HD Recording to the app so you can record your sketches. Just start drawing on a new canvas, go to to wrench on the upper left and you will see how much space your video recording has taken up at the bottom of the tab. You can then go and share your video with Dropbox, iTunes, email or send it to your photos on your iPad!

I give ProCreate

5 out of 5 stars

ProCreate: An Overview

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Welcome to Art Tools in Review!

Art Tech Review: Creative Apps for iPad, Smartphones and eReaders.

Now as an artist I was trained in the pencil-n-paper method of sketching who branched out into watercolor and maker when I felt a little adventurous, but with the invention of the smart phone and eventually smart tablets I find myself reaching for my sketchpad less and less.

Don't get me wrong, but with programs like Procreate, Sketchbook Pro, Paper and Zen Brush I don't feel the need to keep a sketchbook on my person at all times like I have done since undergrad. I started this blog so I can post reviews, links and videos about new and exciting apps on a variety of platforms and devices that can be used the professional as well as the closet artist who can draw little more than a stick figure.

In the coming weeks I will be posting video reviews of Apps like Procreate and Sketchbook Pro as well as some Apps that can be used by art educators in the classroom like Show Me to help demonstrate drawing to their students.

Keep your eye out and hit me up if you have a question about an App or there is one that you would like me to review.

Until next time!

Ian M. O'Brien