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danmart

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 24, 2015
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Lancs, UK
My Pencil arrives at long last today!

What apps are people finding good for drawing? I'm just an enthusiastic amateur but happy to drop a few £ on a good app.
 
There are several, but my absolute favorite hands down is Procreate. I'm learning and this app just blows me away...great support, great community forum, can't say enough "greats" for Procreate!
 
Agree that Procreate is the best overall. Works well with the Apple Pencil and the forums provide extensive support. The only thing it lacks is a ruler along the lines of Adobe Photoshop Sketch. There are workarounds and some discussion of that on their forums.
 
Agree that Procreate is the best overall. Works well with the Apple Pencil and the forums provide extensive support. The only thing it lacks is a ruler along the lines of Adobe Photoshop Sketch. There are workarounds and some discussion of that on their forums.
I'm actually using old fashioned physical french curves with procreate :) They don't leave any marks themselves, I suppose the palm rejection eats them somehow.
 
Another vote for Procreate
Depends a bit on what you're going to draw, but overall Procreate is a really good advice. The brushes are wonderful, and it's somehow simulating a bit of inertia, making it easier to avoid wobbly lines. Internally it uses vectors, so you can scale stuff without it getting all pixelly - I just wish that one could export vector formats as well.
I'm used to SketchBook on Mac+Wacom, but somehow I have problems adjusting to it on an iPad. In any case it's less forgiving to a beginner, it really tries hard to just emulate pen+paper, so draw a wobbly line and a wobbly line is what you get.:D
Tried Photoshop Sketch a bit but didn't manage to get the brushes to my liking. The rulers are a work of genius though.
 
SuperHamster, Procreate has the quick line feature now, just hold the stylus/pencil down without lifting at the end of your line and the wobbly line straightens! Wasn't sure if you were aware or not.
 
graphic is another great drawing app - it lets you work in vector files, which never deteriorate or get fuzzy no matter how far you zoom in, its great for design or cartoons, although I haven't found a way open the vector files in photoshop yet.
 
Does procreate uses vector files? when you zoom in you can see the pixelation eventually - I know "graphic" uses vectors though

No, it's not at all a real vector editor like Graphic or Illustrator. It only seems to kick in when scaling things, and after toying around with it a bit more, I must say that the results are strange - better ignore my comment about Procreate and vectors for now.

I'm glad to see you like Graphic, I'll give it a try myself whenever I can find the time. For vector stuff, I hadn't planned on moving away from Illustrator on Mac+Wacom, but maybe I'm missing something.
 
No, it's not at all a real vector editor like Graphic or Illustrator. It only seems to kick in when scaling things, and after toying around with it a bit more, I must say that the results are strange - better ignore my comment about Procreate and vectors for now.

I'm glad to see you like Graphic, I'll give it a try myself whenever I can find the time. For vector stuff, I hadn't planned on moving away from Illustrator on Mac+Wacom, but maybe I'm missing something.

it is very cool how you can edit your lines and adjust the curve and so on, I've never really used a vector program before.
 
Do you guys find that using the pencil in Procreate requires a bit too much pressure? I feel like i need to press pretty hard to get what you'd consider a normal pencil line
 
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Do you guys find that using the pencil in Procreate requires a bit too much pressure? I feel like i need to press pretty hard to get what you'd consider a normal pencil line

you can adjust the pressure sensitivity and many other things if you tap on the brush - also create your own brush and textures
 
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Concepts is incredible and blends traditional drawing with vector tools and output. It has replaced Procreate for all I do.
 
Thanks all. Does Procreate have any noticeable lag between the Pencil and onscreen lines? I have found Apple's Notes app to have zero lag, whilst lag is definitely noticably in AutoDesk Sketchbook.
 
Concepts is incredible and blends traditional drawing with vector tools and output. It has replaced Procreate for all I do.
Excellent suggestion. Thanks. As a fan of Procreate, I was really impressed with Concepts. Just getting familiar with it but my impression is it provides an excellent means to do both freehand drawing for maximum creativity as well as tools for accurate illustration. Also like the color management.
 
Is it lag-free with the Pencil in your experience?
From my brief experimenting with pencils, pens, and marker tools, I found it to be lag-free using the Apple Pencil. With the marker I did notice a small lag. One thing I really like is a smoothing function that can be set from 0% to 100%. At 0% every wobble of the pen is kept. At 100% everything seems to become a straight line. In between you can get wobble-free, smooth curves. Really impressive. One problem compared to Procreate is it is not handling moving the Apple Pencil at an angle to shade (wider). It does get wide but does not go back to original width as the Pencil is vertical. (In response to this issue I raised, they say tilt is used only at the time the Pencil touches down on screen. Probably reasonable but I like the way Procreate handles it.)
 
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