IPad drawing apps are a dime a dozen. There are a million of them out there, ranging from the really great (such as Paper by FiftyThree) to the downright terrible. What if you want to get some real work done on an iPad though? In my view, to really turn my iPad into a professional drawing tablet, I need an app to do one of two things:. Allow me to work directly in Photoshop or Illustrator - If we're talking real work, then I almost don't even want a new app. Let me use the iPad's awesome technology and UX to draw with the professional tools I already use, just like a Wacom tablet.

Give me vector or give me death - If a professional drawing app wants to live solely on the iPad, that's fine, but it has to churn out vector art that I can export to Illustrator. This means a Pen Tool, editable shapes, boolean commands, the whole nine yards. If you're interested in creating mixed media art with your iPad, we have a great step-by-step guide. Great Mirroring Apps First up are the mirroring apps. There are quite a few of these to choose from, but they tend to get pricey so you want to make sure your money is well-spent.

I used to be an AirDisplay man, but AstroPad is definitely the new app to beat in this category. AstroPad is the newest entry into this category, and in my experience, easily the best. It gives you the ability to draw right in Photoshop or Illustrator on your Mac, with cool custom shortcuts, and almost no lag.

This app offers the best quality of graphics on the market, and it costs $24.99 to purchase. One of the best parts about AstroPad is that it uses an up-to-date LIQUID technology that ensures you never lose the quality of the image you're working with. Astropad also offers a student price for interested buyers, as well as a free trial. AirDisplay From the company Avatron comes, which is a great iPad app choice for any artist looking for an effective mirroring app. It offers the chance to mirror what you see on your tablet on up to 4 monitors at once.

The app works using connection via wireless Internet connection, removing any annoying cords or USB cables and making for a comfortable and convenient drawing experience. Right now, AirDisplay is available for Apple devices, Android devices, and those that run Windows and can be purchased for $14.99.

AirStylus Avatron also makes —an extension of AirDisplay that offers the ability to use their mirroring techniques on iPads as well as on iPhones and the Galaxy Note. The program allows artists to draw on their tablet via a stylus. Since it is very pressure sensitive, it's perfect for work that requires accurate lines and fine, minute details.

The stylus links wirelessly to your display, so there are no clunky cords to deal with. While Avatron has announced that they're moving away from AirStylus in the near future, older versions of the AirStylus app are available in the App store for the iPad for $14.99. SplashTop Remote is one of the most popular apps that allows users to control their computer from afar.

The app offers the ability to control your computer from your iPad, and allows users to access things like videos, music, and more from your computer. Users can use their favorite art and drawing software from their computer via their iPad with SplashTop, which makes it a good choice for artists interested in convenience or moving around away from a desktop while they work. This app is currently offered for free when using your computer's local network, but if 'Anywhere Access' is purchased it will only cost users $16.99 per year. IDisplay is currently available for free on Mac OS X and Windows, and is a popular app that allows people to use their iPad as a second display. This app has it all for someone looking to draw via a table and offers more screen space because it is able to be connected to several wireless devices all at once.

It's also easily customizable when used with different devices. Drawing Apps Now for the drawing tools, which are actually pretty impressive. Procreate has quickly become a favorite for illustrators and letterers all around the world. The app allows you to sketch and draw hyper-realistic artwork on the go, with a suite of tools that features digital brushes, an advanced layer system, and multi-touch gestures. You can export layered PSD files and even time-lapse videos directly from the app. Since Procreate allows you to use custom brushes, many independent designers at Creative Market have created textured brush sets that will make your illustration workflow much easier. IDraw is one of the best vector drawing apps on the market, and it combines the convenience of an iPad with the power of a desktop.

It has a pen tool, layers, boolean commands, grids, snapping, effects, just about everything you could want. The app is easy to understand and is consistently top rated by all users. It's simple to share edit designs between devices (like Mac and iPad). The app has some especially exciting functions, like core text editing, Photoshop import and export, and an In-Place Color Picker. InkPad One great free vector drawing app for the iPad is, which was designed to work specifically on the device. It comes highly recommended by those who use it for its ease of text, images gradient fills, etc. Its selection of tools is close to that of Illustrator, and it is easy to use, even for beginners.

If what you're looking for is a powerful drawing tool and the lowest price possible, you can't get better than this. Intaglio Sketchpad For a vector artist that is looking for something straightforward that functions really well, check out, a tablet drawing app creating by Purgatory Design. The app has a full set of drawing tools, and it utilizes multi-touch technology. TouchDraw Elevenworks has created, which has all of the expected options of the 2D Vector drawing app and more. In fact, the app has most of the features of a desktop vector drawing app, and it can be used in conjunction with TouchDraw for Mac. TouchDraw has been rated as being one of the best vector apps available and is priced affordably at only $8.99. IDesign is currently one of the most popular vector apps on the market today and allows you to create 2D vector drawings on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

The interface of iDesign is simple to use and offers a huge selection of advanced, in-depth features. Some of these features include a full screen board view so your image isn't obscured in any way and has offset handles for moving the screen, so your finger never gets in the way of what you're trying to see. IDesign can be downloaded from the app store for $7.99. Update: Adobe Capture CC Adobe released a new app to create brushes from your iPad in late 2014. To read our step by step guide. Tell Us Your Workflow Do you do professional drawing work on your iPad? Tell us about your workflow.

Do you use a mirroring app like Astropad, a vector drawing app like iDraw, or something else? Leave a comment and let us know. Other Cool Add-Ons for Your Ipad Creating color palettes as you go can be a great resource for illustrators and all kinds of designers.

Check out to create bright schemes wherever you are. Products Seen In This Post. It depends a lot on the project.

First I use my iPad as a sketchbook, I bring it to life drawing sessions, make mood boards on it, brainstorm and do preliminary sketches. Experimenting with apps can spark ideas, and the iOS apps are so inexpensive compared to desktop apps.

For vector art I use iDraw and for painting I use Procreate which allows you 300 dpi output for up to A4 size. Next I export my artwork to my desktop computer where I assemble it. For patterns I'll use Illustrator to create the repeats with the parts I made on my iPad.

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I might use Photoshop to add textures and other final touches, or Illustrator for its effects and precision. Icons and other artwork that need a kind of numeric precision and snapping to grid, is the only artwork that I create on my desktop these days.

I might still do the sketches for them on my iPad. I teach and do public speaking around iPhoneography and painting on the iPad and I've written a few guides on apps for various art areas on my Marmalade Moon blog. If you'd like to take a look, you'll find the app guides under the tab for 'guides and tutorials'. Oh how Interesting to hear how you work,! I have Fifty Three's Pencil too, but use it in Procreate since I need more brushes, colours and higher resolution than Paper offers. Paper's gimmicky undo function drives me nuts and makes it so slow to work for me, so although I made my first professional grade artwork with Paper - watercolours that I vectorised for a surface pattern for fabric - I was glad to find first Sketches, which lets you undo without doing a little dance on the screen. Sketches has an iPhone companion and similar but in my opinion better brushes than Paper, and also allows for changing the size of brushes, and expanding the palette here's the link and then later Procreate.

Yes, Adobe's mobile apps are a big disappointment and there are many other alternative apps from indie developers that are superior in functionality. You also have to subscribe to the cloud to even be able to access your own work from your desktop.

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Although there is a Photoshop for iOS there are many other photo editors for iOS that perform much better. I think though, that the two Adobe apps that offer unique and interesting functions are Adobe Shape and Adobe Brush. Autodesk's iOS apps are excellent, in my opinion the best iOS apps coming from one of the established software companies. The iOS system opened up possibilities for new, indie developers, who quite often truly 'think differently' than the established software producers. This in itself I find inspiring!

Patina ® is the highest rated Microsoft ® Paint replacement app in the Mac App Store. Patina is great for a wide variety of work and personal needs, including sketching an idea, drawing a diagram, illustrating a concept, or painting a picture. Patina can also be used as a basic image management tool for cropping, rotating, resizing, and saving photos as a different file type. If you've used Microsoft Paint, you'll find that Patina, with its simple tools and intuitive color management, is as easy to use as Paint, if not easier, and has additional really useful features, including rotation of objects at any angle, transparent image saving. As a Mac user accustomed to attractive, well-designed software, you'll appreciate Patina's appealing interface and user-friendly design.

Unlike most other Paint-like apps that are derivations of an open source program, Patina was designed and built from scratch in the US with great care to be as easy to use as possible. We're confident that you'll find Patina to be the best simple painting, drawing, and sketching app in the Mac App Store. Patina was recently updated with some great enhancements, including two new types of arrow tools and line tools, more control over fixed degree increments for rotation of shapes and selections, improved eye dropper color sampling, an optional checkerboard transparent canvas, the capability to open/import PSD (with non-layered view), PDF, AI, and PS files, user-configurable DPI settings, and full macOS Sierra compatibility. Note: Patina is not a vector app, does not have layers, and does not allow you to manipulate already drawn objects in the same way that you can in a layout app like Pages or a presentation app like Keynote or PowerPoint. The Patina Story In response to the often heard remark 'I love my Mac, but I wish it had something like Paint,' we evaluated currently available drawing apps for Mac.

We found many complicated apps for doing sophisticated illustrations, but we did not find any apps for doing simple drawings and sketches that we felt were truly excellent. Many of the more simple apps we found were based on the Paintbrush open source code, which is not a very appealing replacement for Paint. With the realization that there was no currently existing app that could satisfactorily fulfill the role of 'Paint for Mac', our team in California and Washington set out to develop a simple drawing app from scratch that would delight Mac users. We didn't want to rush Patina to market, and we knew it couldn't be hacked together in a fortnight, but the journey ended up being longer than anticipated. More than a year of hard work went into making sure the app was up to the standard that Mac users should expect in terms of visual appeal, user-friendliness, performance, and quality.

Throughout the development process, we adhered to a very thorough testing process, and we only launched Patina once we were confident that most major bugs were already found and eliminated. Please let us know how we did.

If you like Patina, reviews in the Mac App Store are much appreciated. If you found a bug or encountered any other problems, please give us a shout at. Copyright © 2015-2018 Atek, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Atek and Patina are registered trademarks of Atek, Inc. In the United States and/or other countries. Apple, the Apple logo, and Mac are registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple Inc.

And/or other countries. Microsoft, Windows, and Paint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Has no affiliation with Microsoft Corporation or the Microsoft Paint software application.