Review: Sketchable

For artists on the go, it's increasingly important to be able to capture ideas, draw quickly to show a client ideas, demonstrate a method, or annotate an image. For some, drawing app Sketchable has become the ideal application for achieving such tasks. It works well on both a Microsoft Surface Pro and the Wacom Companion, and it's lightweight, easy to use, extremely fast, and responsive. It autosaves your work so you can pick up where you left off.

It's not a painting program, though. You can create paintings on it, but if you expect Sketchable to replace Photoshop or Painter you'll be disappointed. It's geared to providing the artist with a quick, flexible, easy-to-use yet powerful tool. And it succeeds.

Not only is it a great mobile application, but it feels as if it runs even quicker on a desktop computer (in our case, using Windows 8.1).

Sketchable images are managed by arranging them into Journals, which are digital sketchbooks that you can create when you start the program. It’s easy to have several Journals going at any time for different projects.

Individual images can be saved as PNG or PSD files – Sketchable is probably the first and only mobile application that provides layers. You can export PSD files directly into Photoshop running on the same machine for any additional work.

There are a few additions or changes that would make Sketchable almost perfect for an artist’s sketching needs: more layers and the ability to create paper textures are at the top of the list. But all and all, it’s a great program that’s easy to get familiar with, and with a well-thought-out interface.

The app is free, but most artists will want to make several in-app purchases (single tools from £1.27; bundle option is £7.68).

Features

• Eight layers on any device
• Resolutions up to 4K on 64-bit devices
• Artistic Color Picker with intuitive colour scrubbing
• Real-time brush stroke preview with scrubbing for Opacity and Size
• Adaptive UI scales to the display and accommodates custom user scale for touch, and mouse
• Resolution independent UI
• Assign any tool, tool preset, or tool preset with colour to single finger input or stylus eraser
• Up to eight custom presets per tool
• Two-finger gestures pan and zoom
• Customise your journals with covers, names and resolutions

Reviewer: Don Seegmiller