Smartphones have taken the world by storm, and the innumerable apps that are available for them cater to the needs of almost everyone. Artists can be inspired at any given moment, so the apps that provide them with tools to bring their ideas to fruition are extremely useful.
Color plays a huge role in art, and Palettes, developed by Rick Maddy, gives artists the freedom to create color palettes anytime they wish. Palettes users can take colors from an image on a website, or from the website itself, and make a palette to add to their library. Palettes is free, but one can also pay to upgrade to their Pro version which has lots of more advanced features that give your work a framed artwork vibe. One of the main reasons why artists choose to get the Pro version is because it allows one to access, add to, to export palettes in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, Paintshop Pro, GIMP, and OS X Color Chooser.
Brushes, created by the makers of AutoDesk Sketchbook, is a highly respected and valuable smartphone app that no artist should be without. While it is simple to use, Brushes is also very powerful and is often considered the best app available for digital painting. Designed mainly for painters, Brushes comes with quite advanced brush features that have impressive capabilities. Other tools include a paint bucket, color picker, eraser, and an eye dropper. This app is not free, but it is well worth purchasing.
WhatTheFont is an app that is hugely helpful for both artists and designers who work with typography. WhatTheFont is connected to the popular MyFonts.com website and allows users to correctly identify any font that catches their eye. Be it in a magazine ad or on a giant billboard, all an artist has to do is take a picture of the font and WhatTheFont will access MyFont.com and identify the concerned font in mere seconds. The days of having to painstakingly analyze a font in order to identify it are now over.
Definitely worth mentioning, Sketchbook Mobile is an app version of AutoDesk’s Sketchbook Pro. With this extremely versatile app, artists can create sketches and concepts at anytime. Artists can erase, zoom, and sketch with their fingertips, and, with the latest version, they can even export things like extended layer functions and PSDs.
Rulers 2 is a highly useful app that can be used on practically anything. Users just have to line up their smartphone with whatever it is that they are measuring, and Rulers 2 will give them a digital reading. The app can be set to give out its digital readings in either inches or in centimeters.
For an artist on the go, the smartphone apps mentioned above are essential. All the apps are very reasonably priced, and users will be shocked at how frequently they come in handy.