Value Study vs Refloom

In art, value (or tone) refers to how light or dark a colour is. If you're learning to paint or draw, doing value studies is one of the best ways to improve. These small, loose sketches in greyscale help you understand where shadows fall and highlights appear—essential for capturing depth and form. Value Study is a simple, focused tool designed to help you see values more clearly in your reference images. Instead of just converting a photo to black and white, this app lets you break down tones step by step. Start with just black and white to map out the biggest shapes, then gradually add more values to refine your understanding. You can also highlight all areas of an image that share the same value, making it easier to see subtle shifts in tone. This is especially useful in complex references, like portraits, where different parts of the image might have the same level of shadow but look completely different in colour. Value Study isn’t here to replace traditional studies—it’s here to enhance them. Whether you're sketching, painting, or working digitally, this tool makes it easier to focus on the fundamentals of light, shadow, and form. Try it for free with all features enabled on sample images from Unsplash before deciding to unlock the full app with a low-cost yearly or lifetime purchase. All Value Study Pro upgrades count as lifetime purchase. Either option will unlock Value Study across iPhone, iPad and Mac. Annual: Auto-renews yearly. Lifetime: One-time payment, no fees. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Your reference. Your materials. Your decisions. Refloom gives tattoo artists, painters and drawing artists a practical studio for working from photos. Study light, color and shape, prepare a stencil or painting reference, and keep your choices together as the work develops. PREPARE YOUR NEXT TATTOO Create an adjustable line study with separate contour and tone layers. Make local stencil corrections with erase, restore and drawing tools. Use optional Pencil-only input and line stabilization, then export transparent stencil layers. Preview your corrected stencil on a client photo. Move, scale, rotate, mirror and adjust its shape and opacity before sharing the placement preview. SEE COLOR AND BRUSH DIRECTION Explore light and dark with a value study. Simplify your reference into Colorzones, sample a color and inspect a larger swatch. The adjusted legend, selected color and mixing target follow the same digital colors. Build a brush study with adjustable stroke direction, size and density. Choose a focus area, edit individual strokes and relate stroke width to your artwork dimensions. Strokes keep their saved Colorzones colors. WORK WITH YOUR OWN PAINTS Choose a built-in palette or save your own paints in Mixing Studio. Get a starting recipe in relative parts, with the target beside an estimated result. Keep a personal paint trial book with the actual tubes, proportions, medium and surface you used. Add wet and dry photos and notes, then reuse recipes you have tested. COMPARE AS YOU WORK Align a photo of a flat artwork using four corners and its actual dimensions. Compare it with your reference side by side or by switching views, with shared zoom and position. Use full-screen work mode to keep a study beside your artwork. KEEP THE PROJECT TOGETHER Preserve your original import and color profile. Choose a shared crop and artwork dimensions, save named independent variants, and find projects with tags, search and favorites. Share editable .refloom projects with their saved studies, photos, notes and variants. PLAN AND CHECK YOUR PRINT Set dimensions, preview a single-page or tiled layout and use overlap guides. Record the printer, paper and output route, measure a 100 mm proof in both directions and apply a scale correction when needed. Check the assembled print before use. Share a production set of matching reference, line, value and color PDFs, an optional saved brush study, a notebook worksheet and separate stencil PNGs. ON YOUR DEVICE Photo analysis and saved work stay on your device. No account is required. Sharing happens when you choose it. Available on iPhone and iPad in English, Dutch and Spanish. Paint mixing suggestions are starting estimates for opaque oil and acrylic paint; test with your own materials. A placement preview is a visual aid, not a guarantee of physical size on curved skin. Printer settings and measured test prints determine final print size.