ValuePal vs Impasto

Every color has an underlying value between pure white and pure black. Being able to translate a color into its value is surprisingly difficult, but essential for bringing your paintings to life. ValuePal is the only gray scale value finder that will instantly give you the grey scale value of any part of an image with just a touch. You can then compare your value to a reference image by swiping back and forth. An advanced feature of ValuePal allows you to create a “value map” of all areas having the same value. This helps you see a pattern for that value(s). Another feature, “bracketing”, can be used to establish the fundamental structure of your painting. It is useful in visualising paths of light and dark in your painting. The ’Notan’ feature converts all shapes to black and white. This helps the artist identify light and dark patterns in their work. No other app has more features to make you a better painter! ValuePal is the essential artist tool!

Painters know the frustration: you see a color you want, but mixing it from your tubes is guesswork. Impasto turns that into a precise recipe. Take a photo of your reference — a landscape, a still life, a fabric swatch — and tap the color you want. Impasto gives you the exact mixing recipe using Kubelka-Munk spectral color science at 36 wavelengths. This is not simple RGB blending; it models how light interacts with real pigments and paint layers, the same physics used in professional color matching. You get pigment names, ratios, and an accuracy percentage. For example: "3x Burnt Umber + 1x Yellow Ochre + 1x Titanium White — 99% match." Save recipes to reference while you paint. Customize your palette to match the tubes you actually own. Includes an AI Paint Expert for questions about color theory, technique, and pigments. Works with oil, acrylic, watercolor, and gouache. Built for physical painters who care about accuracy.