Comparison

Camera Lucida™ vs ChromaMagic

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Camera Lucida™

This app uses your device's camera to superimpose a reference image onto your drawing surface, guiding your hand to create detailed art. It offers advanced features and tools to enhance your sketching and painting skills, making art creation easy and fun.

Highlights
  • AR image superposition for drawing
  • Advanced image filters
  • Zoom lock for detail
  • Session save and restore
  • Time-lapsed recording
  • External USB camera support
Features
Read full description

Draw Like a Pro with Camera Lucida™: AR Drawing One-Time Purchase: No subscriptions! Buy it once and use on your devices. Enhance Your Art Skills: Whether you're sketching with a pencil or painting with a brush, Camera Lucida™ helps you become a better artist. Unmatched Functionality: With 12+ years of development, Camera Lucida™ offers features that no competitor can match. Create stunning physical art using your iPhone or iPad's camera. Simply point your device at your drawing surface, and watch the screen to see your reference image superimposed over your work. It's more versatile than a light table, better than a projector, and easier to use than a traditional Camera Lucida™. How It Works: Place your iPhone or iPad between your eyes and your drawing surface. The app shows a virtual image on your screen, guiding your hand as you draw. This clever method makes it easy and fun to create detailed art. Top Features: • Buy it once for lifetime use. • Advanced Image Filters: See with an artist's eye. • Zoom in Lock: For ultra detailed drawing. • Session Save & Restore: Automatically realign your camera, sketch, and reference image. • Full Color Palette Control: Use your own paints, markers, and more. • Camera Adjustments: Use your device camera and adjust for different setups manually or with an in-app purchase to auto-adjust. • Time-Lapsed Recordings: Share your drawing process on social media. • Advanced Tools: Vertical split screen sliders, timed image fading, and more. • Video Tutorials: Watch tutorials within the app or on YouTube. • Comprehensive User Manual: Accessible from within the app. • Reliable Customer Support: Plus, an active user community for inspiration. • External USB Camera Support: For USB-C equipped iPads running iOS 17. Easy Setup: Secure your iPhone or iPad above your drawing surface using common household items like a stack of books or a vase. Tutorials are included to help you get started. Contact: For any questions or support, email cameralucida@bigidesign.com.

About

ChromaMagic

This app helps artists identify and understand colors in reference images. It breaks down colors into hue, value, and chroma, offering multiple modes to analyze color relationships and value shapes. Enhance your painting by truly seeing and mixing colors accurately.

Highlights
  • Identify hue, value, and chroma
  • Munsell color mode
  • Value shape organization
  • Grayscale value analysis
  • Color saturation analysis
  • Color wheel distribution view
  • Zoomable and pannable images
Read full description

ChromaMagic - the magical color tool for artists - now with LIVE camera views. Have you ever been painting and said 'but what *is* that color?' Me too! ChromaMagic exists for one reason only. My paintings looked wrong. I just couldn't get the colors in my paintings to look convincing. Try as I might there was always something off. Too bright, too light, too gray, not gray enough. Too blue, too brown, too pink. Why oh why could I not make things work? Well it turned out it wasn't in the paint. It wasn't in the mixing. Special brushes didn't do the trick. Making those daft color charts didn't help either. And it wasn't even in the way I put the paint on the paper. The problem was in my brain. The problem was that I had no chance of mixing the right color. I was missing an essential part of the painting process. Something that would take years if not decades to figure out. And the reason was that I wasn't *seeing* the right color. Now I don't mean there was something wrong with my eyesight. What I mean that I was 'seeing' color but I wasn't really seeing *COLOR*. I didn't have the words or the means to really understand what I was looking at. And if we don't really know what we're looking at how on earth can we translate it into paint? Even if we don't want to represent what we see how do we know what to change to enhance the effect? Flip a coin? Trust chance and experimentation? Repeat for years and years until we stumble on something that works....? No. So what changed? Everything changed. I learned to forget about primaries, secondaries and tertiaries. I learned to ditch the traditional artists wheel. I learned to stop talking about 'warm' and 'cool'. I learned to see color the way it is and not the way I expect it to be. I had to forget everything I had been told. I learned about hue, value, and chroma. Munsell. With ChromaMagic you can load up any photo or reference and see at a glance what any color is. And the colors are described in a way that is most natural for artists. What is the hue (red, yellow, green etc)? Yes! And what is the value (very important)? Yes! And what is the chroma (how gray or saturated it is)? Yes!!! Color makes so much more sense now. But there's more! As well as the Munsell color mode (which is fabulous by itself!) there are 4 extra modes to help you really see what is before us. - Want to organize your reference into the major value shapes? Value mode will do that and you can change the number of value steps with a click of the mouse. - Want to reduce your reference to just grayscale to really see those fine-grained values? Yes! - Want to see how saturated or gray your colors are (this is always surprising!). Yes! - Want to see how your colors are distributed around the color wheel? Yes And yet there's still more: - No more clicking around - ChromaMagic has a fantastic new interface with buttery smooth zoomable, pannable images. - No more need to be tethered to wifi. Take ChromaMagic anywhere - even up a mountain! - Too many colors in your reference? Average your colors over multiple pixels - 2500 of them if you want to. - Want to know which paints are available for a certain color? ChromaMagic now has links to hundreds of top quality oil paints. - Want to use ChromaMagic at home? On the bus? On a tablet? Now you can run it on your iphone, ipad or mac. All for one price! - No more silly loading buttons. Drag and drop your files in one swish on the desktop (Bliss!!) - Use ChromaMagic next to the easel for mixing. Now with mixing swatches and calibration values (no need for $1500 Munsell chips)

Screenshots

Camera Lucida™4 screens
ChromaMagic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: ChromaMagic at none against Camera Lucida™'s 1. Camera Lucida™'s advantage is price ($14.99 vs $19.99) and ratings volume (2K vs 52). On rating, review sentiment, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Camera Lucida™ costs $14.99 and ChromaMagic $19.99 up front. Camera Lucida™ sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. ChromaMagic asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Camera Lucida™ against 4.8 for ChromaMagic. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Camera Lucida™ has 2K ratings behind it against 52, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 89% of Camera Lucida™'s written reviews are positive against 92% of ChromaMagic's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Camera Lucida™ ships an update every 4 months, ChromaMagic every 5 months. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Camera Lucida™ versus ChromaMagic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCamera Lucida™ChromaMagic
Price$14.99 — better$19.99
Rating4.8 (2K ratings) — better4.8 (52 ratings)
Positive reviews89.4% of reviews91.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2K — better52
Update frequencyEvery 4 months — betterEvery 5 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationPaidPaid
Best chart rank#7 — better#14
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size55 MB125 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCamera LucidaMichele Clamp

Customer experience

Camera Lucida™

All ratings1,947 ratings
Positive95.9%
Neutral1.2%
Negative2.9%
Written reviews273 reviews
Positive89.4%
Neutral1.1%
Negative9.5%

ChromaMagic

All ratings52 ratings
Positive92.3%
Neutral3.8%
Negative3.8%
Written reviews36 reviews
Positive91.7%
Neutral5.6%
Negative2.8%

Bugs and requests

Camera Lucida™

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Compatibility issues with newer iOS versions
  • Occasional crashes or freezes

Requested features

3 requests
  • Ability to draw larger images
  • More camera settings and controls
  • Integration with other art apps

ChromaMagic

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Camera Lucida™

One-time1
  • Auto-Correct For Perspective$4.99
None

ChromaMagic

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Camera Lucida™ free?
Camera Lucida™ costs $14.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is ChromaMagic free?
ChromaMagic costs $19.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Camera Lucida™ or ChromaMagic?
Camera Lucida™ is rated higher. Camera Lucida™ averages 4.8 out of 5 from 2K ratings, while ChromaMagic averages 4.8 from 52 ratings.
Do Camera Lucida™ or ChromaMagic have ads?
Neither Camera Lucida™ nor ChromaMagic shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Camera Lucida™ or ChromaMagic?
Camera Lucida™ ships an update every 4 months, and ChromaMagic every 5 months. Most recently, Camera Lucida™ was updated on October 24, 2026 and ChromaMagic on October 24, 2026.
Which is more popular, Camera Lucida™ or ChromaMagic?
Camera Lucida™ currently peaks at #7 in the App Store charts, and ChromaMagic at #14. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

Other comparisons