Comparison

AtelierKit vs Art Reference

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

Head to head
About

AtelierKit

Features
Read full description

AtelierKit is the quiet, focused toolkit that lives on your phone and serves your art practice โ€” no account, no internet, no distractions. Whether you're painting from a reference photo, sketching a portrait, or mixing colours at your easel, AtelierKit gives you the tools professional artists actually reach for. COLOUR ANALYSIS Sample any colour from a photo or your camera feed. Get precise values to help you mix accurate paints. Stop guessing โ€” start seeing. GRID OVERLAY Overlay a customisable grid over any reference image to transfer proportions with confidence. The grid method used by masters, now always in your pocket. VALUE STUDY Strip away colour and see only light and shadow. Train your eye to read tonal relationships โ€” the foundation of every great painting. CLOUD SYNC Optionally sync your projects across devices with iCloud. Your projects are always backed up and available wherever you work. BUILT FOR ARTISTS, NOT APPS โ€ข Works fully offline โ€” no Wi-Fi needed to use any tool โ€ข No account required to get started โ€ข Optional cloud sync keeps your data private and encrypted โ€ข Available in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish โ€ข Clean, distraction-free interface AtelierKit is made for painters, sketchers, illustrators, and anyone who works with physical media and wants a smarter, faster way to analyse their references. Your art. Your device. Your studio.

About

Art Reference

Features
Read full description

Art Reference: Value Study helps painters, illustrators, and traditional artists see any reference more clearly. Study values, simplify light and shadow, overlay grids, and paint side-by-side with your canvas. A value (or tone) is how light or dark a color is. Learning to see values is one of the fastest ways to improve your drawing and painting. But it's hard to read shadows and highlights through all the color. This app makes it effortless. SEE YOUR REFERENCE IN VALUES Instantly convert any photo to grayscale, or a 7-value posterized scale. Flick between levels of detail, start in simple black and white, then build up value by value to train your eye. CROP & FRAME TO YOUR CANVAS Match your reference's composition and aspect ratio to your canvas before your first stroke. GRIDLINES Overlay grids to lay in your under-sketch with correct proportions. CURATED COLLECTIONS Don't have a reference ready? Start with dozens of hand-picked photos across Animals, Architecture, Botanical, Figure, Landscape, Portrait, Still Life, Skulls, and Master Studies from the great painters. NO AI ART Every starter reference is a real photograph or artwork, attributed to the original artist with a link to their portfolio. No AI-generated images. And your own artwork stays private in your personal iCloud, never shared online, never used to train AI models. WORKS OFFLINE No connection needed. Perfect for the studio, plein air, or anywhere you paint. CLEAN, FOCUSED, NO ADS Just the reference tools you need.

Screenshots

AtelierKit4 screens
Art Reference4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: AtelierKit at 15.6 against Art Reference's 26.0. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
AtelierKit versus Art Reference: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAtelierKitArt Reference
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksโ€”
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.6 โ€” better26.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size28 MB181 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAppcific TechnologiesGil Osborne

In-app purchases

None

AtelierKit

No in-app purchases

None

Art Reference

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is AtelierKit free?
AtelierKit is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Art Reference free?
Art Reference is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do AtelierKit or Art Reference have ads?
Neither AtelierKit nor Art Reference shows ads.

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