TraceOverlay vs TraceCam

Trace images onto paper with the camera you already carry. TraceOverlay places a reference over your live camera view, turning your iPhone or iPad into a practical tracing lightbox for drawing, painting, lettering, murals, and art study. TRY THE INCLUDED DEMO TraceOverlay includes a Mona Lisa tracing demo so you can use the live camera and every precision tool without an account or purchase. TRACE WITH PRECISION • Move, scale, and rotate the reference over your drawing surface • Adjust image and camera opacity independently • Lock the layout to prevent accidental movement • Use the alignment grid to check proportions • Mirror a reference when needed • Hide the controls for a clean tracing view FIND THE LINES THAT MATTER Use edge detection, grayscale, contrast, brightness, saturation, and invert controls to create a clearer guide. UPGRADE FOR YOUR OWN REFERENCES The optional one-time Unlock upgrade adds personal photo import and a private on-device reference shelf. It is not a subscription and does not renew. The App Store shows the localized price before purchase. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Camera frames and selected reference images are processed on your device and are not uploaded to TraceOverlay. No TraceOverlay account is required. MADE FOR CREATIVE WORK TraceOverlay is designed for artists, illustrators, lettering practitioners, muralists, art students, and hobbyists who want a portable tracing aid without extra projection hardware. Open the included demo, frame your paper, and start tracing.

TraceCam turns your iPhone or iPad into a tracing overlay. Pick a photo, a built-in template or your own text, point the camera at a blank sheet of paper, and the image appears over the paper as a translucent layer — ready to trace with a pencil. No printing, no light box, no transfer paper. Just your device, your reference and a sheet of paper. HOW IT WORKS 1. Choose a photo, pick a template or type a word. 2. Point the camera at a blank sheet. 3. Line the image up with the paper — pinch to scale, drag to move, twist to rotate. 4. Set the opacity, choose a filter, add a grid if you like. 5. Lock it, and trace. FILTERS THAT MAKE TRACING EASIER • Line art keeps only the edges of a photo on a transparent background • Sketch, Grayscale and Ink turn a busy photo into clean strokes • Invert for light lines on dark paper • Flip horizontally or vertically GRID METHOD • Square grid over the camera view or attached to the reference, from 2×2 to 12×12 • Copy the drawing cell by cell, the way artists have done for centuries BUILT-IN TEMPLATES • 35 templates: basic shapes and solids, face and figure proportions, one- and two-point perspective, golden spiral, mandala, ellipse guide, isometric and dot grids, lettering lines, calligraphy slant, comic panels and patterns LETTERING • Type any word or name, choose one of 22 typefaces and get an outline to trace — for cards, signs, posters and calligraphy practice CAMERA TOOLS • Zoom in on the paper, switch the torch on, freeze the frame • Save a snapshot of the paper with the overlay to Photos to compare your progress YOUR PROJECTS • Every image is kept with its position, opacity and filter, so you can pick up where you left off • Reopen recent projects from the library, or paste an image from the clipboard AND MORE • Opacity slider from 10% to 90% • Lock the image so a stray touch cannot move it while you trace • The screen stays awake while you draw • The control panel folds away so nothing covers the paper • Portrait and landscape, iPhone and iPad PRIVATE BY DESIGN TraceCam has no networking features at all. The camera feed is only shown on screen — never recorded, never saved, never uploaded. A snapshot is written to Photos only when you tap the button. No accounts, no analytics, no ads, no tracking. Free. Requires iOS 17 or later.