Art Reference vs Gridline

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.

Put a grid over any reference photo and check its values on the same screen. Gridline is a drawing grid for painters, illustrators and art students who work from reference photos. Import a picture, set up the grid, switch to grayscale or a notan when you need to judge values, and paint with your phone or iPad beside the easel. ■ Free • Import from your photo library or take a new photo • Square or rectangular cells, with any number of columns and rows • Diagonals, cell numbers, line color and line thickness • Grayscale view, a 2-tone notan, and mirror • Paint mode: the tools disappear, touches are ignored and the screen stays awake, so the device can stand by your easel. Long-press to leave • Unlimited projects, each one reopening with the settings you left ■ Gridline Pro (one-time purchase) • Notan in 3, 4 or 5 tones: drag the split points on the value scale and simplify the small details • Fit to canvas: crop to A4, 8×10, 9×12, 11×14 or 16×20 in, or square, in portrait or landscape, and see the real cell size in cm or inches • No ads Pro is a single purchase, not a subscription. You can restore it on other devices signed in with the same Apple Account. ■ About ads The free version shows one banner ad at the bottom of the project list. The editor, where you look at your reference, has no ads. ■ Your photos stay on your device Gridline keeps its own copy of each reference inside the app. There is no account or sign-up, and your images are never uploaded.