I’ve purchased a few iPad apps for painting and drawing. Here’s a quick review of each.

Inspire Pro
I go this app as part of a Black Friday special, for $1.99. The standard price for the app is $7.99. While I think it’s a great product, after trying out some other apps, I’m kind of glad I got it at that price.

Pros: Several brushes, Paint loading, Undo on Screen, Sharing
Cons: No Layers, No Hi-Res

Procreate
This one is my favorite for painting. It’s relatively new and is loaded with features at a price point of $4.99. The interface is also fabulous.

Pros: Insert a Photo, Hi-res available, Layers, Simple & Clean Interface, Save from Canvas
Cons: Not as good as Inspire for Oil Painting

Sketchbook Pro
I really like this app for sketching. I haven’t used it too much, so some gripes I have may be due to lack of time spent finding alternate options. Beware – there’s a button at the top left that I thought was save.. and it wiped the entire canvas!

Pros: Lots of drawing tools, Symmetrical Feature, Add Text
Cons: Can’t pin undo/redo to the screen, I hate the 3-finger menu, Limited colors