ArtistAssistApp is the best free painting and drawing assistant app. It's an essential app for beginners and professional traditional artists and digital artists starting their journey in traditional art. The app allows artists to see the reference photo more clearly and to draw and mix colors more accurately.
ArtistAssistApp was launched in November 2023 and received a major update on March 2024. But a recent update released in July 2024 has taken the app to the next level.
ArtistAssistApp now helps artists to accurately mix any color from a photo, analyze tonal values, turn a photo into an outline, draw with the grid method, paint with a limited palette, simplify a photo, compare photos pairwise, and more.
- 📦 Install on any device and use offline
- 🎨 Improved color mixing algorithm to avoid muddy and dull colors
- 🔲 Displaying paint transparency
- 🎨 Sets with Unlimited Number of Colors for All Mediums
- 🏷️ Many new brands
- ⚖️ Pairwise comparison of photos
- 💾 Save multiple color sets for the same medium
- 🪟 Higher contrast grid that can be printed
- 🍏 Fully supported on iPhone and iPad
- 👨💻 Implementation details
📦 Install on any device and use offline
ArtistAssistApp is now a Progressive Web App (PWA) that can be used offline without an Internet connection.
Install ArtistAssistApp o your device and use it like any other app: launch from the home screen, open photos with the app, use the app as share target, etc.
Supported operating systems: Android, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS.
🎨 Improved color mixing algorithm to avoid muddy and dull colors
ArtistAssistApp now has a better color mixing algorithm that helps to avoid muddy and dull color mixtures. It produces less mixing options but all of them are clean and vibrant or pleasant muted colors.
You will no longer get lost in a huge number of mixtures and can be sure that you will not mix muddy or dull colors.
Before ArtistAssistApp helped you to paint like on the reference photo. Now it helps you to paint better than on the reference photo because all color mixtures will be clean and pleasant. The new algorithms better utilizes the traditional color theory.
🔲 Displaying paint transparency
ArtistAssistApp now shows the paint opacity next to the color.
Now it is easier to choose the most transparent or opaque color mixture. The app will immediately tell you whether the paint is transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque or opaque.
🖌️ Gouache and Acrylic gouache support
ArtistAssistApp now supports Gouache and Acrylic gouache.
Supported mediums include Watercolor paint, Acrylic paint, Oil paint, Colored pencils, Watercolor pencils, and now Gouache and Acrylic gouache.
🎨 Sets with Unlimited Number of Colors for All Mediums
ArtistAssistApp now supports color sets of unlimited number of colors for all mediums.
Previously, ArtistAssistApp supported color sets of up to 36 colors for paints. Now this limit has been removed.
You can add 12, 24, 36, 48 or even 100 colors to your set for any medium including watercolor, gouache, acrylic gouache, oil paint, acrylic paint, colored pencils, and watercolor pencils.
For your convenience, when selecting more than 36 colors in total, mixtures of 3 colors are not used.
🏷️ Many new brands
A lot of color brands have been added recently.
Oil paint Acrylic paint Colored pencils Watercolor pencils Gouache Acrylic gouacheArtistAssistApp supported color brands
Watercolor paint
⚖️ Pairwise comparison of photos
New big feature - pairwise comparison of photos. It can be difficult to choose between multiple photos. Comparing each photo with others in pairs simplifies the choice and helps to identify the most preferred one.
ArtistAssistApp will help you determine the best photo through pairwise comparison and get a photo rating.
💾 Save multiple color sets for the same medium
ArtistAssistApp now supports saving multiple color sets for the same medium.
Artists often have several color sets they paint with. Either sets of different color brands, or sets of the same color brand, but for different purposes (for example, landscape, cityscape, flowers).
Optionally you can give a name to your color sets.
🪟 Higher contrast grid that can be printed
The Grid has received a new look. It's now more contrasting and pleasant-looking.
A photo with a grid over it can also be printed with a click of a button.
🍏 Fully supported on iPhone and iPad
ArtistAssistApp is now fully supported on iPhone and iPad. Thanks to user feedback, all bugs and problems were found and fixed.
👨💻 Implementation details
ArtistAssistApp is now a Progressive Web App (PWA) with Web App Manifest and Service Worker. Web app manifest provides information that the browser needs to install your PWA on a device, such as the app's name and icon, associate files with your PWA, acts as a content sharing target (Web Share Target API). Service workers act as proxy servers that sit between web applications, the browser, and the network and are designed to create an efficient offline experience.
ArtistAssistApp now uses Oklab and Oklch instead of CIELAB and CIELCH color spaces. Thanks to this, it was possible to create an algorithm that determines that a mixture of certain colors will be muddy or dull.
Using Oklab also makes it possible to use the much simpler Delta E OK color difference formula instead of the complex Delta E CIEDE2000 formula. Delta E OK is simply the Euclidean distance in the Oklab color space.
Pairwise comparison of photos uses the Elo rating system. Each comparison between two photos is considered a match of a tournament. After comparison, each photo gains or loses points, moving up or down in the rating. The usage of Elo rating system helps to unambiguously determine the best photos.
The grid over the photo is now drawn using an image with inverted colors and CanvasRenderingContext2D.globalCompositeOperation instead of simple red lines. Such grid is much more contrasting and pleasantly-looking.
Thanks to the user feedback it figured out that the Grid functionality was broken in Safari (meaning all iPhones and iPads). The problem was using CanvasRenderingContext2D.filter to invert the colors of the image, which is not supported in Safari. But this means that all this time the Outline function (converting any photo into an outline) was not working in Safari either. CanvasRenderingContext2D.filter is used in Outline to convert image to grayscale and invert colors. The solution was to avoid using CanvasRenderingContext2D.filter and instead manually implement color inversion and grayscale filters. Luckily, image pixel manipulation is easy using the Canvas API.
I tested the app thoroughly in Safari and found another bug. Safari does not support storing Blob in IndexedDB. The solution is to store ArrayBuffer and MIME type instead. Blob to ArrayBuffer conversion is easy: await blob.arrayBuffer().
All these changes have improved ArtistAssistApp's performance and browser compatibility.
eugene-khyst
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artistassistapp
ArtistAssistApp is a free web app for artists to accurately mix any color from a photo, analyze tonal values, turn a photo into an outline, draw with the grid method, paint with a limited palette, simplify a photo, compare photos pairwise, and more.
ArtistAssistApp
Overview
ArtistAssistApp is a Progressive Web App (PWA) for artists to accurately mix any color from a photo, analyze tonal values, turn a photo into an outline, draw with the grid method, paint with a limited palette, simplify a photo, compare photos pairwise, and more.
Try it now at ArtistAssistApp.com
Getting Started
- Go to ArtistAssistApp.com.
- Watch the video tutorials.
- Do you have a question? Ask the community.
- Do you see a bug or want to suggest a new feature? Open an issue.
- Want to contact us? Find our contacts.
Screenshots
Accurately mix any color from your reference photo using the paints you have
Add your favorite color mixtures to the palette
Do a tonal value study
Reduce the detail on your reference photo
Turn any photo into an outline and print it
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