As soon as I heard about SketchBook, I had to use it. As an hourly CS4 user, an artist, and having spent 16 years of my life surrounded by Autodesk’s products, I feel well equiped to analyze this app to see if it meets the high standards of what the digital artist is looking for on the go.

SketchBook is the iPhone and iPod Touch version of Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro software. The app is like opening a sketchbook inside your iPhone, only unlike Sketchbook Pro which is designed around using a pen/tablet, in SketchBook we are fingerpainting.

This is fine, perhaps a bit nostalgic, and I’ll admit a bit clunky on my part to begin, but I won’t chock up my inexperience with digital finger painting to the performance of the app. There are some great features in SketchBook and this is the most functional iPhone drawing app that I’ve come across.

Great Features

• Full customization of brushes – including opacity
• Multiple layers – visiblity can be turned on/off
• Embedded help feature
• Zoom
• Import photos as layers/Save project/export .jpg
• Offset drawing feature

There are more positive features in this app, but these were some that were extremely helpful in my experience. The drawing field can be zoomed into and out of using the intuitive iPhone pinch. Hotkeys are in each of the corners and a menu is accessed by tapping a small button at the bottom of the screen. The menu allows for tools and customization of color/brushes as well as access to the help menu.

Offset drawing was a feature I came across which allows the “tip of the brush” to be offset from where you are touching the screen. I found this to be helpful as my primary issue with this app is that if I am tracing something (and zooming in to provide an attempt at accuracy) I cannot always see what I’m drawing as my hand is in the way. Offset Drawing helps this a bit. I’m still getting used to how offset it is though. Great job with the undo/redo hotkeys.

Suggested Updates

• Control over layer interaction

It would be nice to control the opacity for an entire layer, or be able to use some color filters.

My Experience

I imported a photo of myself over a photo of fireworks. As there is no layer opacity, I erased out the background on the photo of me so that the fireworks came through. I was happy to see control over the eraser’s properties, as well as a physical control was easy enough.

But this wasn’t enough drawing for me, so I imported a drawing I did recently and began attempting to trace it. This is a true test of the accuracy of both the functionality of this app (for me), as well as the retention of my finger painting skills from my childhood.

You can see for yourself that I was not accurate on tracing lines (the SketchBook drawing is in red). Whenever I’d finish a line and lift my finger, there is a bit of recoil on the line that was beginning to frustrate me. I was not able to overcome this. Larger brush sizes and opacity altered, I came across the same problem.

Doing my research, I found that this had not been mentioned on Autodesk’s forum, so maybe I’m the only one who has lost the ability to accurately finger paint. If there was a pen I could use, this would no longer be a problem. But this is of no fault to SketchBook, but to the hardware.

The Bottom Line

There are many functional features that make this app worthwhile. Try the lite version to see if you are capable of drawing with your finger first, otherwise you’ll find an intense appreciation for the work that went into the app and an equal frustration to its uselessness to you. I lie somewhere in between, as I see the potential this app allows me once I have become one with the fingerpainter within.