Home RetroSupply Blog Procreate 5: Drawing App Gets Crazy Good Update with New Brush Studio and More

Procreate 5: Drawing App Gets Crazy Good Update with New Brush Studio and More

Procreate 5 is easily the most massive overhaul of Savage Interactive’s iOS app and it's available in the App Store for the iPad iOS.

This updated brings tons of long-awaited features to the app including a powerful new brush studio, the ability to import Photoshop brushes (ABR), animation assist, new Apple Pencil features, and brush color dynamics and tons more.

All powered by the new Valkyrie graphics engine.

Here are the top five best new brush features in Procreate 5 for illustrators, artists, and creatives.

Did you know we've updated all our Procreate brushes to work killer in Procreate 5? Check them out now.

01. Brush Studio

It would be hard to understate the value of the new Brush Studio. The Brush Studio is so robust it takes up an entire screen, includes 100 new settings, a seamless texture creator, the ability to combine brushes, plus you can preview and test your brushes in the full-screen window instead of jumping in and out of the editor.

However, unless you truly love geeking out on brush creation it’s not likely you’ll spend a ton of time here. If you just want to draw purchasing professionally made brushes will save you time and a massive learning curve. The features can be overwhelming.

A lot of our users have been importing their favorite Procreate brushes from RetroSupply or other shops and then making custom tweaks (which can always be reset if needed).

02. Photoshop (ABR) Brush Import

Procreate 5 uses the Valkryie graphics engine, a new software framework made for Apple’s Metal API. That means you can import Photoshop (ABR) brushes directly into Procreate — and rumor is that the brushes actually render faster in Procreate than Photoshop!

Still, I wouldn’t start importing your Photoshop brushes yet.

Although in live demos Procreate has demonstrated Kyle’s Brushes importing into Procreate with nearly perfect transfer between programs that isn’t the reality for most brushes.

I would even venture to say that this first iteration of the feature was designed to, at first glance, look impressive with Kyle’s Brushes for Photoshop in live demos but does not work well across all brushes.

You’re still much better off creating or purchasing brushes that have been made for Procreate. If you do want to import your Photoshop brushes expect to have to make minor adjustments on all brushes (and even minor adjustments can be time-consuming when you’re dealing with 150 different features).

03. Color Harmony

A new Color Harmony section of the app allows you to easily pick complimentary colors. This is a massive time saver and allows you to keep a continuous flow to your work without being distracted by looking at third-party color apps like Coolors (which is an awesome app by the way).

Procreate 5 also features a 10-step Color History palette so you don’t have to resample the same colors over and over again. Not to mention, if you do a lot of print work you’re going to love the new CMYK and RGB ICC color profiles feature.

💡 NOTE: Your ability to use Color History and other features may depend on your iPad's model number and which operating system you are running.

04. Onion Skinning

Procreate has added a new animation tool section that gives you a timeline for creating looping GIF’s and animated videos. Although Procreate has had some basic animation features since earlier in 2019 they’ve upped their game with new features.

For example, the onion skinning feature makes simple animation a breeze. Control the playback speed, adjust opacity on layers, and instantly playback and check your work.

Procreate 5 animation and onion skinning

05. Hue, Saturation, and Brightness

The Apple Pencil has been much more deeply integrated with Procreate as well. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the ability to control hue, saturation, and brightness through the pressure and tilt of the Apple Pencil.

Of course, you can get even more fine controls with the 18 individual sliders. But the fact that you can control color so well with just the Apple Pencil is useful.

Procreate 5 - Hue, Saturation, and Brightness

Final Thoughts on the Procreate 5

There are tons of features that have been added in this update. The clone tool, storyboards, more realistic wet edges to brushes, the mini color palette, and more.

Plus, the update is free (and the app retails for a fraction of the price of a month of Adobe CC). The fact that it imports Photoshop brushes and renders them more quickly on the screen has got to be painful for the folks at Photoshop who just released the iPad version.

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