7 Procreate Tips That Any Digital Artist Should Know

Life-saving Procreate tips! Really?

You may think I’m exaggerating — not at all! Okay, maybe a little, but these tips are essential! I’ve been teaching digital art with the Procreate app since 2012, and many students contact me for the same reasons — they’re discouraged and frustrated because they didn’t know the tips and tricks I’m about to share with you. So, if you get stuck or don’t know why something isn’t working as expected, chances are you will find the solution in this article.

Ready for some “aha” moments? 

1. Who is ruining my work with random marks?

You know what I’m talking about, right? Yes! Those random marks that appear all over your canvas while you’re happily working with your Apple Pencil elsewhere. 

Believe it or not, they are not a glitch. Something other than the Apple Pencil touched the screen while painting, probably our fingers. Fortunately for us, a feature restricts what our fingers can do. Since we are using an Apple Pencil for painting, smudging, and erasing, we only need them to perform gesture shortcuts. The solution is then to disable touch actions. We can do this by going to Actions (Wrench icon)>Prefs>Gesture Controls>General and turning on Disable Touch Actions.

This solution will be useful from now on, but how do we remove the marks if we notice them too late to undo them? Use the eraser, smudge, or clone tools, but first, we need to figure out which layer those annoying marks are on.

Recommended Learning Platform course

Masking in Procreate: Understanding Clipping and Layer Masks

Lettie Blue