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 color brands
• ⚖️ Pairwise comparison of photos
• 💾 Save multiple color sets for the same medium
• 🪟 Higher contrast grid that can be printed
• ⬇️ Saving processed images to your device
• 🍏 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 color brands

A lot of color brands have been added recently.

ArtistAssistApp supported color brands

Watercolor paint

• A. Gallo
• Blockx
• Da Vinci
• Daniel Smith Extra Fine
• Daniel Smith PrimaTek
• Holbein
• M. Graham & Co.
• Maimeri Blu
• Michael Harding
• Mijello Mission Gold Class
• Old Holland
• QoR
• Rembrandt
• Renesans
• Roman Szmal Aquarius
• Rosa Gallery
• Schmincke Horadam Aquarell
• Schmincke Akademie Aquarell
• Sennelier l'Aquarelle
• ShinHan PWC
• Van Gogh
• White Nights
• Winsor & Newton Professional
• Winsor & Newton Cotman
• Kokuyo Camlin Camel Artist Water Colours
• Aquatone Artist Watercolor
• Thoovi Premium Watercolours
• Tri-Art
• Turner
• Daler Rowney Artists' Watercolour
• Daler Rowney Aquafine Watercolour

Oil paint

• Gamblin
• Michael Harding
• Old Holland
• Schmincke Mussini
• Schmincke Norma Professional
• Schmincke Norma Blue Water Mixable Oil Colours
• Williamsburg
• Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Fast Drying
• Winsor & Newton Winton
• Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil
• Daler Rowney Artists' Oil
• Cobra Artist Water Mixable Oil Colours
• Daler Rowney Georgian Oil
• Daler Rowney Georgian Water Mixable Oil

Acrylic paint

• Golden Fluid
• Golden Heavy Body
• Golden OPEN Slow-Drying
• Golden SoFlat Matte
• Lascaux Artist
• Liquitex Heavy Body
• Liquitex Soft Body
• Old Holland New Masters
• Schmincke PRIMAcryl
• Vallejo Acrylic Artist
• Vallejo Acrylic Studio
• Winsor & Newton Professional
• Winsor & Newton Galeria
• Daler Rowney Cryla
• Daler Rowney System3
• Atelier Interactive
• Amsterdam Expert Series
• Amsterdam Standard Series

Colored pencils

• Caran d'Ache Luminance 6901
• Caran d'Ache Pablo
• Crayola
• Derwent Chromaflow
• Derwent Colour Drawing
• Derwent Coloursoft
• Derwent Lightfast Colour
• Derwent Procolour
• Faber-Castell Goldfaber
• Faber-Castell Polychromos
• Holbein
• Koh-I-Noor Polycolor
• Prismacolor Premier Soft Core
• Van Gogh

Watercolor pencils

• Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle
• Caran d'Ache Supracolor Aquarelle
• Derwent Inktense
• Derwent Watercolour
• Winsor & Newton

Gouache

• Da Vinci
• Daler Rowney Aquafine Gouache
• Daler Rowney Professional Designers' Gouache
• Daniel Smith
• Holbein Artist Gouache
• Holbein Irodori Artist Gouache
• Lefranc & Bourgeois Linel Extra-Fine Gouache
• Maimeri Gouache
• Schmincke Designers Gouache
• Talens Gouache Extra Fine
• Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache

Acrylic gouache

• Holbein Acrylic Gouache
• Lascaux Gouache
• Liquitex Acrylic Gouache
• Turner Acryl Gouache

⚖️ 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.

⬇️ Saving processed images to your device

ArtistAssistApp now supports saving to your device all processed images.
Press ⋮ and then Save and the image will be saved as PNG file.
This feature works on "Tonal values", "Simplified", "Grid", "Outline" and "Limited palette" tabs.
After saving you can import images in ArtistAssistApp again.

🍏 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.

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