Even though we’ve been incredibly busy building the new Sorted, we haven’t forgotten about Procreate!

Procreate 1.6 project Blackstone, has been under design for the last few months and I’m please to let you know, the update is now in development phase! We’ve put most of our time into two key areas: the artwork gallery and brush management.

Shipping with 1.6 will be a new sleek and powerful thumbnail interface which will allow you to move and organise your artwork super easily. It will also allow you to easily edit and share multiple artworks along with the ability to create stacks (Just like folders). Overall, we think it might be one of the nicest artwork galleries made for iPad.

The second area of focus is the brush management side of Procreate. We’ve spent a large amount of time analysing the core issues, along with your suggestions. One aspect has became pretty clear during these workshops. When we designed Procreate originally, we shipped it with pencils, ink pens, markers and paint brushes–but we didn’t define them. Each of these tools had no name, no default size and could be modified or even replaced completely. Because they weren’t obvious, many people missed those tools.

So two things coming your way will be the ability to name your brushes and create your own brush sets (groups). But, we’re also going a step further. 1.6 will ship with two sections inside the new brush menu; Pro tools & Custom tools.

Pro tools will contain sets of highly refined tools, for sketching, inking, painting and airbrushing, among others. These tools will ship with a predefined behaviour which cannot be modified. But don’t let that put you off. can also be modified. By default, these new tools are really nice.

The second section, custom tools, will allow you to make your own brushes and organise them into your own sets. You can organise and modify almost every aspect of this section, so if you use and create custom brushes frequently, this section might your new home. Both sections, will be unified in a single brush interface for ease of use.

As always, we’re refining a whole bunch of other stuff in this next update and the list below shows our current working feature set. Like last time, we’ll be crossing them off as we go! Green items indicate completion whilst black items are in progress.

New artwork gallery
• Thumbnail grid layout: Landscape & portrait
• Drag & drop artwork thumbnails to organise
• Drag & drop artwork thumbnails to create stacks (groups)
• Select multiple artworks to action (delete, share, duplicate)
• Rename artwork thumbnails
• New ‘create canvas’ workflow
• New ‘export’ dialogue interface
• Export multiple artworks to email (PNG or JPG)
• Export multiple artworks to photos (PNG or JPG)
• Export multiple artworks to iTunes
• Export to twitter

New Brush management
• New brush menu interface
• Refined advanced options UI
• Better slider readouts
• Improved slider min & max points
• New advanced brush ‘general’ settings
• Option to display brush preview as a stamp
Pro tools section
• Sketching tools
• Inking tools
• Painting tools
• Wet painting tools (Merged into Painting)
• Airbrushing tools
• Texture tools
• Duplicate any Pro Tool
• Drag & drop to organise
Custom brushes section
• Create custom brush sets (groups)
• Delete custom brush sets
• Rename custom brush sets
• New custom brush creation UI (Same functionality–faster process)
• Name custom brushes
• Delete custom brushes
• Duplicate custom brushes
• Drag & drop brush sets
• Drag & drop individual brushes
• Drag & drop brushes into brush sets
• Import Preset Si shape and grain files

Interface refinements
• Improved contrast app wide
• Increased menu transparency
• New Si popover design
• Refined App icon

New options available in painting mode
• Insert a photo from camera
• Export canvas to email (PNG or JPG)
• Export canvas to iTunes as PSD
• Export canvas to photos (PNG or JPG)
• Export to twitter
• New help options
• Re-designed app settings

General improvements
• Tapered brush strokes
• Maximum size
• Maximum opacity
• Grain & shape orient to device orientation
• Improved Precision sliders app wide
• New drag to adjust slider (more accurate)
• Improved Tool ‘memory’
• New background option UI
• Show real canvas transparency
• New undo / redo gestures
• New precision eyedropper tool
• Zoom & rotate canvas (Pinch and rotate)
• ARC memory management
• iOS 5 improvements
• Jot Touch support
• XO stylus support
• iPen support

Update 8.2.12: As we close in on the completing all 1.6 features–we’ve decided to add two new editions to Procreate 1.6. Although these two new features are only small additions, we’re hoping they might come in handy for some folks. Because we not sure if they will make it into 1.6, they will remain classified until we get further along!

Update 16.2.12: We’re working almost 7 days a week here and we’re happy to announce that one of the new ‘classified’ features will ship with Procreate 1.6! And as you can see, we’ve just added and finished a third new minor enhancement. Again, the classified items are not major features–just small additions that will help make painting & sketching a little more enjoyable. The new eyedropper tool however, will almost certainly not make it into Procreate 1.6. Instead, we’re putting our energy into the areas of 1.6 that need some extra love.

On that note, a few days ago it become painfully obvious that Procreate 1.6 is pushing the iPad (1 & 2) to its absolute limits. Along with Gallery stacks, we’re working through a whole host of performance and memory optimisations. (And of course the usual hunting down and squishing bugs as they crop up). As we get through each of these issues and feature additions, Procreate 1.6 becomes more and more usable & enjoyable–and we can’t help but feel, this update is shaping up really nicely. The wait should be worth it guys!

Update 28.2.12: Procreate 1.6 reached the Alpha milestone a few days ago! 5 artists were invited to test the early 1.6 Alpha build, and the early feedback has been really positive.  And as you can see, all classified items are now completed. We’re busy woking away on some minor bugs and UX issues before we’re back to the last major features–Gallery stacks & stylus support!

Update 9.3.12: Gallery stacks is finally completed! This last feature has really transformed the Gallery into a beautiful place to house your artwork. WIth Gallery stacks completed, we are now feature freezing Procreate 1.6 and making the final push on to 3rd party stylus support. Wont be long now!