Value Study

Value Study is an iOS (Android coming soon!) & MacOS app aimed at people learning to draw or paint. It helps with visualising where shadows and highlights appear within photo references or directly from your camera. One useful feature is selecting a value, which will highlight all areas of the image that matches the selected value... this is useful because at a glance you can see which tones are similar. That may sound simple but perception is a crucial skill which can be very hard, especially in complex colour references. The hope is that Value Study will help to ease the learning curve.

What is a value study?

Value studies are an artistic technique using greyscale drawings with very little detail, to practise both composition and lighting. They are particularly useful for beginners as exercises for learning to draw or paint, traditionally or digitally.

A Notan is a common type of value study that uses just two values, usually black and white. Value Study lets you make notans by pressing the "-" button until there are just two values showing. However, it also allows for far more shades to help with seeing how details are formed.

Why use an app?

As with most things, it could be better to just work hard and practise drawing value studies without any help. However sometimes you just need a helping hand to progress, this is what the Value Study tool is for. You can use it to help visualise values in everyday things, as a reference image before you start or to have something to compare your own value studies with after you've drawn them.

Toolbox

• Toggle colour

  Switch between original image and values to easily compare the two.

• Flip image

  Mirror the image horizontally to gain a fresh perspective on composition.

• Toggle outlines

  Simplify the values of the images into outlines.

• Toggle eyedropper

  Select the relevant value by clicking on the image itself.

• Toggle background

  Remove the background to isolate the subject and focus on key values.

• Toggle combine values

  With combine values on, you can select multiple values at once.

• Shape simplification

  Simplify shapes to focus on the overall structure and composition.

• Gallery

  View and switch between multiple images for comparison or reference.

• Add to photos

  Save your edited image directly to your photo library for easy access.

• Settings

  Customise advanced settings and preferences to suit your workflow.

Privacy statement

There are no adverts or invasive trackers on the Value Study app. All functionality takes place directly on your device.

Naturally, the app requires a reference photo to be useful, so it lets you select from your photo library and optionally allows access to your camera to directly capture the reference image. You can also, optionally, allow access to save the value studies you create back to your photo library. But these go nowhere else. Your images are not uploaded or accessed by anyone other than yourself.

Anonymous error logging is used to ensure bugs are found and fixed promptly. This is handled by Sentry, which helps identify and resolve issues while respecting user privacy.

To better understand how the app is used and to keep making it better for everyone, TelemetryDeck is used for anonymous usage analytics. It is a privacy-focussed platform that does not track or store any personally identifiable information.

If you have any feedback or questions, please email me directly or write a review on the App Store.

Download

Download Value Study for iPhone, iPad, and MacOS on the App Store.

Android version coming soon.