What Artists Are Saying

An amazingly helpful app for Artist and art students. I have been working with Value Study for a couple of years now and referred to all of my students. It is so helpful in learning how to see values. I totally recommend it to help in consolidating values as a preparation for paintings, drawings in studio and plein air.

Dec 29, 2025

I love having this available in my pocket, and on my desktop, so that I can use it on reference photos I’ve taken on a nice large display. And it goes way beyond value studies. I used to draw grids on my photos manually, but this makes it quick and easy. Thanks very much for this Shane!

Dec 28, 2025

I got this app many years ago and love it! I have issues with my eyesight and this app helps me a lot to continue to create as a professional artist! Thank you!

Dec 18, 2025

I had a few issues with my phone model and app, I e-mailed Shane and he answered immediately and fixed the bug that evening. it works brilliantly now and I am very pleased with my value app. Thanks!

Nov 27, 2025

Great for new portrait painters. This is a great way to find the mid tones when starting a portrait. I set the colours to a range of browns and it get me a great image in a sepia style to start blocking out my levels before I start adding colours.

Oct 31, 2025

This app makes it possible to forgo the time consuming process of value studies done by hand. Additionally, complete changes in values that can be initiated immediately lead to much more experimenting for the painter.

Oct 8, 2025

Absolutely valuable for professional artists like myself who need to judge value and tone quickly in order to sketch, then paint landscapes, objects, people etc. plus you can simplify images, use a different colour for value and adjust the value scale. You can even save the image for your reference. Been waiting for the Android version and it didn't disappoint 👍🏿

May 30, 2025

A very helpful and easy to use tool for painters and artists. It helps me see the structure of a photograph’s tonal values when deciding if it is one I wish to paint. It also works as a live filter on your camera when painting directly.

Feb 18, 2024

I find this very useful already and there are improvements in the pipeline which will make it the ultimate artists tool. The developer is very quick to respond to requests

Feb 14, 2024

Very useful for painting from life and photos. Incredibly useful for artists! I tried some similar apps for quite a while and always got back to this and finally bought it(recommended for some features I didn’t know about).I use this app for finding values and forms both from life and from photo references when painting.I don’t even have wishes for future updates.

Apr 5, 2023

As an amateur painter, that first composition remains my biggest struggle. In learning about Notan to help establish the composition and define the shapes, I ran across this app. It helps me see and in turn is improving my eye without it. Very niche but truly outstanding for those who will have purpose to use it.

Sept 1, 2022