Astropad also offers a student price for interested buyers, as well as a free trial.įrom the company Avatron comes AirDisplay, which is a great iPad app choice for any artist looking for an effective mirroring app. One of the best parts about AstroPad is that it uses an up-to-date LIQUID technology that ensures you never lose the quality of the image you’re working with. This app offers the best quality of graphics on the market, and it costs $24.99 to purchase. It gives you the ability to draw right in Photoshop or Illustrator on your Mac, with cool custom shortcuts, and almost no lag. I used to be an AirDisplay man, but AstroPad is definitely the new app to beat in this category.ĪstroPad AstroPad is the newest entry into this category, and in my experience, easily the best. There are quite a few of these to choose from, but they tend to get pricey so you want to make sure your money is well-spent. If you’re interested in creating mixed media art with your iPad, we have a great step-by-step guide here.įirst up are the mirroring apps. This means a Pen Tool, editable shapes, boolean commands, the whole nine yards.

Give me vector or give me death – If a professional drawing app wants to live solely on the iPad, that’s fine, but it has to churn out vector art that I can export to Illustrator.

Let me use the iPad’s awesome technology and UX to draw with the professional tools I already use, just like a Wacom tablet.

Allow me to work directly in Photoshop or Illustrator – If we’re talking real work, then I almost don’t even want a new app.

What if you want to get some real work done on an iPad though? In my view, to really turn my iPad into a professional drawing tablet, I need an app to do one of two things:

There are a million of them out there, ranging from the really great (such as Paper by FiftyThree) to the downright terrible.

Apple drawing pad for macbook pro