Procreate for Beginners - Gallery
After opening the Procreate app on your iPad, the Gallery screen will come up. This screen is what I'm talking about in this video.
In the top-left corner of the Gallery, you can tap on "Procreate" and it will take you to a screen that will show you the version of Procreate software that you have available on your device and also some other "About" information about Procreate. You also have the option to "Restore Example Artworks" or to "Start Gallery Recovery". Selecting "Restore Example Artworks" will populate 4 example artworks into your gallery. These artworks are available when you open Procreate for the first time. You can restore them back for any reason (if you delete them from the Gallery) with this button. If you select "Start Gallery Recovery", the software will attempt to recover any lost files you may have due to the app crashing while you're in the middle of a project. So you can try this option if you have an artwork that you lost somehow. However, once you delete an artwork from the Gallery, it is gone for good (unless you backed it up somewhere else).
To select an artwork, you can tap on it once. That will bring up the artwork in the interface of the software where you can make changes to it. From there, you can click on "Gallery" in the top-left corner and that will take you back to the Gallery screen. (***Note that once you go back to the Gallery screen from the interface, all changes are made final and saved; you will not be able to undo/redo any actions).
To preview an artwork, you can use a reverse pinching motion with two fingers (or an expanding motion) to open up a full-size version of the artwork. This comes up without opening the interface so you're just previewing the artwork at this point. From there, you can now pinch two fingers together to close the preview and go back to the gallery OR you can tap on the artwork once. When you do this, arrows will appear on the left and right sides of the artwork which you can use to cycle through the artworks you have in the gallery while still in full-screen preview mode. You can also tap on the artwork twice while in preview mode to open the file completely which will open the interface as well so you can make changes to the artwork as needed.
Back on the gallery screen, if you look on the top-right section of this screen, there are a few options to tap on: Select, Import, Photo, and (+). The (+) is to create a new canvas and I explain that later in the video. When you hit "Select", a blue bar will appear near the top of the screen and there will be little hollow circles next to all of the artwork names. This is to indicate that you are now in "selection mode". When you tap on an artwork while in selection mode, it will put a blue checkmark in the circle next to that artwork's name. That indicates that you have selected that artwork. You'll also notice that when you select an artwork new options appear in the top-right corner: Stack (which is grayed out until you select multiple artworks - we'll talk about that soon), Preview, Share, Duplicate, and Delete. Hitting "Preview" will have the same effect as doing the expand motion (or reverse pinching motion) above. Hitting "Share" will allow you to export this artwork as-is and as a flattened file in either the Procreate, PSD, PDF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, ANIMATED GIF, or ANIMATED PNG formats. (a Procreate file format is only for use in Procreate and saves everything about your canvas and artwork so you can come back and change things if needed) This gallery "Share" is basically a quick export option. You can also export (with more options) from the Actions Menu in the interface. Hitting "Duplicate" will make an exact copy of the artwork file. Hitting "Delete" will give you the option to delete the file completely (Again, deleting will delete this file forever unless you backed it up somewhere else so it does ask you to confirm if you are sure that you do want to delete it)
07:41 - Stacking and Organizing Artwork
While in selection mode, if you select multiple artworks (2 or more) you now have the option to "Stack" in the top-right portion of the screen. This will stack the artworks you selected in their own group in the gallery. Hit the "x" in the top-right corner to exit selection mode. Then, you can tap on the name of either an artwork or a stack and rename it by typing in your desired file name. If you want to add more artworks to your stack, you can tap and hold on an artwork and then drag it on top of the stack, wait for the stack to open (it takes a second or two) and then drop the artwork in the stack. If you don't wait for the stack to open, your artwork will just move to be next to the stack instead. Another thing you can do is tap on "select" again to put yourself in selection mode, and then select an artwork (or multiple artworks) and the stack you want to put them in, and then tap "Stack" again. This will put all of that artwork that you just selected plus all of the artwork in the stack you selected in the same new stack. (Unfortunately, at this time, you aren't able to have stacks within stacks so it will empty out the original stack into individual artworks and then stack them with the other artworks you selected - and you'll have to rename the stack again)
To remove an artwork from a stack, tap on the stack to open it, then tap and hold the artwork you want to remove, then tap "< Stack" in the top-left corner to go back to the gallery screen, and then release the artwork back into the gallery on it's own. You can also remove multiple artworks from a stack all at once (or move them anywhere) by tap and holding one artwork and then using another finger or your Apple Pencil to tap on other artworks while you are still holding the original artwork down. This will add any additional artwork you tap into the group you are holding down. Then, you can move those artworks wherever you want. Once you remove all of the artworks from a stack, it will delete itself because it's empty.
10:18 - Rotating Artwork from the Gallery
While in the gallery, you can pinch and rotate any artwork to change the orientation of that art in the gallery. So, if it is rectangular, you can change it from landscape to portrait and vice-versa.
10:57 - Canvas Templates & Creating a New Canvas
Hitting the "+" sign in the top-left corner will allow you to create a new artwork. When you tap this, it will open up a menu with a bunch of pre-made templates that Procreate comes with (and any templates you have made yourself). You can either choose one of these templates or make a new canvas altogether. If you choose a pre-made template, it will open a canvas that is that size and color profile. You can also edit a template by tapping, holding, and dragging a template option to the left and tapping on edit. (You can also delete a template by tapping on delete). This will bring up a similar screen to the one you see when you create a new canvas from scratch - which is what we're going to talk about next,
To create a new canvas, tap the second plus sign next to the words "New Canvas". This will bring up a screen similar to the screen that came up when you try to edit a pre-made template. At the top of this screen, it will say "Untitled Canvas". You can tap on that to change the name if you wish. On the left hand column of that screen there are four categories: Dimensions, Color Profile, Time-Lapse Settings, and Canvas Properties. In the Dimensions tab, you can change the height and width size of your canvas and the DPI (dots per inch = quality). Changing those options will affect the Maximum Layers amount. The smaller the canvas and the lower the DPI, the more layers that will be available for you to use. Generally, I keep my DPI at 300 to keep my drawings as sharp and clear as possible. You can also change the units of your height and width to mm, cm, in, and px. You can make a canvas as small as 1 px x 1 px or as large as 16k in one direction (16000 px for height or width). For color profile, you can choose between RGB or CMYK color profiles. Generally, RGB is meant for art that will displayed on a digital screen and CMYK is for art that will be printed. The first two options in the RGB menu and the first option in the CMYK are sufficient for most art. You must pick between RGB or CMYK at this stage. Once you are in the canvas, you cannot change between the two. In the time-lapse settings tab on the left, you can choose the size and quality of your time-lapse video. A large size and better quality video will mean a larger file size. You have the option of toggling on the "HEVC" button on the bottom. That is a newer video file coding type that lowers the file size of a higher quality video. The problem right now is, not a lot of programs recognize that file type so you may not be able to upload that video to certain platforms. HEVC stands for High Efficiency Video Coding. Finally, in the Canvas Properties tab, you can choose your background color or choose to hide your background to make a transparent background. Both of these options can be changed once your canvas is open as well. This can allow you to skip a step if you frequently make things with a color other than white as your background (or with a transparent background).
25:08 - Importing Files & Photos
Back in the gallery, in the top-right portion of the screen, there are "Import" and "Photo" options. When you tap on "Import" it will bring up your files app on your iPad where you can import a Procreate file or a PDF that you have stored on your iPad's iCloud Drive. If you import a PDF, Procreate will automatically open the "Page Assist" feature which is similar to "Animation Assist" in that it gives you an easy way to scroll through and choose different pages of your PDF (each page will be displayed on it's own layer). From here, you're able to draw or write on the PDF and quickly move through the pages.
By tapping the "Photo" option, it will bring up the Photos app from your iPad where you can choose a photo you have saved on your iPad. This will open the photo in it's own layer on the canvas, and it will automatically have the photo selected with the transformation tool for you to crop and resize the photo to fit on your canvas the way you want.
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