Getting Started on Mac and Windows
If you are new to Sketchbook Pro on desktop, this video has some useful tips on getting started.
This video was recorded with Sketchbook Pro version 9.2 on Windows 11 on a Wacom Cintiq. The snapshots below in were captured from Sketchbook Pro version 9.2 running macOS 15 (Sequoia)
Launch behavior
Sketchbook Pro always launches filling the screen to maximize the area for drawing.
A default canvas will be created allowing you to draw right away.
When you want to specify an exact canvas size, go to the Image Menu and select Image Size to open a dialog to enter your custom width, height and resolution.
Changing the default canvas
The factory setting for the default canvas size matches the Window size. You can customize your Preferences to have a specific canvas size.
On Windows, preferences are located in in the Edit menu.
On Mac, settings are located in the first menu item labeled Sketchbook Pro.
Tap on the Canvas tab in the Preference window.
Uncheck the box “use width and width of window” and enter your preferred dimensions and resolution. This will be applied next time you choose to make a new file or launch the app.
Navigating the canvas
In the toolbar, there is a Zoom/Rotate/Move Canvas tool. This will activate a navigation puck that hovers under your pen cursor. Hover over the adjustment you want to apply and tap-drag.
This tool can also. be activated using the spacebar. Tapping the spacebar brings up the navigation puck right under your pen cursor, making canvas navigation very quick and easy. If your peripheral tablet device has customizable action buttons you can assign spacebar to a stylus button or a tablet key.
Sketchbook Pro supports touch input on some hardware:
Wacom touch enabled tablets
Windows touchscreen laptops (e.g. Surface Pro)
Brush Palette
The factory default brush set in the Brush Palette includes a cross section of the brush types available in Sketchbook Pro.
The Brush Palette is customizable, you can modify the set or assign (pin) different brush sets from the Brush Library.
To change the brush order, tap-hold on a brush and once it pops up, drag it to a new location.
In Sketchbook Pro erasers and smudge tools are a brush type, and can be included in any brush set.
You can set the Brush Palette to only show a single column of brushes in Preferences.
Brush Library
The Brush Library stores all of the brush sets loaded in Sketchbook Pro.
The header in the Library shows the current selected brush with a preview of the stamp in the active color.
Default sets
Sketchbook Pro installs with 17 brush sets that include over 200 brushes.
The brush sets are not locked, allowing you customize them at any time by moving brushes from one set to another.
You can also move brushes from the Library to the Palette. This is the fastest way to browse through all the brushes while having a fixed view of the set you dragging brushes into.
More free brush sets are available from our Extras site.
Reordering sets
You can change the order of the brush sets by tapping on the Move icon and dragging the set to a new location in the list.
Randomizing brushes
The Randomize toggle, when enabled, will change the active brush to a different brush in the same set with each brush stroke you make. This feature is ideal for sets that are specifically built with brushes that are subtle variations of each other.
Marking Menu
The options for managing your brush sets are accessed from the circular icon on the right side of the set. Tap and hold on this to activate a radial menu called a Marking Menu.
When you tap and hold, the icons will appear. As you drag towards each item, a tool tip will show what the action is.
Once you become familiar with the positions, you do not need to post the icons to make a selection. You can tap and gesture in the direction of the action to activate it.
The Brush Library marking menu includes the following commands (clockwise from the top):
New Brush Set
Delete Brush Set
Pin Brush set - assigns the set to the Brush Palette
Export Brush Set
Import Brush Set
Delete Brush
Copy Brush - duplicates the current selected brush
New Brush
Brush Properties
Double-tap on a brush or tap on the property icon in the Brush Palette to open the Brush Properties window.
The Basic tab has the primary properties of a brush, like Size and Opacity. Some brush types have special characteristics that also appear in the this tab. For example, Marker types have a ‘wetness’ value that appear in this tab.
The Advanced tab includes all the other settings that describe how a brush looks.
When you make custom brushes, try duplicating a brush and use it as a starting point to adjust parameters or add/change the images that define the nib shape or texture.
You can rename a brush tapping the name and even tap on the icon to load your own image to replace the icon.
Brush hotkeys and puck
If you like having an uncluttered workspace, here are useful tips for adjusting basic parameters without having the Brush Properties window open.
Hotkeys
When pressing ‘B’, you an drag left/right or up/down to increase or decrease your brush size.
A tapered brush that uses a fine size for light pressure and a larger size for heavy pressure will adjust both settings relatively.
When pressing ‘O’, dragging left/right or up/down will increase or decrease brush opacity
This will also relatively scale the light and heavy pressure settings.
Brush Puck
The brush puck is a widget that lets you adjust size and opacity without hotkeys.
Tap inside the puck and drag left/right to change size
Tap inside the puck and drag up/down to change opacity
The puck can be placed anywhere on the window to fit your style
You can also turn off the brush puck from the Window menu or by tapping on the close icon
Color Editor
The Color Editor is the main window for setting colors.
In the header, the square swatch is your active color. The top bar displays color harmony (default is complementary color) and the bottom bar will update to show the last 9 colors used. These bars can be customized by tapping on the arrow icon.
You can chance color using the color wheel by adjusting hue in the outer ring and saturation and luminance in the diamond.
The Hex value will update as you adjust color and you can enter a specific hex value.
There are HSL, HSV and RGB tabs you can adjust with the slider or enter exact values.
You can randomize the color of each brush stroke by selecting the Random Color tab. Select the mode of randomization to define the range of colors used.
The Gradient tab allows a simple interface to customize ramps between two colors. Set the end colors by tapping on them and defining a color. To use these ramps just tap on a swatch to select the color. You can also assign one of the ramps to the bar in the header.
Custom Colors
The Custom Colors window has two tabs that provide you with useful ways store colors.
Color Sets
A Color Set can store up to 12 color palettes. A palette can have up to 60 colors.
You can create, manage, load or export sets by tapping on the Library icon in the top right.
You can also use the next and previous arrows to step through sets.
Image Sets
You can load up to 12 different images into the Image tab.
The window can be resized to accommodate landscape images.
To select colors, just tap or tap-drag over the image.
Sketchbook Pro also has a feature to extract colors from an image to create a palette.
The Custom Color window can alternatively be used as a visual reference or inspiration board while drawing.
Color Puck
Similar to the Brush Puck, the Color Puck provides quick access to basic color changes.
Saturation - tap-drag left/right
Opacity - tap-drag up/down
Mini color wheel - Single tap will temporarily open this widget for quick access to:
Hue, Saturation, Luminance
9 color palette
Eyedropper to select color on screen
Toggle to ‘transparent color’ (switches the active brush behave like an eraser)
Layer Editor
The Layer Editor is has many of the familiar features you would find in an image editor, but there are a few unique aspects in the Sketchbook Pro Layer Editor.
Background
Every layer stack created in Sketchbook Pro has a Background. By default, Sketchbook always starts with a white background.
The background can be toggled off by tapping the visibility icon. When this is off, the background appears as a checkerboard pattern. This is how you export a transparent image.
Tapping on the circular color swatch will toggle the color windows to be used for selecting a background color. When complete, you can tap on the background swatch again will return the color windows to brush color or just tap on a brush.
Layer visibility, opacity, and labels
Visibility of a layer’s content can be toggled with same icon as background.
Opacity can be adjusted using the vertical slider. The value will be dynamically displayed in a tooltip at the bottom of the screen as well as in the checkered field in the header of the editor. Tapping in this field will allow you to input a specific opacity value.
The bottom left circle is for assigning color labels to a layer. Tap-hold on this circle and a marking menu with a choice of 8 colors that can be used as a simple visual cue when working with layers.
Header
New Layer - Quick access to create a layer with a single tap
New Group - Create an empty group
Import image - Imports an image in a new layer in Quick Transform mode to allow placement
Clear - removes all content on a layer. If there is a selection active, only the selected area is cleared
Menu - Opens a pop up that includes all layer actions
Blend Modes - Displays the blend mode of the active layer. Tapping opens pop-up list to select the blend mode.
Marking Menu
The central region of a layer is a hit-spot for the layer marking menu.
New Layer
Delete Layer
Rename Layer
Merge All Layers (Flatten)
Merge Below
Lock Layer
Hide/Show Layer
Duplicate Layer
1. Reorder Layer
Tap this handle to drag and drop the layer to a new position in the layer stack.
2. Lock Transparency
When enabled, this feature preserves the transparency of the layer allowing paint to only be applied to areas that already have paint on it. Paint applied to semi-transparent portions also retain that same level of opacity.
3. Clipping Mask
Clipping Mask is a simple masking feature that is similar to Lock Transparency, but use multiple layers to allow greater flexibility in changing the final result.
Create a new layer above the layer you want to keep visible.
In the example image, Clipping Mask is not enabled and all the paint drawn on Layer2 can be seen on top of Layer1.
When you enable the clipping mask, Layer1 becomes the base layer and its transparency is now used as to mask out everything on Layer2. The paint on Layer 2 still exists, but is made invisible. This means if you can use a transform tool to move the contents of the layer and it will update what’s masked.
You can stack multiple clipping mask layers on top of the same base layer, so long immediately above or between the base layer,
Moving content on a layer
Quick Transform
As the name implies, the Quick Transform tool is designed to be a fast way of moving, scaling and rotating using pen input.
When you tap on the tool in the toolbar, an option bar appears.
Select a rectangular region then transform
Select a lasso region then transform - this is the default mode if you don’t make another selection
Move all the contents on the layer
The Quick Transform widget appears under your pen position. Tap in the region for the action you want to perform:
Move - freely position the content
Proportional scale
Non-proportional scale - tap dragging left right will scale the horizontally, up and down scales vertically
Rotate
When the content is in the desired position, tap on the check icon in the top corner of the widget.
Select & Transform
The toolbar also has traditional Select and Transform tools that can provide more robust control than Quick Transform.
The transform tool uses a transform box with handles and supports useful features:
Constrained move an scale with SHIFT key
Pixel nudging using keyboard arrow keys
Shows some layer effects interactively (such as Clipping Masks)
Has a Distort option to warp contents using corners and central bias handle.
Lagoon
The Lagoon in the bottom corner of the main window is a signature interface of Sketchbook Pro.
It is an arc that contains 6 marking menus, each with commonly used command and primary colors pre-assigned.
The Lagoon can be customized in Preferences to contain your most useful commands, so they are available to you with a flick of the pen.
View Controls
The first marking menu position is notable for useful quick toggles:
Hide/Show all User Interface
Toggle fullscreen
Place Lagoon on right side (for left-handed users)
Hide/Show the Lagoon
Hide/Show scroll bars when zoome