In art, value (or tone) refers to how light or dark a colour is. If you're learning to paint or draw, doing value studies is one of the best ways to improve. These small, loose sketches in greyscale help you understand where shadows fall and highlights appear—essential for capturing depth and form. Value Study is a simple, focused tool designed to help you see values more clearly in your reference images. Instead of just converting a photo to black and white, this app lets you break down tones step by step. Start with just black and white to map out the biggest shapes, then gradually add more values to refine your understanding. You can also highlight all areas of an image that share the same value, making it easier to see subtle shifts in tone. This is especially useful in complex references, like portraits, where different parts of the image might have the same level of shadow but look completely different in colour. Value Study isn’t here to replace traditional studies—it’s here to enhance them. Whether you're sketching, painting, or working digitally, this tool makes it easier to focus on the fundamentals of light, shadow, and form. Try it for free with all features enabled on sample images from Unsplash before deciding to unlock the full app with a low-cost yearly or lifetime purchase. All Value Study Pro upgrades count as lifetime purchase. Either option will unlock Value Study across iPhone, iPad and Mac. Annual: Auto-renews yearly. Lifetime: One-time payment, no fees. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Size | 31.5 MB |
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Initial release | |
Price | |
Platforms | Mac, iPhone, and iPad |
Languages | Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and 4 more |
Category | Graphics & Design |
Compatibility | |
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Mac | Requires macOS 13.5 or later. |
iPad | Requires iPadOS 16.6 or later. |
iPhone | Requires iOS 16.6 or later. |
Apple Vision | Requires visionOS 1.0 or later. |
App's data is regularly updated.
Last update:
Here's another small update to the new Grid feature. As requested by Howard, we can now adjust the colour of the grid, from the Line appearance section of the Grid settings. --- GRID MODE IN VALUE STUDY APP!! This update brings one of the biggest feature requests Value Study has had since day one, Grids. In fact it was on my original wish-list of features when I started building the app! Every approach I took early on was too slow and clunky... but with all the performance and code improvements, it's now ready for launch. I always say to send me feedback but this update is more important than others, it's a very large feature that will improve over time. So I need your help to ensure it is perfect for you all, please do email shane@valuestudy.app with feedback (reviews are always helpful too).