Graphic Design & Illustration · Guide
How to use Procreate: a complete beginner guide
The gestures, the four tools you will use constantly, and how layers and alpha lock work. Enough to finish your first proper illustration this week.
The Nextversity teamGraphic Design & Illustration schoolUpdated August 10, 20266 min read
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The short answer
Procreate is small enough to learn in an afternoon and deep enough to work in for years. Start with three things: the gestures, the four tools you actually use, and layers.
Everything else can wait until you need it.
The gestures, first
These are used hundreds of times a day, so learn them before anything else:
- Two-finger tap: undo. Hold to undo repeatedly.
- Three-finger tap: redo.
- Pinch: zoom. Pinch and twist to rotate the canvas.
- Pinch quickly together: fit to screen.
- Three-finger swipe down: cut, copy and paste menu.
- Three-finger scrub side to side: clear the layer.
- Tap and hold with the brush: picks up the color under your stylus.
- Swipe right with two fingers on a layer: alpha lock.
That list is most of what makes experienced Procreate users look fast.
The four tools
Brush (B). The main event. Tap the brush icon twice to open brush settings, tap once to choose a brush. Start with three: a sketch pencil, a hard round for line work, and a soft airbrush for shading.
Smudge. The same brush library, used to blend. Covered properly in the blending guide.
Eraser. Also uses the brush library, which means you can erase with a textured brush. Underused and powerful.
Layers. Where the actual work happens.
The slider on the left controls brush size (top) and opacity (bottom). Learn to move them without looking.
Layers, properly
Tap the layers icon. Add a layer with the plus. Drag to reorder. Swipe left on a layer for lock, duplicate and delete.
Three things that change how you work:
- Alpha lock. Restricts painting to what is already on the layer, so you can shade inside a shape without going over the edges. Two-finger swipe right on the layer.
- Clipping masks. A layer that only shows where the layer below has pixels. Same idea as alpha lock but on its own layer, so it is non-destructive and you can throw it away.
- Blend modes. Tap the letter next to a layer. Multiply for shadows, Add or Screen for light, Overlay for punch. Three is enough to start.
A sensible layer structure for a beginner piece: sketch, line art, flat colors, shading (clipped to flats), highlights, background.
Your first illustration this week
- New canvas. Around 3000 pixels on the long edge for screen work.
- Sketch loosely on layer one, then drop its opacity to about 25%.
- Line art on a new layer above it, slowly. Rotate the canvas rather than twisting your wrist.
- Flat color on a layer below the lines. Use ColorDrop by dragging the color from the top right into an enclosed shape.
- Shading on a new layer, clipped to the flats, set to Multiply, using a soft brush and a muted blue-purple rather than grey.
- Highlights on another clipped layer, set to Add, used sparingly.
- Export. Actions, Share, PNG.
That is a complete workflow, and it scales all the way to professional work.
The hardest part of learning to draw digitally is not the software. It is producing enough finished pieces to see progress, which is why small canvases and small ideas beat ambitious ones early.
Five settings worth changing
- Actions > Prefs > Gesture controls. Set QuickMenu or Erase to whatever suits your hand.
- Streamline in the brush settings. It smooths shaky lines, and a little goes a long way for line art.
- Drawing Guide for perspective and symmetry, under Actions.
- ColorDrop threshold, adjusted by dragging left and right after you drop, if fills leak or fall short.
- Canvas size chosen deliberately, since bigger canvases mean fewer layers.
Procreate's help site has the full handbook, which is unusually good documentation for a creative app.
What Procreate is not for
Vector logos (Illustrator), photo retouching (Photoshop), interface design (Figma), and long-form print layout. It is an illustration tool, and it is excellent at that.
Where to learn it
The Procreate certificate covers brushes, layers, color and finishing pieces, and there is a pricing and hardware guide if you have not bought it yet. Procreate's own site covers the apps.
One subscription opens the whole Graphic Design & Illustration school.
Learn the gestures. Finish one small piece. Then another.
Questions people ask
How do I undo in Procreate?
Tap with two fingers to undo, three fingers to redo. Hold two fingers down to undo repeatedly. These gestures are the first thing to learn because they are used constantly.
What is alpha lock in Procreate?
It restricts painting to the pixels already on that layer, so you can shade or recolor a shape without going outside it. Swipe right with two fingers on a layer to toggle it.
How many layers does Procreate allow?
It depends on your canvas size and your iPad's memory. Large canvases give fewer layers. If you are running out, flatten finished sections or start at a more modest canvas size.
What canvas size should I use?
For print, work at 300 dpi at the final size. For screen, something around 3000 pixels on the long edge is plenty. Bigger canvases cost you layers, so do not go larger than you need.
How do I export from Procreate?
Actions menu, Share, then choose a format. PNG for transparency, JPEG for photos, PSD to keep layers for Photoshop, and Procreate format to keep everything for later.