Procreate 5 for iPad got its official release today, introducing a completely rebuilt graphics engine and several notable new features.

procreate 5 animation assist
Under the hood, the new Valkyrie graphics engine takes full advantage of Apple's Metal architecture and is designed to get maximum performance out of ‌iPad‌, utilizing new sophisticated shaders and running at 120fps on supported devices.

On the feature front, an all-new Animation Assist toolset aims to make the creation of animatics, looping GIFs and storyboards an easier process for newcomers and more streamlined for experts. Meanwhile, the same applies to custom brush creation thanks to the powerful new Brush Studio, which allows finer control over every aspect of how brushes look, react and behave.

procreate 5 brush studio
Procreate 5's new Clone tool allows you to use any brush style to give a cloned area the look of that brush, or to lock the clone area in place to plaint with a multicolored brush based on your selection. The Color Panel can also now be detached and minimized into a new Mini Color Panel, for moving it out of areas that you want to work on.

Elsewhere, new Color Dynamics offer tactile control of hue, saturation, brightness and more to a brush, through the tilt or pressure of the Apple Pencil. There are also 18 individual sliders to allow for more control.

This version also includes new importable CMYK and RGB ICC profiles for print-based users, a new Photoshop Brush Import feature for using Photoshop brushes in the app, a new Color Harmony section in the Color Panel for easily picking complimentary colors, and a new 10-step Color History palette.

procreate 5 interface
Lastly, the Procreate 5 interface has been refined and improved to make it more accessible and unobtrusive, while retaining the familiarity of previous versions.

Procreate 5 for ‌iPad‌ can be purchased on the App Store from today for a one-time payment of $10. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

jonnyb098 Avatar
72 months ago
Meanwhile over at Adobe......


Attachment Image
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sfwalter Avatar
72 months ago
It really puts Adobe to shame. To add insult to injury it can import Photoshop brushes. Plus it cost less than a single months subscription to Alfresco.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrono1081 Avatar
72 months ago

I'm curious what they mean by 'sophisticated shaders'. Shaders here seems to me an ambiguous word. Well understood in 3D applications of course, but in a 2D painting app, I'm not sure what they mean by it.

In the past, shaders meant one thing (how light is calculated on the surface of a 3D object), now they can mean multiple things. In modern graphics pipelines there are "compute shaders" that exist solely to perform complex calculations on the GPU that don't necessarily have to do with graphics, they could be using these to generate texture data used by the brushes (like wet edges, etc).


Seeing this post (and one on MacStories) made me wonder, how does Procreate compare to Pixelmator? I already have Pixelmator as an attempted PS substitute, but I find it to be designed somewhat awkwardly and counterintuitively.

My iPad Pro is my primary device, but I learned most of my image editing on PS. I tried the PS app, but Adobe continues to suck, full stop, and releasing a beta with what, a quarter of the full features is brain meltingly awful.

Most of what I need this kind of application for is resizing, editing, and light design (making components for flyers and sometimes assembling posters and such.) Frequently it involves finding something online to use as a template to build off of. Canva gets some of the job done, but not all of it. I can usually get the job done with Pixelmator but it takes twice as long as it would with Photoshop.

Loooong story short, opinions as to Pixelmator v Procreate?
Do you have Pixelmator or Pixelmator Pro? Pixelmator Pro for iPad is really good for image editing, the regular Pixelmator on iPad, not so much. Procreate isn't an image editor but rather a drawing/painting software.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CarlJ Avatar
72 months ago
Procreate 5 for iPad can be purchased on the App Store from today for a one-time payment of $10. [Direct Link]
The only link I see in that sentence, in the original article, is "App Store", which just explains what the App Store is. No link to Procreate itself.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mansu944 Avatar
72 months ago
I have procreate but if this is not an update I might buy it just because it’s NOT a subscription.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sfwalter Avatar
72 months ago

Seeing this post (and one on MacStories) made me wonder, how does Procreate compare to Pixelmator? I already have Pixelmator as an attempted PS substitute, but I find it to be designed somewhat awkwardly and counterintuitively.

My iPad Pro is my primary device, but I learned most of my image editing on PS. I tried the PS app, but Adobe continues to suck, full stop, and releasing a beta with what, a quarter of the full features is brain meltingly awful.

Most of what I need this kind of application for is resizing, editing, and light design (making components for flyers and sometimes assembling posters and such.) Frequently it involves finding something online to use as a template to build off of. Canva gets some of the job done, but not all of it. I can usually get the job done with Pixelmator but it takes twice as long as it would with Photoshop.

Loooong story short, opinions as to Pixelmator v Procreate?
ProCreate is more of a painting program, and the the line gets blurred sometimes. You won't find curves, levels, etc. If your primary goal is to edit photos then I would stick with Pixelmator.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
m4 macbook air pink

Apple Now Selling Refurbished M4 MacBook Air Models

Friday June 13, 2025 3:34 pm PDT by
Apple today added M4 MacBook Air models to its refurbished store in the United States, making the latest MacBook Air devices available at a discounted price for the first time since they launched earlier this year. Both 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models are available, with Apple offering multiple capacities and configurations. The refurbished devices are discounted by approximately 15...