Touch gestures, Brush Studio sliders and blend modes, and the layer/workflow tricks that speed up real illustration work.
| Category | Action | Gesture | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editing | Undo | Two-finger tap | Repeat the tap to keep undoing; hold for rapid undo. |
| Editing | Redo | Three-finger tap | Mirror of the undo gesture. |
| Editing | Copy & Paste | Three-finger pinch (down then up) | Pinch down to open the Cut/Copy/Paste bar, pinch up to paste. |
| Color | Eyedropper / sample color | Press and hold on canvas | Also works by dragging the color disc in the top-right onto the canvas. |
| Fill | Drag & drop fill | Drag color swatch onto canvas | Flood-fills the area under the drop point using ColorDrop. |
| Transform | Resize / rotate selection | Two-finger pinch/rotate | Works with the Transform tool active on a layer or selection. |
| Transform | Snap to straight line | Draw, then hold pencil at end | Drawing Assist snaps the stroke into a perfectly straight line. |
| Canvas | Zoom / pan | Two-finger pinch / drag | Standard iPadOS multitouch canvas navigation. |
| Canvas | Snap rotation to 15°/90° | Two-finger rotate, hold near snap | Canvas rotation snaps at common angles for cleaner hatching/inking. |
| Layers | Quick layer opacity | One-finger double-tap layer thumbnail | Opens the N-slider for layer blend mode + opacity. |
| Layers | Clipping mask | Swipe right on layer, tap Clip | Confines a layer's marks to the layer directly beneath it. |
Brush Studio Sliders
StreamLine
Smooths jittery pencil input into cleaner lines — higher values trade responsiveness for smoothness, useful for inking.
Jitter
Randomizes size, angle, or color per mark — the basis for natural-media textures like charcoal or spray.
Taper
Controls how a stroke thins toward its start/end — key for calligraphy-style and natural ink brushes.
Wet Mix / Dilution
Wet Mix brushes blend with color already on the canvas — dilution controls how much the brush thins existing paint, like real wet media.
Blend Modes (most-used)
Lightening
Darkening
Contrast
Color
Group layers early
Group related layers (sketch, lines, color, shading) as soon as a piece has more than 5-6 layers — it keeps the layer panel navigable and lets you toggle whole stages at once.
Use the time-lapse, but don't rely on it for undo
Procreate records a time-lapse automatically, but it's for export/sharing — for actual history, the real undo stack (two-finger tap) is what matters mid-session.
Watch canvas resolution vs. layer limit
Procreate's max layer count depends on canvas size (megapixels) and device RAM — a huge print-resolution canvas can hit a layer ceiling much sooner than a screen-sized one.