Top iPad Apps for Unleashing and Exploring Your Creativity

Best iPad Apps for Unleashing and Exploring Your Creativity

High-angle shot of an unrecognizable young female designer working from home and creating abstract art on a graphic tablet. | Image Credits: Dusan Stankovic / Getty Images

There are numerous iPad apps that can help you explore and express your creativity. Although the iPad started as a simple device for streaming content or browsing the web, Apple has transformed its iPads into powerful machines capable of creating digital art and editing videos.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best iPad apps for creativity available on the App Store. Note that while Adobe’s creative apps are often top choices for creativity on the iPad, this list focuses on lesser-known apps.

Procreate

Image Credits: Procreate

Procreate is one of the most popular drawing apps for the iPad. The app allows you to create digital paintings, sketches, and illustrations using dozens of different types of brushes. Procreate is easy to use, featuring built-in gesture controls and a simple interface. The app supports high-resolution canvases up to 16K by 8K on compatible iPad Pros. It also lets you create storyboards, GIFs, animatics, and simple animations. You can import image files such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF. Procreate includes features like QuickShape, StreamLine, Drawing Assist, and ColorDrop to aid your creative process. Once finished, you can relive your creative journey with the app’s time-lapse “Replay” feature and share a 30-second time-lapse video on social media. Procreate is available for a one-time payment of $12.99.

LumaFusion

Image Credits: LumaFusion

LumaFusion is a great app for editing videos, perfect for those ready to move beyond iMovie. The app features numerous user-friendly features ideal for aspiring videographers or indie filmmakers on a budget. With LumaFusion, you can create multiple layer edits with 4K ProRes and HDR media. You can add different effects, choose from dozens of transitions, and record voice-overs. The app allows you to create multilayer titles and import fonts and graphics. You can fine-tune audio with Graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Voice isolation, and more. The app supports various aspect ratios, including 16:9 landscape, 9:16 portrait, square, widescreen film, anamorphic, and more. LumaFusion is available for a one-time payment of $29.99. You can also purchase additional features, such as multicam editing and the ability to send your project to Final Cut Pro for Mac.

Canva

Image Credits: Canva

Canva offers a user-friendly platform that allows anyone to create visual content, even without graphic design experience. You can use it to create presentations, infographics, videos, websites, social media posts, and more with over 250,000 templates. Canva features tools for editing photos, personalizing content with logos and images, adding audio, and cropping and speeding up video. The platform also has a series of AI features designed to make the creation process easier. For instance, you can extend an image using “Magic Switch” or turn ideas into images with “Magic Media.” Canva is free but offers a $12.99 monthly subscription for unlimited access to its AI features, premium templates, and more.

Affinity Designer 2

Image Credits: Affinity

Affinity Designer 2 is a graphic design app that combines vector design, pixel-based textures, and retouching into a single platform. It’s great for professional illustrators, web designers, game developers, and other creatives. The app lets you create illustrations, branding, logos, icons, UI/UX designs, typography, posters, labels, fliers, stickers, concept art, digital art, and more. It supports Apple Pencil’s precision, pressure sensitivity, and tilt functionality. Affinity Designer 2 features gesture controls to speed up your workflow and lets you customize keyboard shortcuts. You can also create your own custom font and zoom to over 1,000,000% for absolute precision. The app is available through a one-time payment of $18.49.

Concepts

Image Credits: Concepts

Concepts is a great app for exploring your ideas and experimenting with designs. You can use the app to sketch plans, make notes and mindmaps, and draw storyboards and designs. The app features Nudge, Slice, and Select tools that allow you to easily change any element of your sketch without redrawing it. The app features realistic pens, pencils, and brushes that flow with pressure and tilt. Concepts gives you access to scale and measurement tools that calculate real-world dimensions and also features a tool wheel or bar that you can personalize. The app’s basic features are free. Concepts offers a $4.99 monthly subscription for additional features, such as the ability to create your own brushes and premium editing tools.

Tayasui Sketches

Image Credits: Tayasui Sketches

Tayasui Sketches is a good, user-friendly sketching and drawing app. It has several different features such as a realistic watercolor brush, digital acrylic brushes, the ability to blend two colors to get the perfect shade, gradient and depth tools, and more. The app lets you multitask by opening up another app and dragging elements between the two. There’s also a “Zen Mode” that lets you create without distractions. You can also upload your images to incorporate them into your creations. Tayasui Sketches lets you store your creations in personalized folders. Tayasui Sketches’s basic features are free. The app offers a $2.99 monthly subscription that unlocks unlimited layers, new brushes and markers, an extended brush editor, the ability to backup your drawings, and more.

This story originally published in December 2024 and is updated regularly with new information.