Procreate Tips and Tricks Thread - Share Your Best Workflow Hacks

Design Resources & AI Tools
1

Been using procreate for about 5 years now and i feel like i discover a new workflow hack every month. lets pool our knowledge

my top tips that i wish i knew earlier:

  1. alpha lock + fill. instead of creating a clipping mask for every single layer, just alpha lock the layer and paint directly on it. saves so many layers and keeps your file organized

  2. quick shape. draw a rough shape and hold your pencil down at the end - procreate snaps it to a perfect circle, square, triangle, line etc. game changer for technical illustration

  3. reference window (canvas menu > reference). opens a floating window showing your canvas that stays visible even when youre zoomed in on a detail. no more constantly zooming in and out to check proportions

  4. three finger swipe down for copy/paste menu. faster than going through the menus every time. also gives you a “cut” option that the menu doesnt have easily accessible

  5. custom gesture controls. settings > gesture controls. i have a four-finger tap set to undo and three-finger tap set to redo. way faster than the two-finger tap default

  6. the eyedropper hold-and-slide trick. tap and hold to activate the eyedropper then SLIDE to a different color without lifting. smooth color sampling from anywhere on canvas

whats your best procreate tip that most people dont know about?

2

The reference window tip is incredible, ive been using procreate for 3 years and didnt know this existed?? this is going to save me so much time on my childrens book illustrations where proportions are everything

my tip: drawing guides. canvas > drawing guide > edit drawing guide. you can set up perspective grids, isometric grids, symmetry guides, and custom grids. the symmetry guide especially is amazing for character design - draw on one side and it mirrors perfectly

3

Procreate’s snapping feature is underrated. in the transform tool, turn on snapping and magnetics. it auto-aligns elements to each other and to the canvas center/edges. makes layout work in procreate actually viable

also for anyone doing a lot of text in procreate: add text > edit style > import font. you can import any .otf or .ttf from your files app. way better than the default fonts

4

for animation: the animation assist feature (wrench > canvas > animation assist) is more powerful than people think. onion skinning, adjustable frame rate, loop/ping-pong/one-shot options. ive made legit client deliverable animations entirely in procreate

also the instant replay timelapse export is great for social media content. every drawing automatically gets recorded

5

My niche tip: for packaging mockup sketches i use the perspective warp tool (transform > warp > perspective) to wrap flat designs onto 3d product shapes. its not perfect but for quick concepting its way faster than setting up a proper 3d mockup

combine that with the liquify tool for organic surface warps and you can fake product mockups surprisingly well

6

Saving this entire thread. im still pretty new to procreate and half of these features i didnt know existed

my contribution even tho its basic: if youre using procreate on an older ipad and hitting the layer limit, merge background elements into one layer and use alpha lock instead of clipping masks. reduces layer count without losing editability on the important layers