iPad App Review: Adobe Ideas

            Adobe Ideas is great for just that: ideas. The app is a fairly simple drawing/writing application, so let me get down to the basics.

Attempting to digitally ink a drawing I had done on paper.

          
            You have a small set of tools that are in the tool bar on the right side of the screen. It has a pen tool, an eraser, a scrolling tool, and an undo tool. The pen tool has a series of options, including size options to change the size of the lines you draw, an opacity option to change the visibility of the lines, and a color option, which lets you select the color of your choice.

A quick sketch of Egon Spengler, from Ghostbusters

            Color wise, you have your pretty typical color selector. What's interesting about it is the color scheme option. When you select "colors", a bar of 5 different colors appears in the tool bar. You can't choose your own colors to put into the tool box, but you have to choose a photo from your library on your iPad, and then Adobe Ideas picks out 5 colors from the picture and makes a color scheme from that. Why you can't make your own, I don't know, but it is a bit annoying when you try to color something and you keep having to go back and forth and try and match the color your chose earlier. 

                                                          

          Overall, this is a really fun app that is perfect for when you need something immediately to jot down an idea or draw something to show someone. It's nowhere near as robust as Sketchbook Pro, but then again, this is a free app. This app never claims to be anything more than it is, so there's not too much to complain about. This app has gotten a lot of use out of me, even with Sketchbook Pro filling up all of my drawing needs, because there are times when I just need to draw something to show someone and I don't want to fiddle with a lot of options. That, and it's free, so might as well download it.