Grid Drawing: Photorealism

Photorealism is a grid drawing app designed entirely by Dylan Eakin, a photorealist artist who could never find the perfect grid app. Put a drawing grid over any reference photo, sized to your paper, and draw it by hand with accurate proportions.

The layers are what make it different. Photorealism splits your photo into shading, darks, lights and brights, so you can draw one value at a time instead of trying to see everything at once.

The grid method is the classic way artists copy a photo accurately: lay a grid over the photo and a matching one on your paper, then work one square at a time. Each square holds only a few shapes, so the proportions stay true across the whole drawing. Photorealism sets it all up for your paper and your reference, and then goes much further.

With Photorealism you can:

- Make a drawing grid that fits your paper: set its size in inches or centimeters and choose how big each square is
- Pick squares, diagonals or dots, in any color and line weight
- Keep sizes true to life by matching the on-screen ruler to a real one
- Label the rows and columns so you never lose your place
- Zoom in close on fine detail
- Break the image into tonal layers (shading, darks, lights and brights) for each drawing step
- Choose the level of detail you want to capture
- Customize an underpainting
- Mark each square complete, track your progress and record your time
- Photograph your drawing and compare it with the reference as you go
- Keep track of mistakes with red circles
- Use two different methods for color and black-and-white references
- Start right away with four high-resolution starter references
- Sync your projects across phone, tablet and computer

It's made for beginners learning realistic drawing from photos and for experienced realist artists. It works for portraits, pets and landscapes, in graphite, charcoal or colored pencil. Prefer to draw freehand? You can turn the grid off at any time.

From a photograph to the perfect piece of art. I hope you enjoy making it.
-Dylan