One of Apple Design Award winner Procreate’s most powerful capabilities is how it empowers creators to capture real-life colours. Here are three helpful tips to hit the right hue.

There’s more to mastering colour than simply choosing one from the palette; the brush you use can impact the way that colour appears when it hits the (digital) canvas.

If you want a saturated hue – something close to the colour you selected – opt for a brush in the Inking category. These behave like a permanent marker: red is red, black is black and so on.

To add subtle layers of colour that you can build on, try a brush from the Painting category. Many have a watercolour feel and are great for blending.

Other brushes, such as those in the Calligraphy category, are more pressure sensitive, letting you change the intensity of your stroke with Apple Pencil. Experiment with the Brush pen, for example, to go from a wide, dark stroke to a thin, faint one with one pass.

Need to colour the stripes of a dress, some leaves on a tree or a series of water droplets quickly? ColorDrop enables you to do just that – without having to drag the colour into each shape over and over.

When you fill your first object, you’ll see a Continue Filling button appear. Tap it and you’ll be able to repeatedly drop the same colour into any closed shape on your canvas.

With Color Descriptions, you can give any colour on the palette a custom name. Use it to label the green for grass in shade versus direct sunlight, or to remember the skin tones you used for different characters. Activate the Larger Palette to see your descriptions at a glance.