What's New

Sketchbook 6 is loaded with new features and provides increased flexibility for you to work the way you want to.

What's New

• Updated Brush Panel with brush history
• Brush Panel is now available on Phone screen sizes
• Option to enable/disable Brush Panel in Preferences
• Ability to name layers
• Ability to add fonts to the text tool
• Auto-hide the UI while you draw
• Batch export files from the Gallery
• Free Symmetry tool
• Steady Stroke tool
• Customize new canvas size presets
• More options for tap and swipe gestures
• More options to customize how the UI appears
• The ability to back up and restore your Preferences

Get the Premium Bundle

For people who want to take their creativity even further, the Premium Bundle unlocks advanced features for brush creation, color management, layer management and new export options.

The Premium Bundle is available as an in-app purchase. To get it, go to the canvas menu  > Upgrade to Premium

• Import and export brushes
• Create brushes with your own custom shapes and textures
  • Duplicate brushes
  • Organize brushes and brush sets
• Randomize brushes in a set between strokes
• Resize your canvas or Image
  • Set canvas size in inches or centimeters
  • Set canvas resolution in px/inch or px/cm
• Clipping Masks
• Layer grouping
• Layer masking blend modes
• Additional Layer Adjustments:
  • Blur
  • Sharpen
  • Brightness/Contrast
  • Grayscale
  • Invert
• Lasso Fill
• Draw Outline
• Additional color harmonies
• Additional custom gradients
• Select color from reference images
• Extract color palettes from images
• Import and export color palettes
• Export sketches or entire albums to PDF

Sketchbook Pro 9.0 brings a large number of new features and updates.

Those who have used Sketchbook for a while will be happy to find some of their feature requests included in this version. We have approached both new and updated workflows with the muscle memory and preferences of existing users in mind.

Below you can find a list of new and updated features in v9, with links to the updated help documents throughout this site.

New features for custom color management

• Create custom color palettes and sets of palettes. Any palette can have up to 60 color swatches, there can be up to 12 palettes in a set, and a maximum of 50 color sets in the Color Library.
  • Your custom color swatches from the previous version of Sketchbook Pro will migrate to the new Color Library and can be found a set called "My Colors"
• Pick colors or extract entire palettes from reference images. Define how colors are extracted from the image to a new color palette.

Updates to the Color Editor

• Color harmony bar: complementary, split complementary, analogous, triadic, or tetradic
• Gradient bar: color gradient presets and custom-defined gradients
• Visualize color harmony in the color wheel
• HSV sliders
• HEX value input
• Randomize color: select from HSV, gradient, or active color palette
  

New masking and blend modes

• Clipping Masks
• Versatile layer masking using a layer's alpha channel (transparency)
• Isolate mask effects by grouping layers and applying 'Normal' blend mode to the group
  

Brush Library updates

• Randomize brush set changes brushes after each stroke. This is particularly useful for creating realistic natural textures such as hair, fur or grass
• Additional pre-loaded brush sets
  

Tool updates

• Draw Outline applies a stroke to the active selection path
• Lasso Fill dynamically fills the area defined by the lasso
• Free Symmetry tool in the symmetry sub-toolbar. Rotate your line of symmetry to any angle.
• The Text Editor now uses the Color Editor for color selection
• There is a new option in the Predictive Stroke sub-menu to enable/disable snapping. Disabling snapping will allow the creation of straight lines that don't snap to 0 / 45 / 90 angles. Snapping is on by default, because in previous versions it could not be disabled.
  

User interface updates

• Higher contrast graphics for improved readability
• Updated icons for this decade
• Auto Hide UI when drawing, with customizable timer for restoring the interface
• Menu bar > View changes:
  • Brush crosshair, outline and stamp, and scroll bar view options have been moved here from Preferences, so that they can be more dynamically enabled/disabled
• Support for common hotkey combinations for zooming in and out has been added
• Lagoon view menu (position 1): view states for UI, fullscreen, and Lagoon now toggle to remove duplicate commands
• Layer menu: rename layer no longer supports custom thumbnail workflow. This was retired as part of updates to improve overall stability
• Changing color of the background layer now uses the Color Editor. Note that it is not possible to use the color picker when changing the background layer.
  

Flipbook updates

• Flipbook now uses the standard Layer Editor, and includes all Layer Editor features including blend modes, clipping masks, text layers and layer management tools
  • Have up to 20 layers/groups in the foreground
  • Have up to 20 layers/groups in the background
  • The persistent background layer stack is now accessed through the timeline
  • The midground concept is deprecated as you now have more than three layers available! Existing .skba files will move the midground layer to the foreground layer stack
• Work on larger canvas sizes
  • You can now create Flipbooks up to 4K resolution
  • Presets include  4K, 2K, and paper aspect ratios for A4 & Letter
• Ghosting (onion skinning)
  • 7 preset tint colors to help identify next and previous keyframes

Preferences updates

• New Preferences options for creating backup files at each save (off by default)
• Choose whether new files will default to incremental file names (on by default) or use "Untitled"
• Option to verify TIF files after saving, for an extra check that a save completed successfully (off by default)
• Disable anti-aliasing with Pixel preview (off by default)
• Create or restore a backup of your Preferences

Android  |  iOS  |  macOS  |  Windows

Sketchbook (Android)

Latest release: 6.2.5, April 12, 2026

• New feature in the Premium Bundle: Draw Outline
• New feature in the Premium Bundle: Lasso Fill
• Copy, Cut, and Paste added to the selection sub-toolbar
• Added ability to reorder palettes in the Color Editor
• Color palettes now indicate the active swatch
• Fixed issue where the brush panel sliders would lose their position when switching to fullscreen mode on some devices
• Snapping is disabled for free symmetry, since it should always be 'free' by definition
• The Fill tool (solid fill and lasso fill) now works with Randomize Color instead of ignoring it
• Myriad of fixes to Scan Sketches, older code was not playing nicely with newer versions of Android 
• Fix for issue where merging the first clipping mask above a base layer would composite all clips to the base layer
• Fixed issue where Glow Blend mode would modify the alpha of the composited image even where the glow layer was 100% transparent/no color
• Fixed issue where drawing underneath a Group that had blend modes applied could generate artifacts
• Import from Files > choosing a TIFF that already exists in Sketchbook's Gallery will now open that existing file instead of creating a duplicate.
• Fixed issue on ChromeOS/Chromebooks where Export and Share workflows would not show cloud  drives as an option
• Fixed issue where TIFF files imported to a canvas using Add Image would appear upside-down
• Updated default state of the Hard Eraser in the Legacy set to be 100% hard
• Updated Automatic save prompt on first launch so it can be scrolled when enlarged due to screen zoom or large default font sizes

Sketchbook (iOS)

Latest release: 6.2.6, April 14, 2026

• New feature in the Premium Bundle: Draw Outline
• New feature in the Premium Bundle: Lasso Fill
• Added ability to reorder palettes in the Color Editor
• Color palettes now indicate the active swatch
• Fixed bug in 6.2.5 where the brush information would not populate in the double puck
• Fixed issue where the "Open" button would appear when exporting a TIFF file from the Gallery
• The Fill tool (solid fill and lasso fill) now works with Randomize Color, instead of ignoring it
• Fixed issue where Glow Blend mode would modify the alpha of the composited image even where the glow layer was 100% transparent/no color
• Fixed issue where drawing underneath a Group that had blend modes applied could generate artifacts
• Fixed issue where Edit Canvas would crop to 10000 px on file orientations with a dimension greater than 10K on one side
• Addressed issue where the app would crash on save if device storage is full - you'll now get a warning message instead
• Updated default state of the Hard Eraser in the Legacy set to be 100% hard

Sketchbook Pro (macOS)

Latest release: 9.4 April 12, 2026

• New feature: Draw Outline
• New feature: Lasso Fill
• Layer Menu additions: Rotate CW, Flip Horizontally, Flip Vertically
• Color palettes now indicate the active swatch
• The Fill tool (solid fill and lasso fill) now works with Randomize Color instead of ignoring it
• Draw Styles also now work with Randomize Color
• Fixed issue where the color picker could be inaccurate if the background layer visibility was off
• Fixed issue where the Adjust Image preview wasn't properly displaying clipping masks
• Fixed issue saving Flipbook .skba files to iCloud
• Fixed issue where the Color Editor sliders could fail to appear
• Addressed edge case instances where menus would not reappear in the correct location when relaunching the app
• Under the hood QT UI code updates

Sketchbook Pro (Windows)

Latest release: 9.4.4, April 12, 2026

• New feature: Draw Outline
• New feature: Lasso Fill
• Layer Menu additions: Rotate CW, Flip Horizontally, Flip Vertically
• Color palettes now indicate the active swatch
• The Fill tool (solid fill and lasso fill) now works with Randomize Color instead of ignoring it
• Draw Styles also now work with Randomize Color
• Fixed issue where the color picker could be inaccurate if the background layer visibility was off
• Fixed issue where the Adjust Image preview wasn't properly displaying clipping masks
• Fixed issue where the Color Editor sliders could fail to appear
• Addressed edge case instances where menus would not reappear in the correct location when relaunching the app
• Under the hood QT UI code updates