GoldBrush Trace · from reference to underdrawing

From reference to pencil, placed where you want it

Open a reference, place the subject on your own sheet of paper, quieten what you don't want, and the tracer draws the pencil lines to transfer: as faint or as bold as the painting needs. Print it at true size and trace.

Add a photo

Each photo arrives as a photo layer and a pencil layer. Add several to compose a scene: the tree from one, the bird from another. Photos stay on this device.

Or try one of ours

Margin for tape

Composition guides

Size, rotation and flips of each photo are in Layers → Arrange, on the paper.

Pencil

Line weight

Darkness

Pencil colour

Apply to every pencil layer

Like changing the carbon paper: coloured lines stand out against the photo, so you can see what is traced. Downloads stay graphite unless you choose otherwise in Export.

Level of detail

Detail

Ignore faint marks

Shadow shapes

Shading

Each new selection

Nothing selected yet.

Lighten strength

Apply to

View options

Show the selection outline Keep showing changes in pink

Your pencil

Line width

Darkness

To draw where there is no photo, such as a ship you are inventing, add a blank drawing layer. Zoom in for small details: pinch on a tablet, scroll with a mouse, or use + and −.

Tip

Your first download is free. After that, one free sign-up opens every atelier tool.

Your paper

Size

Rotation°

Applies to the photo and all its pencil layers. On the paper: drag to move, a corner to resize, the round handle to rotate.

Changes how the photo looks on the paper and in exports. The pencil lines still come from the original photo. Double-click a slider to reset it.

How it works

Why trace at all

Save the paper, spend the time on the painting

Watercolour paper forgives very little. Every eraser stroke bruises the surface, and a bruised surface takes the wash differently. Tracing a clean, light line onto the sheet means the paper reaches the first wash untouched, and your energy goes where it matters: the values, the edges, the water.

How to use it

Choose your paper first. Pick the sheet you will actually paint on and its orientation, or type your own size in centimetres or inches. The tracer works in true millimetres, so what you see is what prints.
Place the subject. Drag the photo on the paper and change its size. The reference rarely puts the bird or the face where your composition wants it; the thirds and golden guides show the strong places on the sheet.
Quieten the reference. Paint with Fade to make busy leaves or a fussy background fainter, Erase to remove them, Restore to bring them back. Subject only finds the subject for you and lets the background drop away.
Choose the pencil. 2H for a whisper of a line under pale washes, HB for everyday tracing, 2B and 6B for a bold line you can see through thicker paper on a light box. Then fine-tune line weight and darkness.
Choose the level of detail. Simple for loose, expressive work; Detailed for most tracing; Realistic adds the shadow shapes, the borders between light, middle and dark, the way a realist maps a reference before painting. Small details are drawn lighter than the main contours, as a hand would.
Work in layers. Every photo comes in as a photo layer and a pencil layer, as in Procreate or Photoshop. Hide or show each with the eye, change the order, lower a photo's opacity to trace over it. Add a tree from one photo and a bird from another, place each where it belongs, and give each its own pencil. Add a second pencil layer from the same photo to draw the subject in detail and the background simply.
Choose what stays. In the custom controls, select an object with the lasso, the magic wand or ✦ Subject, then keep it and remove the rest, or remove it. Paint to lighten, remove or bring back. On a photo layer this cuts the photo out, so a bird from one picture can sit on a branch from another.
Draw by hand. Zoom in on the details: pinch on a tablet, scroll with a mouse. The Pencil adds the lines the tracer missed; the Rubber removes single lines. With an Apple Pencil, your fingers pan and zoom and only the pencil draws. Undo and redo sit on the corner of the paper.
Export what you need. Choose the layers: the pencil lines alone, the photographs composed together, or the pencil over the photo, as PDF, PNG or JPG.
Print at true size. Download the PDF and print at 100% (actual size), not "fit to page". Then trace with a light box, a window, or graphite transfer paper.

A line is a promise to the paper. Make it a light one.

Check the perspective with the Perspective Grid Plan the values in the Notanizer

Composition, values and the transfer onto good paper are part of the foundation we teach at GoldBrush Academy.

Explore the academy

From reference to pencil, placed where you want it

Your paper

Export or print

Save the paper, spend the time on the painting

How to use it

GoldBrush Trace

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