Best digital art and drawing software of 2024 (2024)

Looking for the best digital art and drawing software? We compared the top apps for artists, painters, and designers to see which programs offer the best canvas to work on.

Whether you work in pencils or watercolors, you're a professional artist or just starting out, digital art software is essential for expressing yourself in a versatile medium that can be easily edited, shared, and showcased. You'll find loads of these tools bringing the full painting and drawing experience to desktops and mobile devices. But what makes a good digital art app?

Our team of reviewers got creative with the best graphic design software and the best free drawing software - now, we're taking a look at the best digital art and drawing apps for Android, PC, and Apple devices. We've gone hands-on with many of the top programs and compared others, exploring the full range of tools, features, brushes, and cloud storage for keeping your masterpieces safe.

Serious about art? We put the best laptops for graphic design and the best laptops for drawing and digital art to the test.

The best digital art and drawing software of 2024 in full:

Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the best digital art and drawing software options in our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.

Best digital art & drawing software overall

When it comes to creative software, Adobe has dominated the scene for decades, and Adobe Photoshop CC (CC stands for Creative Cloud) is loved by artists and designers across the world. It provides creative types with a plethora of cloud-based tools to create and enhance photos, illustrations and 3D visuals.

This software isn’t just one of the best photo editors. If you’re a professional designer, you can use it to create packaging, banners, websites, logos and icons. Not only can you come up with your own creations, but you’re also able to make use of intuitive templates if you’re more of a beginner, or you’re working to a tight deadline.

You can design your own illustrations and turn images into paintings as well, with the option of switching between animate and print-style options. When you’ve created a piece, you can enhance it with a range of built-in effects.

There are multiple pricing tiers, depending on which other apps and features you'd like bundled with Photoshop CC. The cheapest is the Photography level which comes with Adobe Lightroom CC, as well as 20GB of cloud storage. Up from that is the Single App plan which comes with 100GB of cloud storage, as well as Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark. For the All-Apps plan you get access to all Adobe creative desktop and mobile apps as well.

Read our full Adobe Photoshop review.

• ^ Back to the top

Best drawing app for painters

Corel offers a host of creative software packages, one of which is a drawing app called Painter. Aimed at designers, artists and students, this cross-platform application provides you with the likes of ‘thick paint’ which you can daub onto your digital canvas, and then scrape around or blend to create some highly realistic looking masterpieces.

There’s a large selection of brushes, with the ability to create custom brushes and palettes – plus you can import these, too. Painter is a downloadable app which is available on both Windows and Mac. It’s compatible with third-party software like Photoshop and drawing tablets from companies such as Wacom, as well.

While many of the best digital art & drawing software providers have moved to a subscription-only model, Painter is still available as a one-time purchase at around $400 / £360 / AU$600. There are special rates for an education edition for students and learning centers.

Read our full Corel Painter review.

• ^ Back to the top

Best free painting app

Adobe Fresco offers a satisfying, real-world-style painting experience for Windows and Apple devices. Android users are really missing out with this app, and we'd love to see Adobe bring it to the platform at some point.

If Android compatibility isn't a deal-breaker, you'll find Fresco a very pleasing free app for painting. Using it is simple enough. There's a big brush selection, with three core categories - Photoshop's Pixel brushes, Illustrator's Vector brushes, and Live brushes. For us, this is the stand-out. recreating the effect of painting in oils and watercolors. A must-try for any artist.

The free version gives you around 150 brushes and 2GB of online storage. You'll need to subscribe if you want access to over 10,000 different brushes, and more. Like most Adobe apps, you can get a standalone subscription for around $10 a month. However, if you already subscribe to the Adobe Design Mobile Bundle, the Adobe Photoshop Single Plan, or the Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan, you’ve already got the full Fresco already.

But even the free version is a lot of fun to use. It attempts to replicate how paint interacts with other paints in the real world, but in the virtual digital setting, coupled with powerful layer controls, and even motion paths and animation. There’s a lot to like here, and to top it all, you can also export your project to work on it further in Photoshop.

Read our full Adobe Fresco review.

• ^ Back to the top

Best digital art software for a realistic painting experience

Developed by artist Peter Blaskovic, Rebelle is another highly versatile drawing and painting application. Described as “one-of-a-kind paint software”, it’s been designed to simulate a real-world painting experience for creatives working on watercolor, acrylic, wet and dry media artwork.

Blaskovic created the app as part of his experimental drawing projects and wanted an easy-to-use program to access natural painting tools on-the-go. The app uses realistic color blending, wet diffusion and drying techniques, and offers a plethora of watercolors, acrylics, inks and pastels.

There are also ‘dry’ tools like pencils, markers and erasers, so you don’t have to stick to paintbrushes. The app also boasts some interesting capabilities like the ability to tilt the canvas you’re working on.

What’s more, Rebelle works with Photoshop, allowing you to tap into 23 additional blending nodes. You can download a trial version to see if Rebelle is the best digital art and drawing software for you.

• ^ Back to the top

Best free drawing software

Artweaver is one of the oldest painting tools out there. The digital art app serves up a diverse set of predefined brushes and pencils that can be used to create amazing pieces of art.

Not only does Artweaver offer an intuitive and easy-to-use interface which makes it suitable for novices, but it also boasts an impressively configurable brush system. So while you can choose from a variety of predefined brushes, you can also tweak them to suit your exact needs.

Furthermore, Artweaver has another strong suit when it comes to working on joint art projects, because you can use the app to collaborate with colleagues and clients on the same document.

Want to get a better idea of your artistic process and exactly how it flows? Then you can get the application to record your work. That way, you can review, evaluate and improve your abilities (hopefully).

Artweaver is only available on Windows, but it’s temptingly cheap and there’s also a free version available though it has limited functionality compared to the paid version. Existing users can upgrade to the latest version at a discounted rate.

• ^ Back to the top

Best digital art software for cross-platform painting

ArtRage is an art program primarily for Windows and Mac, but also has app versions for iOS and Android. All versions are available as a one-time purchase, with the mobile app being particularly affordable.

It packs in a good range of painting features, such as pencils, pens, and oil painting brushes, as well as digital editing features such as layers, transform, filters, and custom brushes. Like Rebelle, it simulates real-world painting, with brushes reacting to the textures of the canvas.

The recent addition of collaborative workflow tools means that ArtRage can certainly hold its own among the best digital art & drawing software packages.

As well as drawing apps for tablets, the desktop software is available as a full package or a Lite version, which is half the price but limited in comparison. So, there's flexibility here, but it's worth checking the version you want does what you need.

There are also a good range of support options available on the website, such as manuals, tutorials, as well as an online community for advice, suggestions, tips, and tricks.

• ^ Back to the top

Best digital art & drawing software: FAQs

How to choose which digital art & drawing software is best for you

When deciding which digital art & drawing software is best, first consider how many features and tools you may need, the types of projects you're creating, and your skill-level with this type of software.

In some cases, fully featured digital art tools may not be needed. For example, if you’re just trying to make simple image, such as a logo, you may find the best free logo designer or similar will be fine. For more complex works, the best photo editors and professional graphic design software may be best.

Whether you're a freelance artist or working in-house, online collaboration tools are essential for sharing your work, receiving feedback, and getting each project pixel-perfect and signed off. If you're working across mediums, look for supported integration between related apps - for example, Photoshop seamlessly integrates with Adobe Lightroom.

Budget is another factor. We've rounded up the best free drawing software tools out there alongside premium paid-for apps, but there will be trade-offs. Adobe Fresco is a good intermediate app in this case, as it operates a freemium model, letting you get a real taste of what it offers before you commit to subscribing.

How we test the best digital art & drawing software

We've tested, reviewed, and rated a range of design apps across all industries, including the best photo editors, the best mockup software, and the best interior design software.

To test for the best digital art & drawing software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service by creating a handful of images to see how the software could be used for the editing and development of each image. The aim was to push each software platform to see how easy it was to use different features, tools, and filters where available. We assess overall user interface and experience, the breadth of tools and brushes on offer, and value for money.

Get in touch

• Want to find out about commercial or marketing opportunities? Click here
• Out of date info, errors, complaints or broken links? Give us a nudge
• Got a suggestion for a product or service provider? Message us directly

• You've reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^