VizRef 4+

Update July 2024:
No updates for 3 years. I wish the developer would keep refining the app. I’ve just upgraded to an M4 iPad Pro, and the app still works, but gifs play back at double speed or more, making them harder to work with. Still hoping for the ability to flip and rotate gifs like we can with still images.
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I’ve been using VizRef since it came out, and it’s become integral to my art workflow. So well-designed and useful! Unfortunately I find that some of my reference galleries become slower and slower to work with over time, and can take up to 8 seconds to fully open and display. I thought the problem might be simply the volume of images (240) but then I exported all those images and added them to a new gallery, and the new gallery opened twice as fast. This procedure is not a good workaround, though, because it loses all the placement, scale, rotation, and cropping that I’ve done. It would be great if VizRef allowed the user to duplicate a gallery, which would make it easy to split up a big gallery into smaller galleries. I would also like to see support for copy-pasting multiple images at a time. Currently it will only paste one image at a time, which is impractical for moving photos between galleries. I’m hoping the developer can find more ways to optimize existing galleries, and/or make it easier to duplicate and move images between galleries, preserving settings! Also: still hoping for the ability to flip and rotate gifs…

I’ve been really enjoying using VizRef. I’m a comic creator and when I use writing apps I always delight in a nice virtual free form cork board filled with index cards, and now VizRef has provided me with that feature for visuals. As much as I’m using it to pull up specific references and look at them while drawing, I’m also using it as much or more to build inspiration and idea boards. I’d like to see the addition of some form of cloud backup & sync. I like cleaning out my overburdened camera roll and pushing all those materials to VizRef but worry about the risk of losing a large reference collection. I also use an old iPad for reference while at my drafting table so that I can keep all the screen real estate for drawing on the primary iPad, yet when on the go, split screen is the way to go... hence the desire to sync VizRef boards in the cloud for multi device use. A very simple markup tool would also be of interest. I frequently want to drop a reminder note or a quick circle on areas of interest from a reference. It’s doable now by copy pasting into Notes, marking up & re-importing, but it would be nice within the app. It’s a fine line to not over clutter a streamlined and conceptually simple app, but I wonder if these are already on the roadmap or if others have interest in such features. Either way, keep up the great work!

Have a project you need reference for? This is the place to save it. Open up your browser side by side with VIZREF. Choose a pic from your browser. Hold the pic with one finger and drag it to VIZREF. Once you have one pic, or many pics, open VIZREF fully. Now you can resize and move your saved reference pics. Want a giant board with thousands of tiny pics. No problem. Not only can you change the size of the pic you want at any time (within reason- make it much larger than the original file and it gets blurry, you’ll have to play around with the app to get the ins and outs) you can also move it anywhere on the board AND THEN you can zoom the board in and out with the pinch gesture. Yes this app cost you some money, but it’s well worth it. Create the board anywhere you have internet, save it and when you are away from home (or just don’t have internet access) you can access all your photo refs you saved in this app. It’s not Pinterest, yes you can save photos, but this is JUST the pics you save. No suggestions, no ads. Just you, your reference pics and your imagination. BUY IT RIGHT MEOW...seriously though, it’s great.