Deb Draw

Overview

Deb Draw is an Android drawing app. You can use it to draw pictures on your Android phone or tablet. You simply drag your finger or stylus across the screen to draw a line or just tap it to produce a point. You can select from a range of line colors and line thicknesses as well as different line styles to create complex drawings with simple tools. And you can save your drawings as jpeg files.

The free version, Deb Draw Free, has no ads or in-app billing but it does have links from which you can purchase the full version which has some extra features. You can try the free app by searching the Google Play store for Deb Draw Free.

There is also an Amazon Underground version of Deb Draw. It is exactly the same as the full version but completely free. It is also free of any ads or in-app sales so it is completely child-safe. Like other Amazon Underground apps, you can get Deb Draw from the Amazon store or the Amazon App Store on a Kindle device or any other Android mobile.

Colors

The free version has a palette of 27 colors from which any one can be selected for foreground line color or the background screen color at any time. Subsequent lines will be drawn in the chosen color until you change it.

The colors already present in the drawing are highlighted in the palette so that there is no problem remembering which colors have already been used in the drawing. This is true also of drawings that are loaded into the screen from a saved file.

The full and underground versions of Deb Draw have an extended palette of 216 colors which adds more variety to your drawings.

Lines

In Deb Draw Free you can select normal lines, smoothed lines or straight lines. You can also select one of 8 line thicknesses. You can change both style and thickness at any time while drawing.

The full and underground versions have a further two line types, namely rectilinear lines and circles. Rectilinear lines are always exactly horizontal or vertical. Circles draw perfect circles. They also have 32 line widths to choose from.

A single touch on the screen will produce a point instead of a line. In the normal, smoothed and straight lines these points are filled circles. In the rectilinear lines they are squares.

Edit

The edit menu allows you to delete the last line of your drawing or to clear the entire drawing. Both also have undo options to restore the line or drawing in case the erasure was unintentional. Another option is to reload the last drawing you had on the screen. When you close the app the current drawing is saved to a file and this retrieve option allows you to reload the drawing and continue working on it.

Each picture is saved as a drawing file that can be reloaded and edited as well as a corresponding jpeg file that can be copied to other devices or sent as an email attachment. It is a good idea to save at regular intervals to capture good work.

Another edit option is the fast delete button shown in the top left corner of the screen. Touching this deletes the last line you drew. The other button on the top right of the screen is another way to open the options menu.

Setup

The setup menu provides a simple drawing mode. This is suitable for all normal drawing procedures in which the finger, or stylus touches the screen then drags across it. This is best for general drawing and handwriting in which the drawing simply follows the position of the finger. It is the only option available in the free version of Deb Draw.

In the full version there is a second option to draw in precision mode. This is designed to start each line more accurately on the screen. In effect, it provides the same accuracy as a mouse would do on a PC screen. It has two drawing stages. The first time the screen is touched, a move stage is activated in which further movement drags a crosshair across the screen without drawing. This is not underneath the finger so it is clearly visible. You can drag this to any point on the screen, then the next draw stage draws a line from that point. This process allows you to position your lines very accurately. Also, in this mode, there is a background grid that further helps with accurate postioning. Neither the marker nor the grid is saved in the jpeg file.

In the precision mode you can accurately join successive lines by just touching the screen at the end of one line-draw to position the marker at that point. Then the next drawing operation will be from that point. So it is ideal for drawing diagrams.

Aspect

The aspect menu allows you to select an aspect ratio for your drawing and the associated jpeg image. In the free version you can set this to full portrait or landscape orientation. Your drawings and jpeg files will be saved in this orientation with the same dimensions as your device screen.

In the full version there are 3 additional aspect ratio options.

These are a 3 by 4 portrait and a 4 by 3 landscape mode as well as a square image.

Again, the actual dimensions are those of the display on your device.

Files

You can save drawings and reload them later to continue working on them. Each drawing is saved as an editable drawing file and a corresponding jpeg file in the Debdraw directory. This is located in the internal SD card on your device so it is easily found. You can easily copy them to a connected PC.

The files are displyed as thumbnail images so they are easily identified.

In the free version of Deb Draw you can work concurrently on 4 drawings. You can save any drawing to a selected file then reload it later to continue editing. In the full and underground versions you have 16 drawings. if you upgrade, all the drawings you have saved in the free version will still be available.

In the full version you can also send any of the jpegs as an email attachment. This makes it easy to transfer these images to a PC or some other mobile device even if you are working far away from it

Get it

Both the free version and the full version of Deb Draw are available from the Google Play store. You can access it from any android device. The Underground version is available from the Amazon app store. This is accessible from Amazon Kindle and other mobile devices.

You can search for Deb Draw Free or Deb Draw from your mobile on the Google Play Store.

You can also get them for Kindle Fire and other Android devices from the Amazon App Store.