Everything you need to know about using the app
Obscura Studio is a painting companion that helps you compare your work-in-progress to a reference image. Photograph your canvas, overlay it on your reference, and use analysis tools to spot differences in value, colour, contrast, and more.
After capturing, you'll see your painting overlaid on the reference image. Use the opacity slider to blend between the two - slide left to see more of the reference, right to see more of your capture.
The app will appear on your home screen and open full-screen like a native app.
The analysis tools are available to Premium users. Tap the wand icon in the toolbar to reveal the analysis strip. Each mode generates a heatmap overlay showing where your painting differs from the reference.
Compares the lightness/darkness (tonal values) between your painting and the reference. This is the most important tool for representational painting - if your values are wrong, the painting won't read correctly regardless of colour.
When to use: First. Always check values before anything else. Squinting at your painting does the same thing, but this is more precise.
Compares the actual colour (hue) between your painting and reference. Shows where you've shifted warm when it should be cool, or where greens have crept into what should be a neutral.
When to use: After values are correct. Helps catch colour shifts that are hard to see with the naked eye, especially in skin tones and subtle greys.
Compares colour intensity. Shows areas that are too vivid or too muted compared to the reference.
When to use: When your painting looks "flat" or "garish" and you can't pinpoint why. Beginners tend to over-saturate; this helps calibrate.
Compares the warm/cool balance. Warm colours (reds, oranges, yellows) vs cool colours (blues, greens, purples).
When to use: Particularly useful for portraiture and landscape where temperature shifts create depth and atmosphere. A shadow that should be cool but you've painted warm will flatten the form.
Compares local contrast - the difference between adjacent light and dark areas. Shows where you need to push darks darker or lights lighter.
When to use: When your painting looks washed out or lacks punch. Often the fix is not to change colour but to increase contrast in specific areas.
Compares edge sharpness and placement. Shows where the boundaries between shapes differ between your painting and the reference.
When to use: For checking drawing accuracy and edge quality. Lost and found edges are crucial for a painting to feel alive rather than traced.
Strips all colour from both images so you can focus purely on values. This is a viewing mode rather than a heatmap.
When to use: Any time you want to check values without the distraction of colour. Toggle it on, compare, toggle it off.
The sun icon next to the opacity slider normalises the lighting between your capture and reference. Different lighting conditions (photographing at different times of day, different rooms) can make comparisons misleading. This corrects for that.
When to use: Always, if your lighting conditions vary between sessions. Especially important when working over multiple days.
Premium users can publish finished artworks. Publishing creates a public page with an interactive 3D preview of your painting on its canvas, plus your progress captures as provenance.
You'll get a shareable URL that anyone can visit to see your artwork in 3D and view your painting process.
From the published view, tap Share to Instagram. On mobile, this opens the native share sheet where you can post directly. On desktop, it downloads a zip file with your images and a ready-made caption with hashtags.
If you have 2 or more captures, the Download Progress Video button generates a timelapse from your captures, ending with a branded outro.
You can optionally mint your published artwork as an NFT (non-fungible token) on the Base blockchain. This creates a permanent, verifiable record of ownership that can't be deleted or altered.
Each artist gets their own smart contract collection. Your progress captures serve as provenance - proof that you created the work.
Premium is a one-time purchase - no subscription, no recurring fees.
Premium users can set an artist name (or pseudonym) from the Profile page. This name appears on your published artworks and NFT metadata. It's saved and reused across all your publications.
You can delete your account from the Profile page. This removes your canvases, captures, and unpublished artworks. Artworks that have been minted as NFTs will remain publicly accessible to support the on-chain metadata.
Email fergal@stdin.ltd