ArtDeck
FrameRef
PureRef
BeeRef
Milanote
Freeform
Refbox
Eagle App
startbase.dev
Build a moodboard, gather references for a project, or study an artwork up close. Everything stays together instead of scattered across screenshots, folders, and tabs.
COLLECT FROM ANYWHERE • Take photos and video, scan documents, or import from Photos and Files • Save web links as preview cards, or import images, video, and PDFs from a link • Drag and drop, paste, or use the Share menu from other apps • Open common image formats along with video, GIFs, and PDFs up to 300 pages
STUDY WHAT YOU COLLECT Use the ToolBox's five lenses on any image or video frame without changing the original: • Values: grayscale, value ladder, and Notan for reading light and shadow • Color: extract a palette or inspect temperature and saturation • Composition: overlay grids, test framing, and check symmetry • Read: simplify large shapes, inspect detail density, and follow edge hierarchy • Measure: use plumb lines, snapping angle guides, and length comparisons The Analysis panel shows value range, histogram, hue, saturation, and color distribution. Export a study or keep a copy on the board. Step through GIFs and video frame by frame with onion skinning and a filmstrip.
ANNOTATE AND ARRANGE Mark up images or draw directly with pens, highlighters, and shapes. Arrange everything on an infinite canvas: drag, scale, rotate, group, nest, align, distribute, lock, undo, and redo.
YOUR BOARDS, EVERYWHERE Keep the same boards on iPhone, iPad, and Mac through iCloud. ArtDeck works fully offline and catches up when you reconnect. Choose which boards sync, use Split View or Stage Manager on iPad, and keep the ArtDeck window above other apps on Mac.
ORGANIZE IT YOUR WAY Browse every board in carousel or grid view. Add labels, combine filters, and favorite, archive, rename, or duplicate boards.
EXPORT AND HAND OFF Export a whole board or a selection as PNG, JPEG, HEIC, or PDF, up to 8K. Save a complete board as an .artdeck file for backup or handoff.
Keep what catches your eye.
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ArtDeck startbase.devArtDeck's answer
Most reference apps stop once the image is saved but ArtDeck keeps going.
It is the only reference board where collecting and studying happen in the same place, on the device you happen to be holding.
ArtDeck's answer
Against PureRef. PureRef is excellent on a desktop and has more specialized window modes: click-through transparency, always-on-top of one chosen app, separate overlays. It also runs on Windows and Linux, which ArtDeck does not. Choose ArtDeck when your references need to move between iPhone, iPad, and Mac, when you work on iPad beside a drawing app, when you study video reference, or when you want palette, value, composition, and measurement tools built in.
Against Eagle. Eagle is a library manager with strong tagging, smart folders, and batch operations on Mac and Windows. It has no native phone or tablet board. ArtDeck is a board first: things sit side by side on a canvas rather than in a grid, and the board travels with you.
Against Pinterest and the camera roll. Both are good at saving and bad at using. Pinterest ties your collection to an account, an algorithm, and a connection. ArtDeck boards are files on your devices, work offline, and never get reorganized by someone else's feed.
Against Milanote and general canvas tools. Those are built for teams planning work together, priced per seat per month. ArtDeck is built for one person studying images, bought once.
ArtDeck's answer
People who save images because looking at them carefully is part of how they work.
Concretely, that is digital artists and illustrators, concept and game artists, 3D artists, designers, photographers, animators working from motion reference, and art students. It also fits anyone with thousands of screenshots and saved pins who has never been able to actually use them.
What they have in common is a habit rather than a job title: they gather references from the web, the camera roll, files, and other apps, lay them out side by side, and study what makes them work. They also tend to own Apple hardware and move between it during a single project. Save something on the phone in the morning, study it on iPad beside Procreate in the afternoon, organize the board on Mac later.
ArtDeck's answer
ArtDeck started from a personal problem: references were everywhere and useful nowhere. Saved pins in one place, screenshots in the camera roll, links in browser tabs, images in folders. Plenty of collecting, almost no returning.
The first version was the fix for that, a board where images, links, notes, and videos could sit together on one canvas and come along across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
The second idea is the one that shaped the app. Collecting a reference and understanding it are not the same thing. Artists have always had a manual set of moves for the second part: squint at the image, flatten it to values, sample the colors, check where the lines land, measure the angle. Those moves were happening outside the app, in other tools or not at all. So ToolBox was built into the board, five lenses that open on any saved image without taking you away from it.
The belief underneath all of it is that what you collect shapes what you create. Collecting is creative work, not filing. And a tool for that should be yours: one purchase, no subscription, works offline, your boards on your own devices.
ArtDeck's answer
ArtDeck is a native Apple application, not a cross-platform wrapper. It is written in Swift with SwiftUI, and shares one codebase across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS while adapting the interface to each.
FrameRef - FrameRef is a modern reference board for creative professionals, combining images, videos, and PDFs in one infinite canvas.
PureRef - The simple way to view and organize your multiple reference images.
BeeRef - A Simple Reference Image Viewer
Milanote - Milanote is a note taking app for creative work.
Freeform - Bring your ideas to life
Refbox - Your floating workspace for inspiration