Why Phantrace exists

Phantrace started from a moment I think a lot of people can relate to. I was watching my family one evening — they'd found a picture online on an iPad, grabbed a sheet of paper, and were holding it right up against the screen trying to trace the image underneath.

It was this sweet, scrappy, creative thing they were doing, but it was also kind of a mess. The paper would slip, the image was hard to see through, and the whole process felt way harder than it needed to be.

I kept thinking about it after. There had to be a cleaner, easier way to do that same thing — to take any image and trace over it — but on the iPad itself, where you've already got this beautiful screen and Apple Pencil right there. Something that would let anyone, regardless of their skill level, feel that same sense of creativity and accomplishment from tracing over an image, just without the frustration of paper sliding around on glass.

That's really what Phantrace is. It's a drawing companion that meets you where you are. You can pull in any image — a photo you took, something you found online, a reference from your favorite artist — and trace directly over it with real drawing tools. Layers, opacity control, brushes, colors, all of it.

But at its core, it's still that simple idea: make it easy and enjoyable to trace over the things that inspire you.

Whether you're a beginner learning how proportions work, someone who just wants to make something cool on a lazy afternoon, or an artist using references to warm up — Phantrace is built to help you feel creative without getting in your way. That was always the goal.