What the Reference Companion already does
Procreate’s Reference Companion opens from Actions, then Canvas, then the Reference toggle. It floats over the artwork, resizes from its corners, and moves by the handle at the top. It has three modes: Canvas, which mirrors your artwork live and lets you color pick from the zoomed-out view; Image, which imports one picture from Photos; and Face, which drives FacePaint on supported iPads.
Canvas mode keeps the whole piece visible while you work zoomed in, and it lets you pick a color from that overview. After a while, the live navigator feels like part of the canvas instead of another window to manage.
Nothing below is an argument against using it.
Where one image stops being enough
The Image mode holds one picture. Procreate’s own documentation describes the workflow as importing an image, then using Clear to remove it and Import to bring in another one instead.
That is fine for a single pose reference. It gets awkward as soon as the piece has several questions running at once, which most pieces do by the second hour. The anatomy diagram, the two photographs whose lighting you are combining, the costume detail from a museum page, the color key you settled on, and the note reminding you why you rejected the first composition.
Swapping those through one slot means the reference you are not currently looking at may as well not exist. You stop checking it, and the drawing drifts.
Put the board beside the canvas
On iPad, ArtDeck runs in Slide Over, Split View, and Stage Manager.
Apple’s current iPad multitasking guide covers side-by-side windows and Slide Over. The exact controls change with the iPadOS version.
Slide Over floats the board as a rectangle over Procreate, which suits a session where you want the full canvas most of the time and only need to glance at two or three references; swipe it off the edge between checks. Split View gives the board its own full-height column, which a dense board needs, since a board you cannot read is a board you will not consult. Drag the divider to trade canvas width for board width as the session changes. Stage Manager puts ArtDeck in a window of its own and suits an iPad on a desk with a keyboard and an external display.
The number of references you are checking decides the layout. Two or three hold up fine in the floating rectangle; fifteen need the column.
For the koi sketch above, Slide Over left most of Procreate visible while the photographs and anatomy diagram stayed within reach. Once the board grows dense enough that labels and small studies stop reading, give it the Split View column instead of shrinking everything further.
If you draw in another iPad app
Procreate is the example here because its Reference Companion creates the obvious comparison. ArtDeck does not depend on it. If your canvas lives in Adobe Fresco, Clip Studio Paint, Affinity Designer, or another painting or illustration app, the board still collects and arranges the same material.
The part that changes is the handoff. Whether two apps can share the screen, accept a dragged image, or take a pasted color depends on the destination app and the iPadOS window mode available on your device. Test the pair with your normal canvas before settling on a layout.
The broader iPad reference-board workflow covers collecting from Safari, Photos, and Files without assuming Procreate is the drawing app.
Move a color between the two apps
Pick a color off any reference in ArtDeck and its hex value lands on the clipboard. Open Procreate’s Value tab, then enter or paste that value into the hexadecimal field.
Copy a six-digit hex color from Procreate or another app and paste it onto the ArtDeck canvas. ArtDeck creates a labeled swatch, so the color stays with its reference.
The reference-layer workaround still has a place when you need to paint over an image. For a quick color handoff, it adds a layer and cleanup that the hexadecimal field avoids.
Answer the question before you draw it
A board earns its share of the screen by helping you see something in the images. The Reference Companion shows you the image, but Procreate’s documentation describes no tools for checking its value, color, composition, or proportions.
You rarely need the whole picture at once. You need one fact: which masses survive once the detail goes, what the value relationship is between the light side and the background, whether the pose reads in silhouette, or what the proportion is between two things you have been eyeballing.
ArtDeck includes five study lenses that open over an item without altering the source. Before drawing the koi in the screenshot above, the question was which masses survive once the detail goes, and the Read lens reduced a complicated pattern to four or five patches.
The other lenses take the other questions: Values for light and dark, Color for palettes and temperature zones, Composition for structure and crops, Measure for proportion and angle. Results can stay on the board beside the original, which means the answer is still there in an hour when you have forgotten it.
Use both, and know which is which
Which window holds what
Reference Companion inside Procreate
- A live view of your own canvas while you work zoomed in.
- One image you want floating over the artwork with no setup.
- Picking a color from that zoomed-out overview of your piece.
- FacePaint on supported iPads.
An ArtDeck board beside the canvas
- The piece has more than one open question running at once.
- Source links and your notes belong with the images.
- A study of the reference is more useful than the source alone.
- The same board has to open on your iPhone or Mac later.
There is no prize for forcing one window to do both jobs. Let the companion hold the canvas or immediate image; let the board hold the project around it. Both can stay open while you draw.
Common questions
Can Procreate show more than one reference image at a time?
Not in the Reference Companion. Its Image mode holds one picture, and Procreate’s documentation describes swapping with Clear and Import instead of keeping several. Canvas mode shows your own artwork, not references. A second app beside Procreate is how you keep more than one on screen.
How do I move a color from ArtDeck into Procreate?
Pick the color off a reference in ArtDeck and its hex value goes to the clipboard. In Procreate, open the Value tab in the color panel and paste it into the hexadecimal field. Going the other way, paste a six-digit hex onto an ArtDeck board and it becomes a labeled swatch that stays with its reference.
Does this work with drawing apps other than Procreate?
Yes. Split View, Slide Over, and Stage Manager are iPadOS window modes, not app integrations, so the board sits beside Clip Studio Paint, Fresco, Affinity, or anything else supporting them. What varies is whether the other app accepts a dragged image or a pasted color, which is worth testing with your usual canvas.
Do I have to close Procreate to check a reference?
No, that is the point of the arrangement. The board shares the screen, so checking a reference costs a glance instead of an app switch. How much room to give it depends on how dense the board is: two or three references hold up in Slide Over, while fifteen want the Split View column.