Coloring apps

There has been an increasing interest in adult coloring, coloring for mindfulness, mandalas, zentangles, and related activities. It can very simple or get very complicated. I learned this when I received some special coloring pages for Christmas and none of the markers or pencils worked on the glossy pages. App makers have decided to try to get in on the action and make coloring available on mobile devices. Most apps are free but they charge for additional coloring pages, color palettes, and filters. I tried each of these apps and thought I'd give a "highly recommended", "recommended", "not recommended".

Highly Recommended

Pigment (Free) iOS only. This app impressed me the most. You can color with pencil, marker, or paint. You can control how much area it fills in and how large a pen, marker, or brush stroke. While coloring you can choose an area to confine your color to or you can draw outside the lines. If you have a newer iPhone / iPad the pressure sensitive screen allows for different saturations of color. The app allows you to save or share, as all the ones I tested do. The pictures that they give and color palettes to choose from are generous. There are only pop-up ads to buy premium features when you want to save or share. You can subscribe to get a new coloring book added monthly and all the premium features. The images used for coloring are vector images which means no matter how much you zoom in or zoom out there is no pixelation, everything looks smooth. This was the best app by far. Subscription prices vary. http://pigmentapp.co/

Colorfy (Free) iOS, Amazon, and Android. A lot of reviews and coloring app users rave about this app. The first thing that disappointed me was that the images are raster images meaning that they getting blocky and distort when you zoom in to fill in small areas. There are less color palette choices. I liked to see the library of other coloring / art people had created. The app allows you to convert pictures that you take into coloring pages. They do have an interesting selection of coloring pages. They have about as many pop-ups trying to sell their $2.99 a week subscription. http://colorfy.net/

Coloring (Free) Android only. There are some really beautiful coloring pages. It has some helpful settings options like left handed, blending colors, soft lines, and giant pencil. The feature that I really liked had to do with creating your own custom colors and then having an eye dropper to duplicate that color you created and used later. Like most coloring apps you just fill the black spots with color and you don't color like it in. There were no ads and I did not encounter any annoying pop-ups trying to sell me premium features. If you wanted additional coloring pages, you pay for them which seems fair. https://goo.gl/qKo0Ve

Recommended

Colorme (Free) iOS and Android. Extremely easy to color and the pictures don't take long to finish. There were an abundant selection of coloring pages and colors. Lots of ads. Apple: https://goo.gl/YJW7qf Android:https://goo.gl/UxdFQj 

Colorfly (Free) iOS and Android.  The app seems like a lesser quality version of Colorfy but with some added coloring pages, colors, and a ton of ads. There are a lot of addons that cost between $1.99 - $9.99. Apple: https://goo.gl/XFlBSn Android: https://goo.gl/rBvBHK

Recolor (Free) iOS and Android. One of the features that was different about this coloring app was if you tapped on an area to add color but you decide you've made a mistake you can tap a second time and it will undo it. There are a lot of cool filters once you are done coloring like water color, crayon, pencil, but also video filters that add movement to the drawing. Apple: https://goo.gl/1gKLzt Android: https://goo.gl/V0nkak

Mandala (Free) Android only. This app has a lot of fans and there are a lot of positive reviews. There is a limited assortment of coloring pages that are all in the same theme and I felt that the color selection was constrained. There is a banner ad at the bottom but not much else trying to sell users. Very basic and maybe good for children or adults that want something really basic. https://goo.gl/rfDnJc

Adult Coloring (Free) Android only. Good selection of coloring pages and colors, there are additional ones that can be purchased. Not a lot of ads. Nice filters that can be added after you are done. An easy to use app. https://goo.gl/QwIhrH 

Not Recommended

1000 Dot to Dot (Free) iOS only. This app was recommended in one of the articles that I read. I tried it on two separate days and ran into a lot of problems. It really isn't a coloring app but dot to dot and each is about 1000 dots. If coloring is supposed to destress and be calming, this is the opposite and made me want to throw my phone across the room.

Adult Coloring Book (.99) iOS only. Another app recommended in an article, it doesn't work well and uses "adult" sophomoric humor that I thought was dumb instead of funny (and trust me I laugh at some dumb things). Besides that there isn't a good selection of colors or pictures.