The app does what it advertises, though it is missing a few features that would make it perfect. Though you can export to a photo, I can't find a way to *import* and edit a photo stored on the iPhone/iPod. Having the color picker be activated on hold is a great idea, but it takes a longer hold than I would like to activate and breaks up the workflow. Perhaps allowing this time to be adjustable would help. Shaking the iPhone/iPod to activate the menu is a little awkward and tiring after a long time. It may also help to allow the menu to come back up quicker when the screen is not touched, perhaps after an adjustable delay. The app also gets a little sluggish when arrainging layers or scrolling at certain magnifications.

Layers is a truly amazing application for painting on my iPhone. The ability to add in background layers puts it ahead of the other drawing apps I've used. The interface design is incredibly intuitive (and the built in tips & tricks tutorial is awesome). I've been using Layers since it was in beta and I'm really happy that's finally available for everyone to enjoy!

If you're an artist, this is the reason you were drawn to computers and technology: A full painting studio in your pocket. Download this app and create!

A nicely implemented paint program... that does LAYERS (THE holy grail of anyone used to Photoshop) and it is right on the iPhone, even more intuitive than Photoshop. A great app, that you can even save back into photoshop (of course with layers!). A worthy competitor to Brushes... and a great way to get started finger painting on your iPhone. More expensive than most (minus 1 star), but it HAS Layers that nobody else does!

Just got this app and it's great! It seems to have everything! Love the brushes, zoom and the ability to layer - can't wait to start using it for more than just this first painting!

Layers gives you a fluid user interface while still packing in tons of capabilities. I love the color picker with transparency and the eyedropper - you can make subtle color changes very easily. And being able to spread out onto multiple layers makes it SO much easier to focus on drawing without having to worry about messing up what you've already done. I can create a new layer, draw onto it, and then merge it down onto the rest of my drawing when I'm satisfied with what I've done. And the user interface stays out of your way - oh, and make sure to check out the tips on the web site - the little "shake to make the controls come back" works really well.

Wow, absolutely fantastic interface. Great job Ben!

First Impressions? One helluva developer. Highly polished app.

I love the interface, but when I try to add a layer with a photo, the photo always comes out distorted/stretched and rotated for some reason. I searched "Tips" and couldn't find any instructions to help.

Layers is a fantastic natural media simulator on the iPhone/iPod Touch. It's very well implemented, and for a 1.0 release, extremely well done. It does have some quirks -- imported photos more often than not come in distorted, there's only one aspect ratio for your canvas, the photo import command is not intuitively located -- but these are fairly minor. If you're just looking to paint and use layers to do it, this is the only app in the store for you.

I had even considered learning to write apps in order to create an app with layers. I love what it has to offer. There are some things I would add. Correct me if these feature are in the app and I've just missed them My recommendations for improvement: -Allow you to scale pictures smaller than the layer borders -Rotate individual layers -selections for vertical or horizontal canvases instead of just square -Control layer opacities individually -Layer blending modes like Overlay, Soft Light, etc. -Maybe even text Just some ideas. Love all the possiblities of this app!

I can't remember where I just today came across the mention of this app, but I bought it and immediately had great fun with it. Now, the funny thing is that I also knew about the other app, Brushes, and decided to get that one too, after I'd just bought Layers, to see what the difference is. Wow, I'd love to get my money back on Brushes, Layers just knocks it dead, beats it hands down big time.

I love it! Immediately became my favorite painting app! Please add ability to move, scale, rotate, and change opacity of individual layers. Awesome app!

After reading about this today on Digg I decided to give it a shot, and I'm really glad I did. It's a great little painting app, kudos to the creator.

I have tried 2 other apps (brushes and colors) and I must say this is the best. I really like the ease of use and all the features available. If you are a digital illustrator like me and use Photoshop for your work I really recommend this for small works or concepts in the go. It's great for thumbnailing and color drafts. You can even save as a PSD format and email it to yourself. Above this I only have several suggestions: A blender mode or brush similar to the just add water brush in Corel painter. A small brush editor. Or maybe a completly seperate program for creating Brushes and importing them into this app. Thanks for making such a great program!!

I could spend hours with this app. Hours I don't have, but that's another matter. Have found a couple of minor bugs, and would like to see the abilty to adjust layer opacity. Even with that, I love this app, and expect to see many improvements in later versions. This guys first attempt, already beats the tar out of MSPaint. Why? Layers! Jeez MS, is that such a tough thing to add?

I generally don't shell out five bucks on iPhone apps, but I don't really mind the expenditure when it comes to a decent art/design program. Layers easily justifies its price tag with intuitive ease of use, effective functionality, and truly useful features. As with any design software, there's a bit of a learning curve, but it's pretty painless with Layers. Between the developer site's tips and tricks page and the inspiration that springs from the natural ease of this elegant app., you'll be feeling comfortable by the time you're into your second or third composition. The layers make elaborate and multidimensional works fairly simple, with the merge-down feature enabling near infinite depth of components in your artwork. I'm a designer by trade, and this app. reminds me of why I got into this business in the first place: When human inspiration and decent technology meet, beauty and gratification are the inevitable result.

I love this app, almost as much as Brushes but for a couple of things. The color picker should appear more quickly after you hold down to bring it up. There is too much of a lag, and sometimes it doesn't switch automatically back to the brush when you let go. Often, it stays stuck on the color picker for me. Also a MAJOR ISSUE is that if you are painting with less than 100% opacity with any color--and then you use the color picker onscreen to select a different color–-when you resume painting with the new color it's at 100% opacity. The Brushes app retains the previous opacity for the new color and it makes for a much better painting experience for blending tones and shades. This is a major reason why Brushes is still my art making app of choice. But Layers has great Brush and control features, and I love the shake to bring up the toolbar. If these 2 issues are fixed, I will be using this all the time. But at this point Layers is a close 2nd to Brushes.

One of the key features of the digital artist's canvas is being able to work in layers (imagine PhotoShop's little brother/sister on your iPhone). The Layers interface is clean (like Gotow's NetSketch) and the assortment of brush selections give the user the option to work as an artist or illustrator. Plus, the ability to zoom in 1000% allows you to paint the smallest of details. It has earned a place on my home screen.

For: Doodler through artist

Loved Brushes... It showed that you could make amazing art in the iPhone. But this is truly the next strep. I asked for layers to be added to Brushes, but it never happened... Or hasn't happened yet. Layers obviously adds that. And it makes a ton of difference. Great stuff... Hope new cool features get added as it matures. The tilt controls in that other drawing program was very cool. I like the idea of using the tilt sensor to control opacity or brush size.

Brushes Plus  Only one thing, whenever you use the idropper tool the opacity changes back to default. Fix this in the next update. That's the only small flaw in this app. Worth every penny , looking forward to future updates.

@ 5 bucks this is a pricey app but then totally felt worth the money the first few times I used it, the transperancy feature and the layers is awesome, the possibilities are endless.

I hope it continues to evolve! - I can't say I recommend it yet to the casual user. However the potential is there for a REALLY remarkable photographic/art tool - really remarkable! -considering it's on a mobile platform, for that alone I rate it 4. I imagine it took quite a bit of work to create this app. It's potential could be staggering.

I think this is an outstanding painting app. The layers usage is tremendous. I love everything about it except for 1thing: the work space is a little square. If the developer could make the workspace the full screen size like in Brushes, I would give it 5 stars. Otherwise it is excellent.

I own both layers and brushes, and I found that neither is acomplete replacement for the other- I am happy to use both. Layers offers more flexibility and comlexity because of it's layers (duh), while brushes has a smoother and more natural interface that sometimes makes painting easier. So if you are deciding between the two that is my recomendation; flexibility : layers, more natural painting feel : brushes.

It's not very often I come across an app worth writing about. It's very easy to use yet has a lot of depth. I have draw some great pictures and friends have a hard time believing that I did it on the iPhone. This is THE drawing app to own and well worth the price. Only recommendation is to tweek the sliding feature. It sometimes thinks I'm trying to zoom instead when I'm zoomed in real close.

If you're serious about painting, this app wins with its combination of a really fluid, streamlined interface, its support for multiple layers, and export to Photoshop .psd files. Switching between brushes, changing colors (love the eyedropper tool), and the excellent erase mode lets me be creative without getting interrupted by having to dig through the user interface to find something. All around, this app just works the way you think it should. Oh, and it's totally solid - no crashes!

Lovethe high rez redraw feature. Get a stylus it makes thing much easier.

Using 3GS, when trying to add a photo from camera roll, photo comes in upside down and cropped. For instance - instead of getting the face, the torso comes in and upside down. Until this bug is fixed, the application is useless for using with photos.

As it is layers is a great app for painting. I haven't tried colors or brushes, but I got this and I'm very happy I did. It's got a great UI and all the basic painting tools. A few things still need to be added, but it looks like they will be in future versions: • a paint bucket/fill tool • better control over importing pictures This app also has the potential to become even more powerful: the developer is very responsive to comments, and people on the forums have requested gradients and layer filters. It's great already, but with all that there wouldn't be a question about which is the best.