Overview

What is Graffiti?

Graffiti is a finger-painting application for your iPhone or iPod Touch. It has many features to support your creativity. These features can be divided into four broad categories:

How do I paint with Graffiti?

Simple: drag one finger across the screen. Of course, you can do more than that. See the painting section for more detail.

How much does Graffiti cost?

Graffiti is $4.99. or 5.50 &euro. or £2.99. and so on.

How can I buy it?

You can visit the App Store in iTunes, download it directly from your phone using the App Store app, or click here now.

My Graffiti / Graffiti Gallery

What's with these nine thumbnails I see when I open Graffiti for the first time?

When Graffiti is launched for the first time, it opens up to the Graffiti Gallery. (Subsequent launches will land where you left off.) The Graffiti Gallery is where you can see and switch between your works of art. In addition, Graffiti comes with nine sample paintings which are meant to be instructive. A sort of tutorial. You can edit and delete these paintings as you wish.

How do edit one of these paintings?

Just tap on its thumbnail and you will go into painting mode for the painting.

How do I add a new painting?

In the Graffiti Gallery there is a plus button, clicking this will create a new painting with a plain white canvas. [image of menu bar with + sign]. When you return to the Graffiti Gallery, your new graffito will be added to the Graffiti Gallery and show up in the upper left-hand corner.

Painting and the Paint Toolbar

What kinds of things can I do when painting? besides dragging my finger across the screen?

Lots. You can undo previous strokes. You can redo "undone" strokes. You can change the color of the paint. You can change the thickness of the "paint brush", i.e. the thickness in the paint that your finger makes. You can erase with your finger. You can zoom in and out. You can change the background. But perhaps most fun of all, you can decorate your paintings with ornaments.

What do the icons on the toolbar represent?

is the erase utility.

is undo.

is redo (useful for when you accidentally undo something).

is the paint brush utility. it allows you to change the thickness of the "paint brush", the color of the paint, or use the eraser.

is the ornament utility. Known as the "groucho" button, this utility allows you to place premade images/icons on your painting. While placing an ornament, you can resize and rotate it.

is the background chooser. The background chooser allows you to set the background of your painting canvas. See Backgrounds for more detail.

is the zoom function. Zooming allows you to zoom in on a specific part of your painting for more precision.

undo, redo, zoom, color, paint thickness, single tap, double tap (mention the canvas size)

What is the eraser?

The eraser works just like a paint color. You can access the eraser from the paint brush utility. When you choose the eraser, you can erase portions of your painting one finger-stroke at a time. It's very useful for fixing small mistakes or fine-tuning your artwork.

How do I erase a painting entirely?

One of two ways: Either shake your device or use the erase utility . When you click on the erase utility you will be allowed to erase the painting, delete it permanently, or cancel the operation altogether.

What is the difference between erasing a painting and deleting it?

Erasing a painting means that all "brush strokes" are removed essentially only leaving the background. Erasing a painting is easily undone with the undo button. Deleting a painting actually removes the file in which the painting was saved. Consequently, the painting is removed from the "my graffiti" gallery. Deleting is a permanent operation.

I accidentally erased my entire painting. How do I get it back?

You simply hit undo. But you must undo an erase operation before the painting is saved.

I accidentally deleted my painting. Can I get it back?

Unfortunately, no. When a painting is deleted it is permanently removed to conserve space on the device.

How do I make a single dot?

Single tapping will leave a single dot of paint.

It seems like part of my painting is hidden. How do I see the entire canvas?

Double tap to see the entire canvas. Typically small portions of the canvas are hidden by the menu bar and toolbar. See why is part of the canvas hidden for further explanation.

Why is part of the canvas hidden?

The canvas size of your painting is determined by the background you've chosen. Typically this is 320 pixels by 427 pixels. This approximates the aspect ratio of photos taken with the camera which 0.75 (in portrait perspective; 1.33 in landscape). We chose this canvas size to maximize the area of a photo that you can paint on without cropping or distortion. However, if you load an image with a different aspect ratio, your canvas size may be restricted in such a way as to allow the entire image to be painted on.

Your device has a screen size of 320 x 480 pixels. Height-wise 20 pixels are used by the status bar (the bar that shows your service, time, and battery life). Additionally, the menu and toolbars take 40 pixels a piece. That leaves 380 pixels visible for the canvas in normal mode. When you double tap on the canvas, the menu bar disappears and the toolbar is flattened to show the entire 427 pixels of vertical space.

Backgrounds

How do I set or change the background of my painting?

Use the background chooser.

What are my choices with the background chooser?

A photo taken with the camera. A photo from your photo library. On of six built-in textures (brickwall, cement, plain canvas, white note, yellow note, or graph paper). Or one of 29 fill colors.

Can I change my background after I've started painting?

Yes. until your heart's content.

Ornaments

What are ornaments?

Ornaments are premade images that you can add to your painting. You choose the location, size, and orientation of an ornament when you place it.

What types of ornaments does Graffiti feature?

Graffiti currently has nine categories of ornaments: hats, hair, eyewear, facial hair (mustaches and beards), pirate (pirate related items like an eyepatch), groucho (funny noses and glasses), dialogs (dialog boxes), text, and shapes.

How do I add an ornament to a painting?

Tap the ornament chooser on the toolbar. Choose the category of your ornament. Then choose the specific ornament. It will show up on your painting, ready to be positioned, sized, and oriented. Now in ornament mode, the paint toolbar has been replaced by a new toolbar that allows you to cancel the ornament, switch between sizing and rotating the ornament, or indicating that you're done fiddling with the ornament.

How do I place the ornament?

After choosing an ornament, simply drag it to or single tap the desired location on the canvas.

How do I size the ornament?

When you have selected an ornament a movable slider appears at the bottom of the canvas. Simply move your finger along the slider to change the size of the ornament. The slider also has a rotate mode.

How do I rotate the ornament?

When you have selected an ornament a movable slider appears at the bottom of the canvas. This slider is initially in size mode. Tap the rotate button to enter rotate mode and use the slider to turn the ornament to the left or right.

I'm done placing, sizing, and orienting my ornament, how do I get back to painting?

Simply click the "done" button on the ornament toolbar.

The normal painting toolbar will return and you'll be able to paint as before.

I don't want the ornament anymore. Can I get rid of it?

Yes. Ornaments participate in undo actions just like brush strokes.

What are text ornaments?

Text ornaments are not images but rather a mechanism to let you use the device's built-in keyboard to type text. When you choose the text ornament type, you are presented with a screen to type in text and choose from six fonts.

Text ornaments are positioned, sized, and oriented just like other ornaments.

Actions

What can I do with a painting once I'm finished?

You can export the painting to your photo album, assign it to a contact, tweet a link to it with Twitter, or simply leave it in your Graffiti Gallery. The first three of these actions are available from the action menu which is accessed by the action button while painting.

How do I export my painting to my computer?

Click the action button and select "export to photo album". This will save your masterpiece into the device's photo album which is accessed via the built-in Photos app.

How do I email my painting?

First, export the painting to your photo library. Then exit Graffiti and email the photo from the Photos app.