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Procreate colors stuck in grayscale or too pale? How to fix it

You pick a bright red and Procreate paints gray. Or the color disc itself has gone gray, or every color comes out dusty and washed out. It looks like a bug, but it almost never is. It's the canvas's color profile, a layer mask, a setting on the iPad, or the brush. Here's how to tell which, and what to do about each.

For Procreate 5.4. From Procreate's Handbook, Apple's support pages and Procreate's Community, where these threads have been read over 200,000 times. Checked October 29, 2026.

First, which one is it?

1. The canvas has a gray color profile

The most common cause by far. When you import a picture from the gallery with Photo or Import, Procreate makes a new canvas from it and, as Procreate's team explained on the forum, takes the picture's resolution and its color profile. Import a black-and-white scan, a coloring page or a paper texture saved in gray, and the canvas can only ever hold grays, whatever you pick on the disc.

To check, open Actions › Canvas › Canvas Information › Color Profile. A gray profile has a name like "Generic Gray Gamma 2.2" or "Dot Gain 20%".

Procreate can't switch that canvas to color. Its Handbook lets you change a profile only within RGB or within CMYK, and a gray profile is neither. So move the art to a new canvas:

  1. In the gallery, make a new canvas the same size, with an RGB profile such as sRGB.
  2. Open the gray canvas, select its layers in Layers, then touch and hold them to pick them up.
  3. Still holding, tap Gallery with your other hand, open the new canvas, and drop the layers onto its Layers panel.

Pick up the layers inside a group rather than the group itself: a moderator warns that dragging groups can freeze the app.

For a single layer, copy and paste is quicker: swipe down with three fingers and tap Copy, then do the same in the new canvas and tap Paste.

To avoid it next time, make the canvas first and bring the picture in with Actions › Add, so it takes the canvas's profile instead of the other way round.

2. You're painting on a layer mask

A layer mask hides and shows parts of the layer it belongs to, using shades of gray. Procreate's Handbook says "the greyscale values of a Layer Mask hide and reveal the content of the layer," so whatever color you pick, it paints gray on a mask. That's by design.

In Layers, a mask sits just above its layer with a small thumbnail. Tap the layer itself, below it, to paint in color again.

3. The whole iPad is in grayscale

If the Home Screen, Photos and every other app are gray too, it isn't Procreate. iPad has two accessibility settings that turn the whole screen gray:

Either can be switched on by accident from the Accessibility Shortcut, which triple-clicking the top or Home button triggers. Check Settings › Accessibility › Accessibility Shortcut to see what it's set to.

4. The canvas is CMYK, so colors look washed out

A CMYK profile is for print, and print can't show the brightest colors a screen can, so the color disc and everything you paint look dull. Moderators on Procreate's forum find this behind many "my colors are too pale" threads, sometimes from a canvas preset made with CMYK and then forgotten.

Check Actions › Canvas › Canvas Information › Color Profile. Procreate's Handbook is clear that "you can't change color spaces from RGB to CMYK or vice versa," so move the layers to a new RGB canvas as in section 1. Blend modes and masks need setting again afterwards. Then change or delete the CMYK preset so it doesn't happen again.

One of Procreate's long-time moderators uses sRGB for everything, print included: it works on the web and on almost every screen, and converts to a printer's CMYK at the end.

5. The color is fine, but the paint comes out paler

If the profile is RGB and the disc looks right, the paint itself is being thinned. Check these, in order:

Colors that look duller only after export, on another screen, are a different problem: screens show color differently. Exporting a PNG to Photos on the same iPad is the fair comparison.

How Rindraw handles color

We make Rindraw, and its color profiles work differently, so none of these traps exist.

Rindraw opens your Procreate artworks, brushes and palettes. See Rindraw vs Procreate.

Questions

Why are my colors stuck in grayscale in Procreate?

Usually the canvas has a gray color profile from an imported black-and-white image. Otherwise it's a layer mask, or the iPad's Color Filters.

How do I change a grayscale Procreate canvas to color?

You can't switch it. Make a new RGB canvas and drag the layers over, or copy and paste them.

Why are my Procreate colors so pale and washed out?

Check for a CMYK profile first. If it's RGB, check brush opacity, the disc's inner dot, Glazed brushes and the layers above.

Can I convert a CMYK Procreate canvas to RGB?

Not directly. Make a new RGB canvas, drag the layers over, and set blend modes and masks again.

Sources

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