DrawDojo Tools

Squint

A free AI value checker for drawings — see your drawing the way an art director sees it

Drop in a drawing and Squint blurs it, groups it into flat value masses, measures where the contrast lands, and tells you what is working and what is not. Everything runs in your browser — your drawing never leaves your device.

Drop a drawing here

JPG, PNG, WEBP, or GIF — a photo of a sketchbook page works fine.

You can also paste an image with Ctrl/Cmd + V. Nothing is uploaded — the analysis happens on your device.

What Squint checks

Every pass an art director would make, in the order they would make them — structure first, detail never.

Value range

Does the drawing actually reach a true black and a true white, or does it fog out somewhere in the middle of the scale?

Value key

Low key, mid key, or high key — and which value family owns the picture.

Midtone crowding

The mud test. When most of the picture sits in the middle of the scale, nothing reads.

Value hierarchy

Dominant, subordinate, accent. Three equal masses fight each other; one dominant mass carries a design.

Light / shadow separation

How far apart your light family and shadow family sit. Too close and the form flattens.

Contrast placement

Where the eye actually goes first, and whether two or three areas are competing for it.

How to use it

  • Drop in your drawing, photo of a sketchbook page, or digital painting.
  • Start on Squint and push the slider until the detail disappears. Whatever still reads is your design.
  • Switch to Notan at 3 values to see the flat masses you actually drew.
  • Check Focus to see where the eye lands first — it is often not where you meant.
  • Read the notes, fix the biggest one, and run it again.

Why the numbers are trustworthy

Most "desaturate" filters average gamma-encoded RGB. That squashes the darks and reports value relationships your eye does not actually see — which is why a red and a green that look identical in value can come out of a grayscale filter two steps apart.

Squint converts every pixel to CIE L* lightness instead. L* is spaced the way a nine-step value scale is spaced, so value 5 here really is the middle of the scale, and the Notan view can group your drawing into the masses it genuinely has rather than into arbitrary even slices.

Questions

What is a squint test in drawing?

Squinting blurs away detail and edges so you only see the big value masses. It is the fastest way to check whether a drawing reads before you commit to rendering it. This tool does the same thing mathematically — it blurs, groups, and measures the value structure so you can see what your eye is doing when you squint.

Are my drawings uploaded anywhere?

No. The whole analysis runs in your browser using the canvas API. Your image is never sent to a server, never stored, and never seen by anyone else.

What file types can I check?

Anything your browser can open: JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, BMP, and most AVIF images. Photos of pencil drawings work as well as digital files — just shoot them in even light.

Does it work on color drawings and paintings?

Yes. Color is converted to CIE L* lightness, which spaces values the way the eye reads them rather than the way a naive desaturate filter does. That means a saturated red and a mid gray land on the same value step if they really are the same value.

What is notan?

Notan is the Japanese practice of reducing an image to a few flat values — usually two or three — to judge the design of the shapes alone. The Notan view here posterizes your drawing to 2, 3, 4, or 5 values, either in even steps or matched to the value masses your drawing actually contains.

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