Drawing and Writing on Pictures

On a photo already open in the image viewer, open the three-dots menu and tap Drawing. The picture stays visible underneath while a toolbar appears at the bottom.

To start from nothing, go to the file browser, open the three-dots menu and tap Create drawing (on a wide screen the button sits right on the bar). A blank white page opens straight in the drawing editor - you name it later, when you save.

Tap the tool icon on the left of the toolbar to choose Brush, Rectangle, Oval, Eraser, Text or Crop.

Next to it are four color swatches: black, white and red are always there, and the fourth opens a color grid so you can pick any color you like - your choice becomes the new fourth swatch. The color and the tool you used last are remembered the next time you open the drawing editor.

• Brush - drag your finger to draw a freehand line in the chosen color.
• Rectangle and Oval - drag from one corner to draw the shape; you see it grow as you drag.
• Text - tap where you want it and type; the text lands at that spot in the chosen color.
• Eraser - drag over a stroke to clear it, at twice the width of the current brush so mistakes are easy to catch.

Everything you add stays a separate stroke or shape until you save, so a bad line does not ruin the ones before it - see Undo in step 6.

Pick Crop from the tool popup and a frame with corner handles appears over the picture, the same frame as the crop tool in the image viewer. Drag it to the part you want to keep and confirm.

The picture is cut down to that frame right there in the drawing session, so you can keep drawing on the cropped result before you save or send it - no need to crop first, save, and come back to draw.

Open the overflow button and tap Settings to open Draw settings: sliders for Brush size and Opacity, and a Text size choice of Small, Medium or Large. These, like your last color, are remembered for next time.

• Save - writes your drawing into the picture you started from (or, for a blank canvas, saves it for the first time) and keeps the editor open. The toolbar tints itself while there is anything unsaved, so you can see at a glance that you still have work to save.
• Save & close - the same, then takes you back to the picture.
• Save as.. - in the overflow menu, asks for a file name (the suggested one is the original name plus _draw- and the date and time, for example beach_draw-260924-1530.jpg) and keeps the original picture untouched.
• Cancel - leaves without saving; nothing changes.

The overflow button also holds:

• Undo last and Undo all - step back through your strokes, or clear every one of them at once.
• Delete file - removes the picture you started from. Only shown when you opened an existing file, never for a blank canvas.
• Send to.. - merges your drawing into the picture and hands the result to the same Send to.. menu used everywhere else in the app, so it can go straight to Google Keep, a messenger or any other receiver you have turned on.