Creativity is Everywhere. Now Photoshop is Too. Begin the Journey of Photoshop Reimagined for the iPad

Photoshop, now available on your iPad; Adobe Fresco available on your iPad and Windows devices; the Creative Cloud Desktop app; Adobe Aero; the new cloud documents system; and a major update to Photoshop on your desktop.

By Pam Clark

I am thrilled to invite you to join us at the beginning of something new. The official debut of Photoshop on the iPad and the cloud documents system, a major new release of Photoshop, a new AR app called Adobe Aero; Adobe Fresco on Windows; and quite a lot more.

Today marks a significant evolution of Photoshop. This includes:

• Photoshop on the desktop– We are shipping a major update to Photoshop today with many fabulous performance improvements, new Sensei AI and machine learning magic, new industry-leading editing capabilities, and an integrated cloud documents system to seamlessly save your PSDs across all your devices with Photoshop, with no importing or exporting required. This is the same world class Photoshop that powers your creative work, with lots of new added goodness. Download here.
• Photoshop on the iPad– Version 1.0 launches today. This is just the beginning of our journey to expand Photoshop to devices, increasing your choices on how to work using Photoshop. We are launching the first version on the iPad, starting with Photoshop’s top workflows, compositing, masking and retouching, with more to come. Over time, we’ll add more capabilities and workflows as we learn more about how customers use Photoshop on a mobile device. With Photoshop on the iPad, you can open and edit your PSDs anytime, anywhere. You can see and edit your layered documents and create with many of your favorite Photoshop features using mobile and touch. It is reimagined with a new user experience completely redesigned for the iPad with touch and mobility top of mind. Photoshop on your iPad seamlessly connects to Photoshop on your desktop through the new integrated cloud documents system. More info here.
• Cloud documents– Cloud documents undergoes a major expansion today to support the PSD format. This is a new system that first launched in Adobe XD last year. Today’s evolution enables you to seamlessly save your PSDs among your Photoshop apps and Adobe Fresco, and adds support for Adobe Aero, the new Creative Cloud desktop app and Assets.Adobe.com. For Photoshop, you can access and edit the same document across surfaces without unnecessary imports, conversions, quality loss or exports- no pixel destruction!Also shipping today and connected to Photoshop via cloud documents:
  • • Adobe Fresco– the new painting and drawing app for the iPad that also uses PSDs and links to Photoshop and the cloud documents system. Today it also launches on Windows.
      • Download on Windows
      • Download on iPad
    • Adobe Aero– a new mobile iOS app for designers to create, share and view interactive, immersive experiences set in Augmented Reality. Make your layered PSDs interactive starting today! Whaaaaat? Try it out! Download here.
    • Creative Cloud Desktop– the new desktop application that is a portal to your Creative Cloud world of apps, services, collaboration and more. Download here.

For the product team, shipping our first version of Photoshop on the iPad and the cloud documents system is a huge milestone that comes after more than a year of intense work. It is a great burst of energy for us into the world. For you, the customer, this first 1.0 version is just the starting line. We plan to shape this new experience together with you, our customers.

Here’s more about the Photoshops, the cloud document system, and the associated apps that we are releasing today:

The journey begins with Photoshop on the iPad

More info here.

When we started this project, it was hard for me to envision how we would reimagine the Photoshop desktop interface into a beautiful, performant experience optimized for pencil and touch on a smaller screen, while also retaining the power, depth and flexibility of Photoshop.

Today, here it is!

Photoshop on the iPad is built using the same code base as Photoshop on the desktop. This means you can open and edit the same PSD in Photoshop on your desktop or iPad without worrying about conversions, compressions, imports or exports. Photoshop on the iPad supports large files and many, many layers, just like Photoshop on your desktop, preserving your data across devices. The edits you make, whether making layer adjustments, masking, or spot healing, will produce the same results across devices because the app is powered by the same desktop engine.

One very important thing to note: This is the beginning. The first version of Photoshop on iPad is focused on compositing, basic retouching, and masking, common tasks and workflows that we know will be useful for most Photoshop users. Over time, we’ll add more capabilities and workflows as we learn more about how customers use Photoshop on a mobile device.

We plan to add new capabilities as quickly as possible on a regular cadence of releases, which will begin after MAX 2019. We’re releasing with a set of features we know all Photoshop users will need and plan to add capabilities as we see how customers use Ps on the iPad. While leveraging the same code base helps accelerate development, we’re also deeply committed to rethinking every experience for the pencil and touch screen to give you the best Photoshop experience possible no matter what environment you work in. We know we have more work to do and we encourage you to share what’s important to you after you’ve tried the product.

Join our community forums:

• Photoshop on iPad
• Photoshop

To orient you, the standard Photoshop toolbar is on the left, modernized for touch. Layers are on the right, modernized for a smaller screen to maximize canvas space. You can also see a detailed layers panel, just like desktop if that’s your preference.

All your work is automatically saved to the cloud using a new system we are also introducing today that we call cloud documents (details on that below). All your cloud documents are PSDs and are automatically saved across all your Photoshops and available to edit everywhere Photoshop is. So whether you flip over to check your email, head back to the home screen, or walk away from your iPad, you won’t lose your work.

We have some in-app tours and video tutorials to get you started and a new home button that takes you to where you can continue existing projects or start new ones. Currently you can export to PNG, JPEG, PSD, TIFF.

The help icon, which is the ? in the top right corner, takes you to help and community forums where we’d love for you to participate here.

Today, Photoshop on the iPad is available to all Creative Cloud customers who have a subscription to Photoshop. Get it here.

• Existing Photoshop subscribers: Simply download Photoshop on your iPad from the iOS app store (also on your iPad), log in with your Adobe ID and take it for a whirl. It is included in your subscription.
• If you do not have a subscription to Photoshop: please visit our Photoshop page to learn more and get started here.

For more info, click here.

Share like crazy using #PhotoshopOniPad and #Photoshop

Cloud documents

Cloud documents provide a streamlined method to work, share and manage creative documents across devices. This system is deeply integrated into Photoshop on the desktop and iPad, Adobe Fresco and Adobe Aero. Cloud documents enable you to work on your projects seamlessly across apps. Instead of exporting and importing files, simply connect to the internet, open your PSD from the app Home Screen and pick up where you left off. If you’ve been using Adobe XD, this workflow will be familiar as we use the same system for XD files. We are thrilled to integrate the cloud document capabilities into Photoshop and expand our support to PSDs today. (When a PSD is in the cloud, we’ve changed the extension to PSDC, “C” for cloud. It retains all the same characteristics and capabilities of an offline PSD.)

Saving your creative work as cloud documents will enable exclusive benefits:

• Work from anywhere and access your creative work across devices like Photoshop on your desktop, iPad and Adobe Fresco and Adobe Aero
• Work on one PSD file on Photoshop on your desktop, on Photoshop on your iPad and Fresco on your iPad, with all your edits seamlessly saved to that file from these apps via autosave
• Easily find creative files directly from within your application’s Home
• Peace of mind. Your documents are automatically saved and you are using the most up-to-date version

Home is easy to navigate to in Photoshop on the desktop, iPad and Fresco with similar tools and capabilities in all the apps.

Some key details about cloud documents:

• You can also choose to save your Photoshop desktop PSDs locally on your computer or in a different cloud storage location, exactly the same as in prior versions of Photoshop.
• You can use Photoshop on your desktop or iPad while offline. For Photoshop on the desktop, working offline is exactly the same as in prior versions of Photoshop.
• Cloud documents in Photoshop desktop and Photoshop on the iPad and Fresco are auto-saved.
• All documents in Photoshop on your iPad and Fresco are default cloud documents and default auto-saved to the cloud. You can export them to your device or other storage locations any time.
• Cloud documents, like libraries and synced files, are part of the Creative Cloud services included with your membership and count toward your Creative Cloud storage allocation.

For more info, click here and here.

Photoshop

Learn even more about what’s new in this version of Photoshop here.

On February 19, we will celebrate Photoshop’s 30th birthday. We now have many customers who were born after Photoshop and have never been without it. I’m so incredibly proud to be part of a product that continues to be the tool used by millions of creative people worldwide to bring their imaginations to life. Today that tool gets even better.

First, you will be thrilled with some of the improvements we’ve added using our Sensei technology of artificial intelligence and machine learning- particularly new capabilities in the Object Selection Tool and Content-Aware-Fill.

Many aspects of the user experience and engine have been re-architected for speed including places like the Home screen where you can see and open your PSDs; and the File > New dialog, which now launches almost instantaneously. Non-polling trackers, Manta canvas all work faster. Opening files on the Mac is also speedier now.

The home screen looks different because we’ve added things like access to cloud documents. We also have a “What’s new” tour so you can very easily see what we’ve added to each release as we are now constantly shipping new capabilities.

Properties Panel

We’ve cut out steps to navigate through multiple panels and dialogs by repackaging top tasks into a central location. These properties are shown contextually for the given content selected. This includes:

• Document properties like canvas size, color mode, background fill, and toggles for rulers, grids and guides.
• Pixel layer properties like transform options, alignment options, background removal and select subject shortcuts.
• Type properties like selecting tracking, leading, aliasing options, OpenType features and more.

We’ve also added new quick action buttons to accelerate common tasks. For example you can now one-click to remove background or select subject while in the pixel layer properties panel or quickly convert text layers into a frame or shape.

Preset Panels: Swatches, Gradients, Patterns, Shapes and Styles

Preset workflows have received a complete overhaul. These improvements make up some of the all-time top requests across all customer types. You get:

• New beautiful, modern default content like gradients and patterns (we know you’ll miss the old ones).

• New, dedicated panels for gradients, patterns and shapes.
• Manage your presets by organizing them into groups. Drag and move to rearrange and re-order.
• New behaviors, like drag and drop gradients, patterns and swatches onto the canvas.
• Quickly try different looks by clicking through your presets to see a live preview on canvas.

Don’t like the changes? The familiar legacy presets can still be accessed and loaded via the contextual panel menu item “Legacy presets.”

For more info

• Swatches
• Gradients
• Patterns
• More patterns
• Shapes
• Styles

Object Selection Tool

This tool has been promoted to the top spot under the magic selections tool icon. We use Sensei AI machine learning to enable you to automatically select single, multiple or parts of objects in an image; speeding up complex selections.

For more info, click here.

Select subject

Select Subject gets better edges, is faster on a Mac and we’ve reduced the size of the Sensei AI machine learning model on disk without reducing quality so we can also run it on Photoshop on iPad and achieve identical results on both platforms (this feature coming to iPad soon).

For more info, click here.

Content-Aware-Fill Enhancements

We’ve added three ways to identify where in your image you want it to look for source pixels as fill content.

• Auto: intelligently select source pixels by analyzing pixels near the selection
• Rectangular: Chooses pixels nearby
• Custom: gives you full control. You identify exactly which pixels to fill from

For more info, click here.

Smart Object Convert to Layers

Image: https://theblog.adobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/image2-4.png

Convert a Smart Object back into its component layers to fine-tune your designs—and do it all in one place, without having to switch between document windows. Right-click any existing Smart Object and use the menu item ‘Convert to Layers’ to unpack the layers.

This is a specific response to requests from some of our power users and we worked very closely with them to get it right.

For more info, click here.

Lens Blur

Now you can take better advantage of the depth maps coming out of your camera. You can set a focal point to choose what to blur and keep in focus (foreground, background, etc). We’ve also made it speedier with GPU improvements.

Transform Warp Enhancements

We’ve added much more flexibility and control to transform warp with the ability to drag with bezier curves. We’ve added preset grids: 3×3, 4×4, 5×5 defaults. You can also create your own custom-sized grids (20×4 for example) and add and move your own new gridlines and anchor points.

There’s also a new keyboard shortcut (option/alt). This supports multiple undos to remove gridlines as you add them. And you can shift/drag to select multiple points for more control over creative warping.

For more info, click here.

32-Bit HDR Images

We’ve added adjustment layers for curves and brightness / contrast for 32-bit images.

Consistent Transform Behavior

You spoke. We listened. Proportionally transform multiple layers, regardless of the type, without using Shift. However, if you prefer the legacy behavior, simply click the link in the transform option bar to revert back to legacy behavior (all layers free transform by default). With a single click, you can set up Photoshop to your preferred transform behavior.

For more info, click here.

Smart Object and Layer Comp Tracking

Now save the variation of a Layer Comp within a Smart Object to save time from manually setting each variation.

For more info, click here.

New Shortcuts

• Paint/erase with the same brush: Use the (~) key to toggle between painting and erasing with the same brush tip. This is a popular customer request also available on the iPad.
• Faster layer navigation: Option/single click on a layer and zoom to that layer to help with faster navigation, especially with complex layered-documents.
• Quickly rotate the brush tip by using the left and right arrow keys when a brush tool is active.

For more info, click here.

And So Much More

…Document tab improvements, native animated GIF support, better handling of scratch disks out of space…

• Report issues and suggest features.
• Discuss workflow and get help with how-to questions or basic troubleshooting.
• For more info on what’s new, click here.

Share like crazy using #Photoshop

More New Apps Connected to Cloud Documents and Photoshop

Adobe Fresco

Download it here: iPad or Windows

I love the new Adobe Fresco app we launched on iPad in September. Today we are also bringing it to Windows 10. For the first version of Fresco on Windows, we’re targeting dedicated drawing devices like the Microsoft Surface Pro and the Wacom Mobile StudioPro, which deliver the most realistic experience for artists.

What’s Fresco? It’s a new drawing and painting app from Adobe, optimized for the latest pen and touch devices. It’s incredible to see what the team has done with the amazing Sensei AI and machine learning tech our researchers are pumping out.

First, we’ve brought raster and vector drawing together, and reimagined features like selection and masking to streamline your illustration process. Tools and features are powerful enough for professionals to do real work, but simple enough for anyone to use.

It has the world’s most beautiful brushes, including the exclusive Live Sensei-powered brushes with blossoming watercolors and creamy oils. Infinitely scalable vector brushes create crisp lines, ready to print at any size. And all your favorites from Photoshop import flawlessly, along with thousands of brushes created by Kyle T. Webster.

Learn what Kyle has to say about these amazing brushes here.

With Photoshop integration and your art auto-saved to the cloud, brushes and projects follow you wherever inspiration strikes.

Fresco also supports cloud documents and uses the PSD format. All your Fresco artwork is also saved with all your Photoshops across desktop and iPad for seamless workflows without importing or exporting. Libraries sync brushes and color swatches from Photoshop on your desktop to Adobe Fresco, and back. (This is coming in future to Photoshop on iPad too!)

Share like crazy using #adobefresco

Link to Fresco Max blog

Link to Fresco forum

Adobe Aero

Download it here.

Artists, designers …join us at the beginning of a new era, to define the intersection of augmented reality and art. Liberate your work from the limited, boring 2D world of your device and create an immersive AR experience with our new app, Adobe Aero. Until now, AR creation has only been available to developers who can code. But with Aero, all that changes for you … today.

Today we release Aero, the new iOS phone app for artists and designers that makes it possible to create and share interactive, immersive AR experiences. What I love about Aero is that you can do this immediately, using the content you already have in your collection right now. Even I can do it!

Visualize how your latest creation will look hanging on a wall. Or show an installation to clients in the room where it will actually live. Or just play around and turn your 2D world into AR. Simply import your image files like .jpg, .png or .psd into Aero and visualize for yourself or stakeholders what it would look like in the real world.

Aero also takes you beyond just pure visualization to turn layered .psd files into engaging AR experiences. Add depth between layers using intuitive touch controls. Enhance your scene by adding triggers and actions to your content so that viewers can interact and play with the objects in your scene. Aero also enables you to combine 2D and 3D assets together to compose a scene. Choose from hundreds of 3D starter assets or import 3D models you find on Adobe Stock or other 3D marketplaces.

Just like Photoshop and Fresco, Aero lets you create with ease by auto-saving your work as a cloud document. For now, you will still need to import creations made in Photoshop and Fresco as a .psd file into Aero to use them as an asset in your scene. But since all of these apps are connected via cloud documents, in the future you will be able to seamlessly work between apps and platforms no matter where you are.

Experiences made in Aero are .real files and available in the cloud documents organizer inside the application. You can share the AR experiences you create:

• To social to be viewed as a video
• As link that opens in Aero
• As a file exported and shared and viewable on any iOS mobile device that support Quick Look for AR

Let’s get started!

Link to Aero blog.

For more info, click here.

Creative Cloud Desktop

We are also shipping an all new Creative Cloud desktop application. I encourage you to take a peek because it makes using and navigating the Creative Cloud much faster and easier. Starting today, you can easily get from the Creative Cloud desktop app to your cloud documents stored on Assets.Adobe.com to view, download and share your PSDs.

The application experience has been completely redesigned to:

• Be a more intuitive way to access and update your apps and discover new apps
• Easily collect, manage and share graphic elements, colors, character styles and more through rich new Creative Cloud Libraries integration
• Enable easier access to tutorial content along with comprehensive search and element management features.

For Photoshop customers, I’m most excited about how we’ve unlocked Libraries management and collaboration for you. You now have full screen management of your Libraries elements.

If you’re new to Libraries, it’s the perfect tool to capture, organize and share the creative ingredients you need at your fingertips inside your favorite Creative Cloud applications. Libraries can include colors, character styles, images, logos, templates, brushes and more.

With this release, we’ve improved the ability to manage and collaborate using Libraries content. Plus, we’ve built Library packs for you, which can be used to familiarize yourself with Libraries, as inspiration, or in your work. You can find them behind the plus button in the top of the left panel by choosing “follow public libraries.”

The new full-screen Library view in the desktop app makes managing and organizing your Library a breeze. Whether you want inspiration for a new project or to create and gather together the brand assets for clients, it’s all possible in the app.

We launched it to customers in October. You may notice it for the first time as you download all the product updates we are shipping today.

Link to Creative Cloud Desktop blog post.

For more details on Creative Cloud Libraries and how they can help streamline your Creativity, click here.

And that brings us to the culmination of another incredible year for the Photoshop team and all our extended collaborators, supporters and friends and family at Adobe.

For inside info about Photoshop, sneak peeks, other stuff, follow me on Twitter: @mapclark.