New tools in Adobe Fresco 2.7 make experimentation easy

Art by Max Dima.

Change a color. Realign or reorganize content. Add a new shape. Find a better brush stroke.

One of benefits of drawing and painting digitally is that work can remain fluid… up until the exact moment that it’s “done.” With the new features in Adobe Fresco 2.7 it’s infinitely easier for artists to try different approaches and change their minds right up until that moment arrives.

Color exploration without commitment

Because art is shaped by experience, ideas and insight it can begin as one thing and end up as another. As a result, otherwise “finished” work can contain color that’s no longer aligned with an artistic vision.

Experimenting with color variations in Fresco used to be time-consuming. But Adjustment Layers, on iPad and Windows, enable non-destructive tonal and color edits to any layers beneath them: That’s color exploration without permanent color commitment. To get started experimenting with Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, and Color Balance, tap the Appearances icon (those interlocking circles) in the taskbar.

Art by Eva Redamonti.

Putting ducks in a row… or not

A haphazard group of birds or a perfectly aligned row of feet - whether flawlessly uniform or deliberately asymmetrical, artists always have reasons for how content, composition, and message align. New Graph Grids on iPad and Windows help with that — a grid underlayment enables you to see how the elements of your art line up. Tap on the graph icon in the taskbar to reveal the Precision panel and get started using Fresco’s grids to position the facets of your art.

Art by Erin Connally.

Snap to position

Being able to easily center the content of a layer is useful even if symmetry isn’t always your thing. And Fresco makes it effortless. A tap-and-a-drag in Transform mode is all it takes to snap a layer’s content to the center of the canvas: Transform. Drag. Snap. Simple. Control this setting, and Rotation Snapping, in Fresco’s Precision panel on Windows and iPad.

Art by Tainosuke 鯛之助.

Hide. Reveal. Edit.

Masks hide. Masks reveal. Masks also enable non-destructive editing and exploration. Once relegated to Pixel layers, we’ve added masking support to all layers: Vector, Image, and, on iOS, Type. So go ahead. Experiment. Edit. Changes are easily reversible on every layer in Fresco.

Art by Jamie Bauza.

The tools last used

Have a personalized place on the canvas for the tool Settings panel? Beginning with this update, that panel will be wherever you placed it the last time you used the app. It’s a customization of your work surface that never goes away. Even better though, Fresco will also remember which tool you were using when you last closed a document.

Art by Musonda Kabwe.

Find and follow

On iOS for a while, but new to Windows, Discover Brushes is Fresco’s in-app way to help people easily find and follow Kyle T. Webster’s brush libraries. But “discover” is not only a way to unearth never-used-before brushes, we’ve also incorporated that same function into our Shapes menu for a fast, fluid, and form-filled way to follow curated shape collections. Get started by tapping the + at the bottom of the Shapes and Pixel brushes menus. No longer want to follow a library? Tap Unfollow. It’s as easy as that.

Art by Nadejda Aliénor.

It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

There are so many new reasons to give Fresco a try and even some older ones:

Since Adobe MAX 2020, we’ve added a Text feature to iPhone. And Drawing Aids (the basic shapes of drawing) to iPad and Windows. We’ve also made changes to Smudge and Mixer brushes to make both more responsive and more realistic. It’s also a snap to drag-and-drop multiple layers and to pick-up color with the Eyedropper tool.

As far as we’ve come, we still feel like we’re just getting started. Stay a part of the conversation as we continue developing Fresco:

Catch Adobe Drawing on Instagram or Twitter.

See how people are using our app in the Fresco Gallery and Fresco Streaming Gallery on Behance.

And tell us on UserVoice how we can make Fresco the drawing app you need.