Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPhone brings powerful image editing to the iPhone and iPod touch

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Adobe on Wednesday officially released the latest iteration of its mobile Photoshop software, Photoshop Touch for Phone, bringing powerful image editing to the iPhone and iPod touch.

Photoshop Touch for Phone


Photoshop Touch for Phone is surprisingly full-featured for an app built to take on small format screens like the iPhone, boasting niceties users of the desktop version have become accustomed to, including layers, adjustment tools and filters.

From the release notes:
  • Improve your photos using classic Photoshop features to bring out the best in your photography. Apply precise tone and color adjustments to your entire composition, a particular layer, or a select area.
  • Create something other-worldly using painting effects, filter brushes, and so much more. With Photoshop Touch, the creative possibilities are endless.
  • Make your images pop with graphical text. Apply strokes, add drop shadows and fades, and more.
  • Take advantage of your device?s camera to fill an area on a layer with the unique Camera Fill feature.
  • Quickly combine images together. Select part of an image to extract just by scribbling with the Scribble Selection tool. With the Refine Edge feature, use your fingertip to easily capture hard-to-select image elements, like hair.
  • Work on high-resolution images while maintaining the highest image quality. Images up to 12 megapixels are supported.
Buyers will also get access to Adobe Creative Cloud, which allows users to sync projects and switch between Photoshop mobile and desktop versions. The membership includes 2GB of Creative Cloud storage

Along with the image editing feature set and Creative Cloud integration, users can easily share their work with friends through via Facebook and Twitter, as well as the usual "save to camera roll" iOS compatibility.

The iOS version of the app weighs in at 32.2MB and requires iOS 6 running on an iPhone 5, iPhone 4S or fifth-generation iPod touch. Adobe Photoshop Touch for Phone is available now in the App Store for $4.99.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 29
    You can't create on an iDevice. It can only consume. It's just a toy¡
  • Reply 2 of 29
    Hmmmmm...

    Maybe someone can answe this. I have headshots that need touching up. Minor manipulation. Is this program robust enough to do a professional touch up that I could use?

    I'm sick of paying 20$ a pop to have some minor touch ups done lol.
  • Reply 3 of 29
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post



    You can't create on an iDevice. It can only consume. It's just a toy¡


    I'm truly surprised they didn't have something like this out sooner. It's not that an idevice is ideal for content creation. It's the ability to mark things or make changes on a device that you carry everywhere. That in itself is extremely powerful. In terms of Adobe in general, I've been disappointed with them for years. They keep adding features that half work. They didn't add LUT support until CS6, and it still lacks native support for 16 bit half float formats. They still open as 32, which of course takes 2 million years to save. The background save function is nice. I no longer go get coffee while waiting for files to save, but these things were ignored for years. If I got a 1-2GB file cluttered with smart objects saved at a higher bit depth, it could take minutes to decompress and open due to a bloated file and single threaded process used to open it.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by StephanJobs View Post



    Hmmmmm...



    Maybe someone can answe this. I have headshots that need touching up. Minor manipulation. Is this program robust enough to do a professional touch up that I could use?



    I'm sick of paying 20$ a pop to have some minor touch ups done lol.




    Even Gimp could do that on your notebook or desktop, and it's free. It's not as smooth as PS, but you could do that. It's not like anyplace offering the stuff for $20 a pop is turning out the best work anyway. Anyone could replace that. Also yeah this program could probably do the same thing. Just don't overdo it, and no one will know.

  • Reply 4 of 29
    iqatedoiqatedo Posts: 1,822member

    Quote:


    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



    Adobe on Wednesday officially released the latest iteration of its mobile Photoshop software, Photoshop Touch for Phone, bringing powerful image editing to the iPhone and iPod touch.




    Photoshop Touch for Phone is surprisingly full-featured for an app built to take on small format screens like the iPhone, boasting niceties users of the desktop version have become accustomed to, including layers, adjustment tools and filters.



    But... it's not a computer, how is that possible.


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post



    You can't create on an iDevice. It can only consume. It's just a toy¡


    Such was my reaction and no doubt, that of many here.

  • Reply 5 of 29


    I already have bought the Snapseed and iPhoto App for iPad/iPhone. If Adobe would have made this an universal App, I would have even paid $9.99 for the iPad App for the rare occasions where PhotoShop would come in handy.


     


    But you can hardly do serious photo retouching on an iPhone, so this iPhone app should be a "bonus" for buying the iPad app instead of spending another $4.99...


     


    So I would suggest to get the free universal Snapseed App for good and quick retouching on the road and maybe add the universal iPhoto app for $4.99 instead of forking that money over to Adobe under the current pricing scheme...

     

  • Reply 6 of 29
    Hmmmmm...

    Maybe someone can answe this. I have headshots that need touching up. Minor manipulation. Is this program robust enough to do a professional touch up that I could use?

    I'm sick of paying 20$ a pop to have some minor touch ups done lol.

    You can easily use this app for what you just described. I have the tablet version and use it in for mockups on a lot of my design projects. This is not the same as the express version it much more powerful.
  • Reply 7 of 29
    Hmmmmm...

    Maybe someone can answe this. I have headshots that need touching up. Minor manipulation. Is this program robust enough to do a professional touch up that I could use?

    I'm sick of paying 20$ a pop to have some minor touch ups done lol.

    You can easily use this app for what you just described. I have the tablet version and use it for mockups on a lot of my design projects. This is not the same as the express version it's much more powerful.
  • Reply 8 of 29
    froodfrood Posts: 771member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by StephanJobs View Post



    Hmmmmm...



    Maybe someone can answe this. I have headshots that need touching up. Minor manipulation. Is this program robust enough to do a professional touch up that I could use?



    I'm sick of paying 20$ a pop to have some minor touch ups done lol.


     


    How professional do you need it?  Minor manipulation would be a breeze with this.  If you have a Mac or PC, the full version is much more powerful as tablets still don't really pass muster in the horsepower department.  If you're more concerned with simplicity and convenience, the tablet version will still impress.

  • Reply 9 of 29
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    banditt wrote: »
    I already have bought the Snapseed and iPhoto App for iPad/iPhone. If Adobe would have made this an universal App, I would have even paid $9.99 for the iPad App for the rare occasions where PhotoShop would come in handy.

    But you can hardly do serious photo retouching on an iPhone, so this iPhone app should be a "bonus" for buying the iPad app instead of spending another $4.99...

    So I would suggest to get the free universal Snapseed App for good and quick retouching on the road and maybe add the universal iPhoto app for $4.99 instead of forking that money over to Adobe under the current pricing scheme...

     

    I am curious why this is talked about as for an iPhone only or seems to be, surely the exact same app on an iPad screen would be far easier to use? Or am I missing something here? Maybe this is already available for iPad?
  • Reply 10 of 29


    Do they have a usable interface for complex selection tasks?


     


    That’s a big reason that I can’t use the iOS version of Keynote for much more than touch-ups. For example, if I need to make an edit on an item in a group that’s animated, on the Mac, I can double-click the item to select it as an individual entity, edit it, and the change is made without losing the grouping or the animation. In the iOS version, you can’t (or couldn’t when I last checked) edit an item in a group, so you have to ungroup, do the edit, do a multiple-select using awkward finger work, then redo the animation from scratch.


     


    Of course with Photoshop you aren’t doing quite this sort of task. The big-picture issue is whether complex interactions involving multiple selections and similar levels of complexity work with your fingers. Otherwise it’s also only good for touch-ups.


     


    And 32MB may not look a lot vs. a full Photoshop (more than 10x the size), but that illustrates how bloated software has become. 32MB for a highly slimmed down version. I bet the original Photoshop was a fraction of the size. Let’s see: 128,000 lines of source code I would expect to compile to around 1MB of machine code (Motorola 68k or IA32; PPC maybe more).

  • Reply 11 of 29

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post




    Quote:

    Originally Posted by BandiTT View Post



    I already have bought the Snapseed and iPhoto App for iPad/iPhone. If Adobe would have made this an universal App, I would have even paid $9.99 for the iPad App for the rare occasions where PhotoShop would come in handy.



    But you can hardly do serious photo retouching on an iPhone, so this iPhone app should be a "bonus" for buying the iPad app instead of spending another $4.99...



    So I would suggest to get the free universal Snapseed App for good and quick retouching on the road and maybe add the universal iPhoto app for $4.99 instead of forking that money over to Adobe under the current pricing scheme...



     




    I am curious why this is talked about as for an iPhone only or seems to be, surely the exact same app on an iPad screen would be far easier to use? Or am I missing something here? Maybe this is already available for iPad?


     


    This is a pretty nice app!  I bought this a while back for my granddaughter on the iPad -- it  costs twice as much as the iPhone version at 10 bucks.


     


    I never really tried it before, but I spent the last hour going through the tutorials… And it's quite nice.


     


    It's hard to describe, but it has a scribble selection tool that allows you to quickly isolate an area of an image (like a person's head) and manipulate it.


     


    There is a video at:


     


    http://www.photoshop.com/products/mobile/photoshoptouch


     


    At about 30 seconds in, they show an example of scribble select used to extract a woman's head.


     


    The only bad thing I have to say about it is that Adobe seems to be a bit greedy – it should be a universal app rather than having to buy an iPhone copy and an iPad copy.

  • Reply 12 of 29
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member
    What is this? An advertisement?
    "Powerful"??? really?

    iPhoto for iOS runs rings around this and this is Adobe's second or third try at this stuff.

    What a garbage article this is. No context, no comparisons ... just word for word repeating of Adobe's ad copy with pictures.

    This is the kind of article that should be on CultofMac or TUAW or some other shill site.
  • Reply 13 of 29

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post



    What is this? An advertisement?

    "Powerful"??? really?



    iPhoto for iOS runs rings around this and this is Adobe's second or third try at this stuff.



    What a garbage article this is. No context, no comparisons ... just word for word repeating of Adobe's ad copy with pictures.



    This is the kind of article that should be on CultofMac or TUAW or some other shill site.


    Isn't this app also on Android? They could provide something so much better if they focused only on iOS...


     


    Much better hardware and software.

  • Reply 14 of 29
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post



    What is this? An advertisement?

    "Powerful"??? really?



    iPhoto for iOS runs rings around this and this is Adobe's second or third try at this stuff.



    What a garbage article this is. No context, no comparisons ... just word for word repeating of Adobe's ad copy with pictures.



    This is the kind of article that should be on CultofMac or TUAW or some other shill site.


    Well since you know that iPhoto is so much better I'm assuming you have tried Photoshop already.


     


    Being an expert and all perhaps you should write the comparison for us.


    For some reason Photoshop get four stars while iPhoto only gets three.


     


    BTW there is Photoshop Express (free) and Photoshop ($9.99) so if you include Express, Photoshop for iPad and Photoshop for iPhone you are correct, this would be the third iOS app from Adobe with the name Photoshop in the title.

  • Reply 15 of 29

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post



    What is this? An advertisement?

    "Powerful"??? really?



    iPhoto for iOS runs rings around this and this is Adobe's second or third try at this stuff.



    What a garbage article this is. No context, no comparisons ... just word for word repeating of Adobe's ad copy with pictures.



    This is the kind of article that should be on CultofMac or TUAW or some other shill site.


     


    This is a different breed of app than iOS iPhoto!


     


    It has layers, masks, and selection tools that allow you to extract and manipulate parts of a photo on separate layers:


     


    For example:


     


     


    Use the Scribble Select Tool on an image layer to quickly identify an area (the woman's head) that you want to extract:



    1. Press the  Keep button and roughly outline the area inside -- green line


    2. Press the  Remove button and roughly outline the area outside -- red line


    3. It automatically creates the selection in the second image


    4. Select Extract from the pencil menu and it removes everything outside the selection (You can feather the selection if you like)


     


     



     


     


     



     


     


    In the image below, I added a Background layer of a 3D  Apple Maps Flyover of Niagara Falls and removed the white area between the head and ponytail (as above).


     


     


  • Reply 16 of 29


    My first thought on playing with PS Touch was that tablets with a stylus, like the Sammy Note tabs, would have a distinct advantage for things like detailed selection, pen tool, etc.


     


    In fact, PS Touch doesn't have a pen tool -- and does a great job of selection with just your fingers -- as shown in an earlier post.


     


    AFAICT, There is no Scribble Select Tool i desktop Photoshop -- this means that this function is faster and easier on a Touch tablet -- than the traditional pen tool / stroke path on the desktop.


     


    There are probably advantages, though, to using a stylus for painting, drawing, etc.   It is about time that Apple supports a stylus such as the Wacom.

  • Reply 17 of 29
    Being able to add text makes this a serious app to consider over Snapseed or iPhoto.
  • Reply 18 of 29
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


     


     




     


     


    While your selection tools did a reasonable job, notice the part just below her neck where the selection did not find the edge properly. This is the main problem with magic wand selections and why professionals NEVER use it. The path tool (pen) is missing from the iOS versions of Photoshop which is really necessary for realistic clipping. Clipping hair is best done with the channels and alpha masking features.


     


    image

  • Reply 19 of 29

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


     


    While your selection tools did a reasonable job, notice the part just below her neck where the selection did not find the edge properly. This is the main problem with magic wand selections and why professionals NEVER use it. The path tool (pen) is missing from the iOS versions of Photoshop which is really necessary for realistic clipping. Clipping hair is best done with the channels and alpha masking features.



     


    Well, I did a QUAD selection  (QUick And Dirty) selection using the Scribble Select Tool...  It took about 10 seconds.


     


    It isn't perfect, but is more accurate than the Magic Wand Tool (no holes o=in the selection).


     


    That said, Scribble Select, quickly got me in the ball park.  Then, I could have refined  (added to or removed from) that selection using other tools...  I think that would have been quite accurate and still a lot faster than the Pen Tool.


     


    I don't own a Wacom Tablet --- but do a lot of rotoscoping with Bezier and Splines -- so I am quite proficient with with the Pen Tools.  It usually is a multi-step process too:



    1. Quickly lay down multiple pen points for the general outline


    2. Move/add/delete/re-handle points for a good basic outline (about the quality of the Scribble Select)


    3. Focus of the detail like hair and anomalies


    4. Convert and Feather the path into a selection


     


    PS Touch is new to me -- I played with the tutorials for about an hour -- then did the Scribble Select example.   I believe I got to the equivalent of step 2 much faster than I could have done with mouse and keyboard.  I think I could have done step 3 and the Feathering with other tools as fast as with a mouse.


     


    I am going to play around some more and see how difficult it is to get something that compares with the pen tool in Photoshop.


     


     


    BTW, I don't understand why PS Touch or Pages iOS don't support a pen tool -- there are some iPad apps that have a pen tool that works quite well.   The biggest concern is how to finger-point to the points and handles.   But this can easily be resolved with a loupe (zoom) tool with a virtual granular pointer.


     


    I often use the OS X Accessibility kb shortcut for loupe (zoom) when detailed positioning is need on a desktop app.


     


     


    Edit:  Don't take my word the capabilities of PS Touch...  There's this guy named Russell Brown*...


     


    http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-russell-brown/scribble-tool/


     


    http://www.photoshop.com/tutorials/12177


     


    http://www.photoshop.com/tutorials/11134


     


     


    * It is early 1985, our San Jose Computer Plus Store has just opened -- Mostly Macs, but a few PCs on the display/demo pods -- pretty light traffic.


     


    The Comptroller of Adobe, Owen Tarranta [sp] lives nearby and drops in... we talk for a while, then he leaves. About an hour later, Owen is back with a $7,000, 77 lb LaserWriter under his arm.  The LaserWriter had been announced by Apple but was not shipping yet.


     


    We spend about an hour setting up a Mac to drive the LaserWriter ** -- and run a few canned demos.  Then, Owen calls someone at Adobe...


     


    A while later in walks Russell Brown with a bag of micro floppies.   There really weren't any apps, then,  that exploiiedt the LaserWriter -- it just looks like a buffered page printer to the Mac.


     


    So, for the next 2 days, Russell performs his magic -- typing raw Postscript programs/data into the Laserwriter from the Mac...


     


    Beautiful images emerge: gorgeous smoothed graphics and fonts, spirals, shades of gray photos, gradient multi-part forms... you name it.   


     


    ** The LaserWriter contained the most powerful CPU of any Apple device.

  • Reply 20 of 29
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post



    ... It usually is a multi-step process too:


    1. Quickly lay down multiple pen points for the general outline


    2. Move/add/delete/re-handle points for a good basic outline (about the quality of the Scribble Select)


    3. Focus of the detail like hair and anomalies


    4. Convert and Feather the path into a selection


     



    I don't use that procedure at all. I start zoomed way in and cut a perfect path on the first go 'round. The path tool cannot be used for strands of hair. You must use masking in channels to achieve realistic wispy hair.

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