A great fan of Procreate app, I was also curious about Adobe’s app for the iPad. They announced the release of Photoshop for the iPad over a year ago, and since then we got almost no news about their elaborations for mobile devices tooled for professional creators and artists. Until today actually, when there are only a few months left before the release of Adobe Fresco (ex-Project Gemini, introduced at Adobe MAX 2018).
Whereas Photoshop and Illustrator are currently Adobe’s major tools for drawing and designing, Fresco is marketed as a program which provides the option to work in both vector and raster. It means a creator is free to switch between pixel and vector brushes, or even combine them, which has never been realized in Adobe software before.
Full synchronization
Thanks to access to the Creative Cloud library, the app now features thousands of your favourite and most frequently used brushes, color palettes and other resources. And since Adobe Fresco supports all popular formats, you can easily export your projects from one app to another.
Both pixel and vector brushes, and new interface
The hugest and probably main innovation isn’t about combining two formats in a single app though. Instead, Adobe brings live brushes, which use Adobe Sensei’s AI platform to produce realistic watercolor and oil paint strokes. By ‘realistic’ I imply the very tangible magic normally possible on paper. Watercolors spread over, oil paint layers obtain true-to-life volume and texture — have you ever worked with anything like this?
Another feature that predetermines your love (or interest at least) is the intuitive UI, familiar to Adobe users and yet totally different. You will find present a lasso tool, paint bucket, layer masks — but no magic wand, gradients, clipping masks or text tool which has been recently added on Procreate. In return, Adobe Fresco features Touch shortcuts and gesture controls. Depending on how (and how many times) you tap on the layer, you can toggle visibility, undo and redo features. Or if you can double-tap the apple pencil to change the color quickly.
Artworks created in Adobe Fresco
Adobe Fresco’s launch is scheduled for the end of this year. The free app will be available on the App Store, and will work with iPad Pro, the 2019 iPad mini, and the iPad Air. However, a few lucky folks have already received early access to Adobe Fresco and are now fully involved in its creative processes.
