61 HAPPENING Adobe MAX
he annual celebration of all things Adobe gathered creatives in Los Angeles in early November. There are usually
However, the reception has been mixed – the initial response on the App Store was poor, excruciatingly so. Many reviewers seem to be outraged by what they see as an underwhelming product, especially after waiting a year for its release. Photoshop on the iPad does have its fans, including those who are not just ‘mobile- first’ but ‘mobile-only’, or find the full- blown Photoshop too complicated. Adobe emphasised that this was a v1 and that users should expect more in the future. The reactions are similar to the response to the release of Apple’s Final Cut Pro, when the company ‘reimagined’ its stalwart NLE and produced industry- wide howls of anguish. It remains to be seen if Adobe will continue to target a new, mobile-first market (very probably) or play to the old guard with the next update. Another highlight at MAX was Fresco, a digital natural painting app, offering a mix of vector and raster tools for the iPad Pro, and now Windows Surface. It offers Live Brushes to mimic the look of painting on a real-world canvas by mixing and interacting with colour on the tablet screen. The company also previewed Illustrator on the iPad, another reimagined
ADOBE IS APPLYING DEEP LEARNING ACROSS THE BOARD to draw directly into the desktop versions of creative tools. But Photoshop is still an iconic product and the new iPad version has been eagerly, breathlessly awaited. Released at MAX 2019, this version of Photoshop on the iPad is aimed primarily at masking, retouching and compositing – but offers a ‘subset’ of tools and layers (with options for both) that closely resemble the desktop version, with the added versatility of touchscreen and support for Apple Pencil. It uses gestures to zoom and pan around an image and allows you to work with full-size PSDs with layers intact. It works smoothly with the familiar Adobe interface – albeit a smaller one (buy the biggest iPad Pro you can afford as the icons can be a little small).
a few famous faces at Adobe MAX, but this year featured a busload of them, including Dave Grohl, M. Night Shyamalan, photographer David LaChapelle and artist Shantell Martin giving insights into their creative processes, with teen singer/ songwriter Billie Eilish and designer Takashi Murakami interviewed about the future of mobile creativity. New products were rolled out across the board for design, video and immersive content creation, but it was mobile creativity that really stood out at MAX 2019. GOING MOBILE After declaring at Adobe MAX a year ago that Photoshop would come to iPad, Adobe has finally made good on the promise. In the meantime, Adobe’s competitors have continued to roll out tablet versions of their own desktop image-editing tools – there are many fans of Procreate, Pixelmator and Affinity Photo for iPad. There are also tools like Astropad or Duet, apps that allow you to use an iPad and Apple Pencil
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