Adobe brings Photoshop Touch to iPad

It has been some time since Adobe announced plans to release an iPad-specific version of the image editing tool Photoshop, and that day is finally here. Adobe Photoshop Touch arrived today, joining a surprising number of software announcements coming out of Mobile World Congress.

Photoshop Touch is a latecomer to iPad. Adobe released an Android tablet version in November.

There was already Photoshop.com Mobile, which could be used on an iPhone or iPad, but this is the real deal -- an astonishingly powerful version of the world famous digital photo manipulation tool. It should come as little surprise that this is resource hungry beast, so anyone with a first generation iPad is out of luck; you need to be toting an iPad 2 running iOS 5 to run this app.

Weighing in at $9.99, this app is one of the more expensive in the App Store, but this is a seriously impressive tool. Far more than just a fingerpainting app for your tablet, there is a huge selection of powerful tools that you also find in the desktop version of Adobe’s software. You are limited to working with images with a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1600, but you are free to work with layers, adding drop shadows, image blending and the usual array of filters and effects.

The majority of iPad apps are simple enough affairs that require little introduction -- in most cases you should be able to pick up an app and get started with it straight away -- but whether you are familiar with the desktop version of Photoshop or not, it’s worth spending a little while working through the selection of tutorials that have been included, just to familiarize yourself with the slightly different method of working.

Equipped only with fingers, you might imagine that it would be difficult to perform tasks such as selecting objects to work with.  In reality, working with the Scribble Selection tool followed by the Refine Edge tool, things are much easier than you might first think.

The ability to work with layers is Adobe Photoshop Touch’s strong point, but the option of move, skewing, rotating and resizing selections is also very useful. There are also features that are unique to the iPad, such as Camera Fill which enables you to use the iPad’s camera to create backgrounds and textures.

There are a number of ways in which to get images into the app ready to work with. Of course you have the option of snapping a photo with your camera, but you can also import images you have uploaded to Facebook. If you have made use of Adobe Creative Cloud, this can also be used as an import source, and you even have the ability to use an integrated version of Google Images to grab images from the internet.

Quirks such as an inability to open PSD files, although you will find that you are able to open Photoshop Touch files on your desktop computer, are going to prove irritating to some, but on the whole this is a well-polished product worthy of the Photoshop name.

You can find out more and purchase a copy of the app by paying a visit to the Adobe Photoshop Touch review page.