Accidentally launched on the App Store yesterday, withdrawn and now back up today, Adobe have released Photoshop Touch for the iPad at $9.99.
Guess somebody got itchy fingers yesterday and hit the go button a day early! Never mind, the official line is that Adobe have launched the $9.99 Photoshop Touch today at the Mobile World Congress in Spain.
Another of the big image & video applications that have kept Mac tower sales going has headed off to the iPad. Adobe also say that this isn't the only app of theirs that will be converted over either. Collage, Debut, Ideas, Kuler and Proto will all have versions for the iPad soon. Note there is no mention of Premiere in there - that omission might end up being very important and costly to Adobe seeing as the other two big A's have NLE iPad children for sale now. Well (cough) if we rebrand iMovie as FCPX Touch :)
Back to Photoshop Touch and it does seem to ooze coolness, it also looks like it has more features than the preview we saw of the app last year from Adobe. How accurate extraction of elements for layering is we will have to see, but for prepping up photos for uploading to websites or social media pages it seems ideal. Give it a few months and people will be saying 'What did we do before the Scribble Selection tool?" At $9.99 you can't really argue either, a huge ammount of product development over the years distilled and tweked into a touch version. It has already started to get five star reviews on the App Store.
"Photoshop Touch gives users the ability to combine multiple photos into layered images, make essential edits and apply professional effects to create beautiful artwork, touch up photos, paint, lay out ideas and much more. The Scribble Selection Tool allows users to easily extract objects in an image by simply scribbling on what to keep, and then what to remove. With Refine Edge technology from Photoshop, even hard-to-select areas with soft edges are easily captured when making selections. Photoshop Touch helps users quickly find images and share creations through integration with Facebook and Google Image Search."
“People will be amazed with what they can create on the iPad using Photoshop Touch,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media Business Unit, Adobe. “Photoshop Touch combines the magic of Photoshop and its core features with the convenience of a tablet, bringing image-editing power to the fingertips of millions of people.”
To see the App in action for yourself, you can of course splash out the $9.99 or head over to the Adobe TV website. We had a quick count and there are no less than 22 demo or How-To videos up there already. Adobe are taking this launch very seriously.
I think we just might be replacing the iPad version 1 with a version 3 here on the FCP.co campus once Apple announce the new hardware.
© Peter Wiggins/FCP.co 27/2/02
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
