Adobe is finally making some noticeable moves toward bringing a full, desktop-class version of Photoshop to iOS.
It's something people have been clamoring for nearly a decade. The iPad, after all, launched in 2010. While Adobe has offered various Creative Cloud mobile products over the years, including Express, Sketch, Mix, and Fix, these only bring some Photoshop features to iOS users. They're extremely limited in functionality and aren't even close to offering a full Photoshop experience.
Now, Adobe is ready to make up for lost time. It's previewed what it calls real Photoshop CC for iPad while at the 2018 Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles. It showed how to edit a multi-layer PSD file on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. You can retouch, erase, mask, and duplicate away, with complete access to the toolbar and layer management menus, all of which are optimised for touch.
Better yet, edits made to PSD files on an iPad will sync via Creative Cloud to the desktop version of Photoshop CC, so the same file can be opened and manipulated across multiple devices - no exporting or converting required.
Pull up a seat 'cause we've got an announcement for you – and this one's a doozy! Not only are we bringing #Photoshop to the iPad, but we've got a load of other updates including #AdobeDimension, Project Gemini, Project Aero, and more: https://t.co/OYXQ5D9bdF pic.twitter.com/2jE2HCYpjZ
— Adobe Photoshop (@Photoshop) October 15, 2018
Unfortunately, to deliver a 1.0 sooner rather than later, Photoshop CC for iPad will initially arrive sometime in 2019 with only a select set of core Photoshop features, but Adobe is promising to add the full set over time.