Adobe is aggressively moving into the 'mobile' space this year. Actually, no. Let's rephrase that: Adobe is aggressively moving into the iOS space this year, and basically ignoring Android. The company has introduced its Ink 'Creative Cloud Pen' and Slide 'Digital Ruler' for use with their new iOS apps, Line and Sketch.
Line is a line drawing tool meant for drafting-type drawings under iOS. It provides straight lines, circles and French curves for creating drawings in plan, elevation and perspective views. Sketch, meanwhile, is more of a freeform drawing tool meant to more closely imitate the experience of drawing using traditional media. Both work with the Ink as a drawing tool, but in demonstrations during their presentation on Wednesday there was a perceptible lag when using the pen. Drawing directly with a pen on a screen greatly improves the digital drawing and sketching experience, but having perceptible lag can work against that.
The Ink 'pen' tool allows the storage of various user tools, brushes, presets and palettes in the Creative Cloud. When you go to use your pen on another designer's iPad, it will fetch your settings from the cloud and will be right there with you, making the Ink not just 'a pen,' but your pen.
Photoshop Mix is a new application for image compositing and masking on the iPad, allowing you to edit applications using the power of Photoshop while on your iPad. A portion of Photoshop's powerful filters, like Content-Aware Fill and Camera Shake Reduction, are available via 'cloud-based imaging technology' in this application -- it sounds a lot like the images are being processed in the cloud instead of locally.
Lightroom Mobile (like Lightroom, but mobile) is able to load images from smartphones, tablets, and DSLRs just like its desktop cousin. Edits, processes and organization performed with it on your iPad can be synced back to your desktop.
As part of its mobile push, Adobe also announced a new Creative SDK that allows access to files in the Creative cloud, and includes methods for accessing elements within PSDs. It also allows the use of cloud image editing services like the aforementioned Content-aware Fill within your app. The Adobe Creative SDK was used to build Photoshop Mix and is currently targeted for iOS development. It is being tested by select iOS developers and is expected to enter into a comprehensive beta shortly.
Adobe Sketch, Line and Photoshop Mix are free applications available for IOS devices through the Apple App Store. Ink and Slide are packaged together and available via Adobe.com for $199.99.
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