Adobe releases Photoshop on the iPad 3.6
Posted on 28 October 2021. Scroll down for news of the Photoshop on the iPad 3.6 update.
Adobe has released Photoshop on the iPad 3.0, the latest version of the new edition of its image-editing and digital painting software for use on mobile devices.
The update adds support for Camera Raw files, the Dodge and Burn tool and Smart Objects.
It was announced at Adobe MAX 2021, alongside Photoshop 23.0 and Photoshop on the web, Adobe’s new platform for reviewing and editing Photoshop files inside a standard web browser.
Core Photoshop features, reimagined for use on mobile devices
First released in 2019, Photoshop on the iPad takes the core features of Adobe’s image-editing and digital painting software, and adapts them for use on a touchscreen.
Unlike previous Adobe apps like Photoshop Express, it is built on the same code base as the desktop edition of Photoshop, and is intended to produce identical results.
Files can be exchanged between the two editions via standard export formats like PSD, TIFF, JPG and PNG, or via a cloud documents system.
The initial release included only a restricted subset of Photoshop features focused on “compositing, basic retouching and masking”, but successive updates have steadily fleshed out the feature set.
New in version 3.0: Camera Raw, dodge and burn, and initial support for Smart Objects
To that, Photoshop on the iPad 3.0 adds two more key features for photographic retouching from the desktop edition: the Dodge and Burn tool and support for Camera Raw files, including DNG and ProRAW.
Other users get initial support for Smart Objects: you can now create them on the iPad, but yet edit them.
The update also introduces a new option to share documents online for comments: a collaboration and asset review feature also introduced in the desktop and browser editions of Photoshop.
Updated 15 February 2022: Adobe has released Photoshop on the iPad 3.2.
The update adds two new tools from the desktop edition of Photoshop: the Smudge tool, for blending adjacent colours, and the Sponge tool, for adjusting colour saturation, as shown in the video above.
Updated 11 May 2022: Adobe has released Photoshop on the iPad 3.6.
The 3.6 update adds the Content-Aware Fill tool from the desktop edition, for semi-automatic removal of unwanted objects from images, and makes it possible to view pins and annotations in cloud documents.
The previous update, Photoshop on the iPad 3.5, added Remove Background, a new action for automatically removing the background from an image by tapping on it, leaving a blank alpha channel.
Select Subject, its counterpart for automatically selecting the foreground of an image, was updated to better handle fine details like wisps of hair in Photoshop on the iPad 3.4, which also added a new font browser.
Pricing and system requirements
Photoshop for iPad itself is available for iPadOS 14.0+. You can trial it for free, but you have to make in-app purchases of $9.99/month to continue using it if you don’t have another qualifying subscription.
Photoshop subscriptions, which also include Photoshop on the iPad, cost $31.49/month or $239.88/year.
Read a list of new features in Photoshop on the iPad in the online documentation