It's time to take command of Photoshop -- with your iPad. Adobe has unveiled Creative Suite 5.5, the latest version of its design software package, including Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver.
Alongside those famous programs are three new iPad apps that let you control the software with a fingertip or five. And if CS 5.5 is too expensive for you, you can now rent Photoshop and friends for as little as £1 per day.
The apps and rental subscription are the major changes. The various programs in CS 5.5 don't see major updates, although Dreamweaver does have improved support for HTML5, effectively a rival to Adobe's own much-maligned Flash.
Adobe's three new apps are Eazel, Nav and Color Lava. Eazel is a painting app that includes paint that 'dries', and transfers your masterpiece to Photoshop. Nav is a custom toolbar that lets you work in full-screen mode on your computer, with the tools on the iPad, like a second monitor. It can also juggle up to 200 documents so you can manage files, or take your work in progress to show others.
Finally, Color Lava is a colour-mixing palette that'll have you mixing paint and creating swatches like your middle name is Michelangelo.
The apps will be in the iTunes Store in May and will cost a couple of quid each. Adobe has also opened up the SDK so developers can create apps for Android, BlackBerry and other portable devices.
If you want to use Adobe apps on your latest project but can't justify £450 to buy the package, you can now rent the software. Miracle-working image editor Photoshop can be rented for £28 per month -- roughly a pound per day -- and the Creative Suite package costs £72 per month. The full enchilada, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection, costs £116 per month.
Would you like to control Photoshop with your phone? What other apps would you find useful to have your tablet talk to your computer? Paint us a picture in the comments.
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Anonymous 12 April, 2011 11:05
HUGELY excited for the idea of my two favourite artistic pastimes: Photoshop and Mobile Digital Art coming together. At the moment I predominently use Adobe Ideas/Brushes app and, excellent though they are the idea of interacting with Photoshop through a touch screen interface is something I want to play with NOW!
Hopefully this is the beginning of something new, where all of the devices can talk to each other and workspaces flow from one screen into the next. To have the Photoshop menus on my iPod touch, the iPad as a touch screen interface and the monitor screen for a larger window, unobscured by the finger or stylus or allowing a different level of zoom...? Can't wait to see where things go.