Adobe unleashes massive updates for Photoshop for iPad, Fresco, Premiere Pro, more

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Photoshop May 2020
If you do anything creative on your computer, this will matter to you.
Photo: Adobe

Adobe has updated several of its applications for iPadOS and macOS, the company announced Tuesday. Apps getting new features and overhauls include Photoshop for iPad, drawing and painting tool Fresco, and assorted Creative Cloud video and audio apps.

If you’re someone who carries out any kind of creative task on your computer, chances are that at least one of these is going to be of interest to you. And probably a lot more.

Photoshop for iPad

The big new feature for Photoshop for iPad is the addition of Curves and brush sensitivity in Photoshop on iPad. Curves is a core feature of Photoshop, which provides another way of tweaking the color and tone of an image, such as its contrast, exposure, saturation, highlights, shadows, and color balance. Meanwhile, brush sensitivity lets the user tweak how hard they need to press for different results to fit their preference. (Check out the Adobe blog post here.)

Fresco

iPad painting and drawing app Fresco adds multicolor eyedropper samples to achieve multiple colors from a single brushstroke. There’s also a new Vector Trim tool that makes it easy to cut or entirely remove vector strokes that cross, connect, or intersect. Then there are mixer brushes for smudging and blending; easier shape creation; a touch shortcut for erasing vector lines, ruler measurements, and more. (Check out the Adobe blog post here.)

Creative Cloud apps

Adobe also notes that there are changes in Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Character Animator, Media Encoder and Premiere Rush. (Check out the blog post here.) Some of the changes include:

  • ProRes RAW support in Premiere Pro and After Effects for a comprehensive, cross-platform solution for Apple ProRes workflows — from camera media through to delivery.
  • More streamlined graphics workflows in Premiere Pro, including an improved Pen tool with better support for Bezier curves. This enables greater precision for creating lines and shapes.
  • Filter effects showing attributes that only have keyframes or adjusted parameters so you can focus on the currently active effects.
  • Auto Reframe in Premiere Pro now faster than ever. Powered by Adobe Sensei, the company’s AI and machine learning technology, Auto Reframe automatically reformats and repositions video within different aspect ratios, such as square and vertical video, accelerating workflows for social media and content platforms, such as Quibi.
  • Hardware encoding on Windows for H.264 and H.265 (HEVC) is now available for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. This provides consistently faster exports for these widely used formats with Premiere Pro and Media Encoder.
  • Support for audio files in Creative Cloud Libraries enabling Premiere Pro users to save, organize and share frequently used audio assets for easy access right from the CC Libraries panel.
  • Tapered Shape Strokes in After Effects giving motion graphics artists new creative options for animation and design. This makes it easier to create tapered, wavy, pointed, or rounded strokes on shape layers. You can also animate the strokes for stylized looks and motion designs.

There is a whole lot more where that came from. As now, check out the above blog posts for a full rundown of what Adobe is now offering. It’s an impressively comprehensive package — and Adobe promises there’s a whole lot more where that came from for later in 2020.

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