ALL IMAGES BY BRYAN O’NEIL HUGHES, EXCEPT WHERE NOTEDSo that’s a brief introduction to just some of what Adobe is doing with
mobile. We’ve built a number of other truly awesome apps: Comp for lay-
out (imagine thousands of gorgeous fonts on a touch device), Photoshop
Sketch and Illustrator Draw for raster and vector illustration, and much
more. You can learn more, and link to the free downloads by following
this link: http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/catalog/mobile.html.
These apps are by no means static; we’re constantly updating fea-
tures and expanding platforms. I can promise you that all of this will
continue to get more and more interesting. The feedback from our
users has always been key to providing useful technology, so whether
you’re looking to learn more or just share your thoughts on how we
can do better, please feel free to reach out to me.
Thanks for reading. I can’t wait to see what you do away from
your desks! ■Astropad being used on the iPad with FiftyThree PencilBRYAN O’NEIL HUGHES ([email protected]) is Adobe’s Head of Outreach & Collaboration,
closely working with product teams, partners, influencers, and press. Bryan spent 15 years on
the Photoshop team, a decade as Product Manager (CS3–CC), and then drove the expansion
to mobile with Photoshop Mix and Fix. Bryan is a regular keynote speaker, author, and 4X MAX
Master—his videos have enjoyed more than 12 million views. He lives with his wife and two
boys in the Santa Cruz Mountains where he’s slowly restoring an old truck. Bryan was inducted
into the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2011. Check out his work on Instagram at bhughes222 and
Behance at Behance.net/bryanoneilhughes.
Astropad
I’m a big believer in rethinking things for
touch, and delivering apps in a native,
approachable, task-based fashion. While
some people ask for Photoshop CC running
on an iPad Pro, I think they’d quickly find
that driving around a thousand menu com-
mands via touch would be maddening.
There is, however, a use case that makes
perfect sense, and (for me) it took a stylus
to take this idea from being good to great.
The combination of the iPad Pro’s 5.6-mil-
lion pixel screen and a pressure-sensitive
Apple Pencil, both talking to a tethered
Photoshop CC, well, that’s pretty awe-
some. If you’ve ever used a Cintiq, this is
similar: The iPad becomes an input device.
Astropad is so Photoshop-centric that it
comes wired with common PS controls.
Designed and built by former Apple
engineers, the app is very nicely done. My
only recommendation is to tether via USB,
rather than Wi-Fi. I find the latter to be
spotty and have more latency, which likely
has more to do with the connection than
the app. For anyone doing serious illustra-
tion or retouching in Photoshop, Astropad
is definitely worth a closer look.COURTESY OF ASTROPAD› ›kelbyone.com063