Adobe introduces a cutting-edge mobile app for Photoshop that boasts many of the same design, editing, and generative AI tools available in the desktop version. Integrating with Photoshop on the web allows creators to collaborate projects across multiple devices and is available now globally on iPhone, with the App for Android to become available later on in the year.
Photoshop Express, a more streamlined version of the popular editing software, has been around on mobile devices since 2010, but according to Adobe, the new app packs more muscle and presents a more extensive range of standard Photoshop capabilities. Both image editing applications include tools for things like scaling, masking, contrast/saturation adjustments, and stamping out objects from images or removing blemishes, but while Photoshop Express belongs to the crowd of more classical mobile editing apps such as Picsart and Facetune, the new Photoshop application more closely resembles the desktop experience.
Free users also have the use of most of Photoshop’s editing tools, from Spot Healing Brush to Tap Select, from layers to selections and masks, and image compositing and blending features, Adobe Stock assets, full integrations with Creative Cloud apps such as Adobe Express, Lightroom, and Fresco, and Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Generative Expand AI tools.
Other Photography features such as Object Select, Magic Wand, Content Aware Fill, Clone Stamp, and the Remove tool are locked behind $7.99 per month or $69.99 per year in a subscription. It also includes light/dark adjustment options, advanced blend modes for controlling transparency, color effects, styles, and integrates with Adobe Photoshop on the web, along with Generate Similar and Reference Image includes within this premium Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan.
Photoshop on mobile will be available on premium terms for all users already signed up for a paid Photoshop subscription. Adobe is, as yet, mum regarding anything further concerning Photoshop Express, which does continue to provide a low-cost premium tier at $4.99 per month. This would really be confusing if it were developed among the other app because it also has Adobe Express, which is arguably a similar mobile editing platform.
However, getting Photoshop back on board for mobile is a welcome yet not-so-surprising move. While useful for quick edits and for throwing together social media graphics, Photoshop Express never really felt like Photoshop. The user interface on the new Photoshop iPhone app is still heavily optimized for mobile, so you can drag and select tools around with your finger, but it’s aimed at creative professionals and the heavy design work.
Today, the mobile editing app market is crowded. Downloads of Photoshop Express on iOS have been declining. To shore up the situation, given the competitive climate, Adobe just said it had finalized acquiring Pixlr’s Mac and iOS apps.
