Adobe Photoshop is such a powerful and
complex photo-editing program on PCs, that squeezing it onto a phone and tablet
app seemed impossible. But the Photoshop Touch app for tablets, which launched
last year, works surprisingly well, because Adobe did a great job designing the
app’s interface for touchscreens.
Adobe
Photoshop Touch for iPad
However, we were sceptical whether Adobe
could repeat the trick on a phone’s lower-resolution, smaller screen. The
interface has its challenges, but these are likely to affect users of the
desktop version of Photoshop more than newcomers because they will waste time
looking for features that have been renamed or aren’t available. The iPad
version gets round this by including a selection of excellent step-by-step
tutorials that cover many key features. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent on
the iPhone version. The help is tucked away on the opening screen instead of
where you need it, inside the app itself.
Mix
colors like a painter
Although there are some missing features,
such as masks, there are still plenty of useful tools, including support for
layers and all the standard crop, rotate, re-size, fill and text controls -
although they don’t have the same extensive options as their desktop
counterparts. Creative effects include
lens flare, warp and transform. It takes
trial and error to get the best from these effects, but if you want fast
results you can use 36 FX filters (glow, chalk and so on) and 12 adjustment
types (such as saturation, color balance and more) to help you perform some
quick editing on the go, should inspiration strike.
When we tested it, the app almost never
felt sluggish on either an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. In theory images up to 12
megapixels can be edited, but in our experience the app slowed down when
attempting to edit images this large, so we wouldn’t recommend it. However, if
you have an older smartphone you may be out of luck anyway. The Android version
requires version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), or later. The iPhone version
requires the A5 processor so it won’t run on the older but still popular iPhone
4 which doesn’t use this chip. Photos can be shared on all the major social
networks, as well as via email and on Adobe’s own subscription-based Creative
Cloud service.
Editing photos on a small screen is tricky
because some of the dialogue boxes take up too much space and hide what you’re
working on. If you want to use this app, consider buying a 5in phone, or
bigger.
Despite these problems, anyone looking for
a photo editing app that goes beyond the basics will find Photoshop Touch a
bargain at just $5.
Adobe
Photoshop Touch for iPhone brings powerful image editing to the iPhone and iPod
touch
Verdict
Despite some interface problems and
performance niggles with large images, this is a good replacement for the basic
photo-editing features on many smartphones
Ratings: 4/5
Key points
·
Includes core Photoshop tools
·
Won’t run on older smartphones
·
Needs proper tutorials and better help
·
Missing some advanced tools and options
·
Works better on larger screens
·
Cheap
Best price online
Price: $5
Website: www.snipca.com
Alternative
Aviary
Aviary
Price: Free
A good free, photo-editing app, although it
can be a bit slow and some features cost extra
Ratings: 5/5
