Adobe Working to Integrate Photoshop with iPad

At Adobe’s recent MAX conference, Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch demonstrated new ways the company is working to integrate touch-screen devices with Photoshop. Adobe wants to integrate tablet devices
like the iPad into Photoshop and currently has designers working to create mock-ups of possible ways to do this. Some of these mock-ups show Photoshop tool palettes running on an iPad and tutorials to help users get things done more quickly. "What we're working on is connecting your mobile devices to your personal computer over a network so that they can work in conjunction with each other," said CTO Kevin Lynch.

By using a device’s touchscreen as an input device, an image currently being worked on might appear on both computer and iPad screen. Then using an iPad to manipulate the picture, results would show up on both screens simultaneously.

CTO Kevin Lynch showed off an impressive demo using a Samsung Galaxy Tab. He demonstrated just how easy it is to get rid of an unwanted element in a picture by just painting a finger over it. The message “Performing Witchcraft” appeared on screen as the computer processed the image. The resulting picture was free of the unwanted element and you’d never have known it was there.

Color mixing on an iPad was then demonstrated. In the future, you’ll be able to mix colors on an iPad and then use them in Photoshop on your desktop computer. These new tools require a Wi-Fi connection to work and during the demo, there didn’t seem to be any lag time at all.

In addition, Adobe may one day have a Photoshop Tool Palette app allowing you to use your iPhone to select tools in Photoshop. I’m not sure if this would necessarily be any more efficient but it certainly would be an impressive feat.

 As the line between desktop and tablet computer continues to blur, it will be interesting to see what innovations companies like Adobe come up with in the future. I look forward to seeing how Adobe integrates touch-screen devices with Photoshop and other software. I wonder if these new tools will help your workflow speed up or slow down. They may not have any effect at all, but it will certainly be fun using an iPad to work with Photoshop.