Which iPad Models Does Photoshop Support?
Photoshop will run on a wide variety of iPads running iPadOS 13.1 and later, including all versions of iPad Pro, iPad 5th - 7th generation, iPad mini 4 and 5th generation, and iPad Air (3rd generation and iPad Air 2). You can also use either generation of Apple Pencil that works with your iPad. Adobe recommends the iPad Pro 12.9-inch and the second generation Apple Pencil as the best tablet for Photoshop, however.
How Photoshop for iPad Is Different
Photoshop for iPad is very similar to Photoshop for Mac and Windows. The file format is exactly the same, too; any Photoshop files you save as Cloud documents will be available on the iPad or your desktop or laptop computer. Still, Photoshop on iPad doesn’t do all the things the app can do on a computer; several features are on the way, like curves, refine edge, rotate canvas, improved brush sensitivity, and Lightroom integration. Vector-based tools like shapes are not as yet supported or promised. You can use your fingers or an Apple Pencil to select tools and apply brush strokes, transformations, or selections to your document. You can also use Apple Pencil to select layers in your document, move images around, or draw directly on the photo to make adjustments or create special effects. The Photoshop workspace will look familiar to anyone who’s used Photoshop before. The Home screen has a left-hand column, where you can select Home, Learn, Cloud Documents, or Deleted files. Near the bottom of the column, you can choose Create New, and Import and open.
Learn: Has Hands-on tutorials and an interactive tour of the interface. Below that are video tutorials that you can use to learn more techniques. Create New gives you the option to choose a Print, Screen, or Film and Video-sized document, along with the ability to name it, set the dimensions, change orientation, choose a document resolution, and set a background color.Import and open: Lets you grab a file from your Camera Roll, Files app, or even take a new picture with your iPad camera.
Adjusting Your Photoshop Preferences on the iPad
Tap the little gear icon in the upper right corner of the Home screen to set some preferences like the Color theme, Font name language, Touch preferences, Adobe account options, and the like. Just tap your way through the options in the left-hand column and set it how you want it. Once that’s all covered, it’s time to open a document and get used to the workspace.
Using Photoshop’s Workspace on the iPad
Just like any professional app, you’ll need to get familiar with Photoshop for iPad’s interface.
Navigating Photoshop’s Header Bar
Looking to the top of your iPad screen, you’ll see Photoshop’s Header bar, which contains useful information and tools. You should now have a basic working knowledge of how to get around in Photoshop for iPad. Be sure to spend some time in the video tutorials and Hands on documents to get a feel for what you can do with this powerful mobile photo editing app.
The first two icons are the view/properties icons. Tap the top Compact layer view to see thumbnails of your layers in a simplified view. Tap the next icon, Detail layer view, to see your layers in a stack with masks, layer names, visibility properties, and the content of groups.The next icon down is the Layer properties icon. If you tap this, you’ll see the selected layer , blending options along with a couple of (unsupported as yet) other things like Effects and Smart filters. You can also tap the Dimensions here to set a layer’s position or dimensions numerically.
