Adobe’s updates to Photoshop on the iPad lays down a promising future
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At Adobe’s MAX event, it was announced that Photoshop on iPad will finally have the ability to remove the background from images with one tap, in addition to the ability to remove distracting objects from images.
The process for remove the background (opens in new tab) will be similar to how it’s accomplished on a Mac or Windows PC: just highlight the background so the subject can’t be removed, and replace it with something completely different. The new option on iPad is available on the App Store (opens in new tab) as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription.
Other useful features are also coming to Photoshop on iPad in the coming weeks, such as automatic color adjustments to get the right balance for your projects, and improved refinements to hair and the edges of clothes when these subjects need to be moved to a different background.
All of these add up to what you can already do on an iPad with Photoshop, and it increases the possibility of reaching for the tablet rather than your Mac or PC — but we’re not quite there yet.
An iPad is a computer, but not for everyone
When Photoshop launched on the iPad in 2019, it didn’t get the warmest reception due to its lack of basic features. Back then, Adobe only had to work with touch input, as Touchpad support didn’t debut on iPadOS until mid-2020. This took a lot of rethinking from Adobe to add features that had been standard in Photoshop for years.
Fast forward to 2022, and while you can now use a Magic Keyboard with the built-in trackpad, Adobe has refined the features so that you can just double-tap and remove the background, thanks to Adobe finding ways to do some of the its powerful properties.
These new features will be welcomed by many user groups and needs, including mine. After using Photoshop on macOS for the past decade, I longed to see more desktop-class apps pop up on my iPad Pro for those quick fix situations we all find ourselves in from time to time.
The iPad version of Photoshop is now close to fulfilling its mandate, thanks to the announcements at MAX. Being able to remove the background for the images I create will really help with my workflow. Next on my wish list in the space of features would be to get the pen tool (opens in new tab) finally arrive. Users have been asking for this since Photoshop’s debut on the iPad, and now that we have background removal features, it could be the next best feature on the iPad.
Once these features are available on Photoshop on iPad, we’ll make sure to provide another review explaining how the app has improved over the past three years.