iPhoto vs. Photoshop Touch on the New iPad: Consume or Create?

The Retina display on the new iPad is one of the tablet's defining features, and it makes the device ideally suited for multimedia work, including image editing. Apple’s new iPhoto app and Adobe’s Photoshop Touch are taking advantage of that opportunity by bringing powerful photo editing and sharing tools to the iPad.

Although both apps give you lots of tools for working with your photos, they are very different in terms of what they actually allow you to do. Photoshop Touch is geared more toward heavy editing and the creation of new images, whereas iPhoto is more for organizing, optimizing, and then presenting the images you already have.

iPhoto will run on the new iPad or the iPad 2--but not the original iPad--and it requires iOS 5.1. It will also run on the iPhone 4 or 4S. Photoshop Touch will run only on the new iPad or the iPad 2, and it requires iOS 5.0 or later. Photoshop Touch is also available for Android tablets running 3.1 (Honeycomb) or later with an 8.9-inch or larger display and a minimum resolution of 1280 by 800.

iPhoto

Apple announced the $5 iPhoto alongside the new iPad on March 7. iPhoto will work with photos you sync from iTunes, through iCloud, or through the camera connection kit, as well as with photos you take using the camera on your iPad. Be aware, however, that syncing through iTunes or iCloud will compress your images and can slightly alter colors.

iPhoto comes with several effects, but you can apply only one at a time.You can sort your collection by Album, Photos, or Events, and create Journals. Editing tools include crop, straighten, color adjust, brightness adjust, and saturation controls. You'll also find a number of brushes to fix problems such as red-eye, or to saturate, lighten, darken, sharpen, or soften specific areas. The effects tools can turn your photo into a black-and-white image or give it a vintage look, although you can apply only one effect at a time.

iPhoto saves edits in JPEG format. If you’re working with imported RAW-format photos, it will apply edits to a JPEG version of the image, so the RAW file remains unchanged. Emailed and exported images will be JPEG even if the original was a PNG file or some other format.

The most distinctive feature that iPhoto brings is Journals, which are like digital scrapbooks. You can add photos, captions, maps, dates, and weather modules, and resize them and move them around the page. The easy-to-use Auto Layout tool allows even noncrafty people like me to produce interesting-looking Journals. You can easily share your Journal by uploading it to iCloud, which creates a Web page that you can share with family and friends or export via iTunes. In addition, iPhoto can play your Journal as a slideshow complete with a soundtrack.

The Journals tool in iPhoto will automatically arrange your photos to make them look interesting.These slideshows are for more than just boring your family with vacation photos. My string trio sometimes plays at bridal fairs to drum up wedding gigs, and at the most recent fair, more than half of the other vendors had set up iPads at their booths to run slideshows of their work, be it photography, cakes, dresses, or jewelry.

iPhoto has lots of other sharing options for photos, including Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter. iPhoto can even detect other iOS devices running iPhoto--such as your iPhone--so you can move photos between devices over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections. While you can find plenty of image-enhancement and editing tools out there, iPhoto’s real strengths are in managing, sharing, and presenting your images.

Photoshop Touch

Photoshop Touch came to the iPad 2 in February, and it looks and functions similarly to the Android version that arrived back in November. Just like the Android version, it costs $10. Photoshop Touch can bring in images from your local photos (although it won’t see your Photo Stream), as well as from Adobe’s Creative Cloud, the camera, Google image search, and Facebook.

Photoshop Touch can bring in images from Facebook or Google.We noticed that the images we moved through Creative Cloud showed similar color shifting as did those that went through iCloud or iTunes. The other main thing to consider when bringing images into Photoshop Touch is that the program will resize images to fit the maximum resolution of 1600 by 1600 pixels.

Photoshop Touch comes with many of the same tools as the desktop version of the software does, including layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters, but they're redesigned to work well with your fingers. Though the tools should look familiar to longtime Photoshop users, they can be a bit overwhelming to new users. Adobe has included tutorials to help you find the tools you need to create the image you want.

Working in this app isn't the same as using Photoshop on your desktop, as you are limited to the accuracy of your fingertip, and some advanced tools and effects simply can’t be replicated given the processor and memory limitations of the tablet. I was able to complete the “replace my head with a cow’s head” challenge in under 15 minutes using the camera on the tablet and an image from Google image search, so the app is at least good enough for making mock-ups and quickly getting ideas out of your head and onto a screen when you’re out and about presenting to clients.

I was able to replace a coworker's head with that of a cow using just the camera, a Google image search, and Photoshop Touch.You can send your completed image back to Adobe Creative Cloud. The app saves projects as a new file type called PSDX, which requires a plug-in to import into CS5. PSDX files are limited to 1600 by 1600 pixels and 16 layers. Text is rasterized once you finish adding it, so you can delete it--but not edit it--afterward. Additionally, effects don't remain live; even though you can undo them, you can't change them. You can share flattened images by email or Facebook, or send them to any AirPrint-enabled printer.

Photoshop Touch is a strong app for performing heavy-duty image modification, as long as you are okay with the 1600-by-1600-pixel image limit. While it is powerful in manipulating individual images, it lacks tools for presenting multiple images, so you’ll still have to save images out to your camera roll and use the Photo app for slideshows.

Notable Differences

Perhaps the most notable difference between iPhoto and Photoshop Touch is the size limitation in Photoshop Touch. Working with layers is more intensive, and Adobe had to limit the size and layers to maintain an acceptable level of performance on tablets. This means that Photoshop Touch will work best as a tool for creating images for the Web or smaller prints, or making mock-ups and drafts on the go. It won't replace the full version of CS5 for graphics professionals, but it can still do a lot more editing than iPhoto can on the iPad.

Editing in iPhoto is limited to one effect at a time, and while you can crop, you can’t select anything other than a rectangular area to crop out. Photoshop Touch allows you to add multiple effects, work in layers, select and cut out any shape, and add text to an image.

You also have access to more image sources in Photoshop Touch, such as Facebook and Google image search importing. Each app is designed to use its specific cloud service for moving images back to your PC, or you can email individual images back to yourself. iPhoto can also export images to iTunes as a way of getting them off the device.

Another notable difference is the presentation functionality that exists only in iPhoto. Journals are no replacement for a professional portfolio website; but if you need to put images of your work online or into a slideshow without spending too much time or effort, Journals are a great alternative.

Photoshop Touch is also available as an Android app, while iPhoto is not. Some of the features found in iPhoto can be replicated by other Android tools, such as the slideshow feature in the built-in Gallery or QuickPic, or the collage tool Diptic.

Photoshop Touch is the better app if you need to edit images heavily or layer multiple images together to create new images. iPhoto is the better option for presenting and sharing pictures, and it still comes with many tools for enhancing existing images. The great thing about app pricing is that for $15 you can have both apps and do any heavy editing in Photoshop Touch, and then save the images out to your camera roll to organize them and share them through slideshows or Journals in iPhoto.

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Switching from Photoshop to Serif PhotoPlus X5 Is Easy...Especially When You See the Price

For a budget Photoshop replacement, PhotoPlus X5 ($90, free Starter Edition demo) is a serious contender. And unlike GIMP (free), it's pretty easy to switch to from $700 Photoshop because it's so similar.

The How To menu bar in PhotoPlus X5 is a fabulous addition to this complex program. When you've learned how to complete the effect, click back to the table.My favorite feature upon initially opening PhotoPlus is the How To toolbar, which gives you a long list of tips on everything from how to get started to photo retouching to creative effects. If you need additional help, the Help search is also very complete.

PhotoPlus X5 makes it very easy to make adjustments to levels, color balance, vibrance and a multitude of other details using a pick-and-click method. Every change you make to your image is stored in a new PhotoPlus layer automatically. In this regard, PhotoPlus X5 is a lot like CameraBag2 ($29), and it's very cool to be able to make major changes quickly. You can also use PhotoPlus to create Macros of effects and apply them to a batch of images. Unlike CameraBag2 however, creating macros and applying them to a batch is for advanced PhotoPlus users or those with a lot of patience.

Adding and removing parts of your images in PhotoPlus is as complex as you need it to be. PhotoPlus has a built in Cutout Studio, which takes you step by step through the process of isolating part of your image. But more experienced users can achieve the same effects using layers, the magic wand, and lasso tools, as you would with Photoshop or GIMP.

PhotoPlus includes a very nifty, simple red-eye remover, which works the same as Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7 (also $90). I much prefer the default in PhotoPlus for this, which draws the patch over the eye from the edge, rather than the middle (Xara). However, the result seemed more natural in Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, and more obviously a patch in PhotoPlus.

I found the tools in PhotoPlus more complex than Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7, and more likely to not work as you expect. In addition, Xara offers vector-based drawing tools within Photo & Graphic Designer, whereas PhotoPlus is purely raster: just like with Adobe Creative Suite, you need sister program DrawPlus (an Adobe Illustrator clone) to add vector components.

The Photo Organizer, a separate application that comes bundled free with PhotoPlus X5, works more or less the same as Google's Picasa (free). And Photo Organizer is just as frustrating as Picasa if you have gigabytes of images and don't want to wait while the program catalogs your entire collection before you can tell it to stop. However, the organizer is very useful if you have another Serif product like DrawPlus or CraftArtist ($60).

Unlike Paint.NET (free), an open-source photo editing tool, PhotoPlus comes complete with all the bells and whistles you would ever need. It's a pretty hefty program that can absolutely hold it's own against budget Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7, Corel's Paintshop Pro ($100) and heavy-weights like Photoshop.

The Starter Edition of PhotoPlus is free, although you do have to register and open an account with Serif. There are frequent popups to upgrade, and just like Serif's DrawPlus X5, the Starter Edition is really a demo and locks you out of many of the best features. However, if you're interested in a Photoshop-like feel without the pricetag, PhotoPlus may be just what you're looking for.

--Clare Brandt

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Open-source Freeware Fave GIMP Ready to Take on Photoshop

GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is an entirely free, open-source image editor and creator that---now in its seventeenth year of development---finally seems ready to take on the big guns. Criticized for years for being too oddball, too unstable, too un-Photoshop-like, GIMP has finally edged its way into the mainstream. Yes, it's still really different from Photoshop, but after two decades of Photoshop, is that really a bad thing?

Like any detailed image editor and creator, GIMP is a little hard to get the hang of, but time spent is worth it for great-looking images with relative ease.I felt a little lost when I first opened GIMP 2.6.11. For a Photoshop user, it's a little like visiting a foreign country for the first time: Some things seem familiar and others are not. Fortunately, GIMP's tool box includes tips when you hover over a tool; and the options for the tool appear in the lower half of the tool box when you make your selection. Also, the tutorials available on GIMP's website can help.

For basic image manipulation, GIMP makes it easy to adjust brightness, colors, contrast, crop, etc. GIMP includes a wide selection of built-in filters and effects, like blur, distort, colorize, and transform. Unlike Serif PhotoPlus X5 or Xara Photo & Graphic Designer (both $90 high-end image editors) there are no shortcuts like red eye remover or Cut Out Studio (PhotoPlus X5), which is a shame because I think GIMP would do them well.

Once you get the hang of the layers system in GIMP, creating original artwork begins and ends with your skill level. GIMP's painting and fine art filters produce moderately nice results, but it you're really interested in creating fine art from photographs, try partnering GIMP with FotoSketcher (free), a basic image editor that excels at this.

GIMP is purely a raster program, but there are also a vast selection of drawing and painting tools included. Unlike Paint.NET, another free and open-source image editing and painting program, you don't have to search the internet for the plugins you need: Most will have already been incorporated into GIMP.

There are little things to dislike about GIMP: When you minimize the program, for example, the floating tool boxes remain floating in the middle of your monitor. You can open as many images as you want, but there's no way to easily locate or keep track of them.

Subtle things about GIMP show it's not being created by someone following trends, but rather by a group of people who are passionate about making GIMP better than the trends. GIMP's image open dialog box is a perfect example of this: the navigation is smooth, and it's really easy to see where you are and where you need to be. For a Windows user who's frustrated by the Microsoft trend to make everything as pretty, overloaded, and confusing (Windows Vista or 7 file navigation, for example), GIMP is a blast of fresh air.

If you've never used Photoshop, GIMP is a worthy program for image editing and manipulation. If you're a Photoshop expert, and have either become disillusioned with Adobe and/or its habit of making you $700 or so poorer on a regular basis, GIMP is still a viable alternative, but it comes at its own price: Forget everything you've ever known about image editing and learn from scratch. But with the money you'll save, you can buy a lot of coffee for those long nights ahead.

--Clare Brandt

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Adobe Photoshop Touch Brings Layers, Finger-Friendly Tools to iPad 2

Photo retouchers, charge up your iPads! A full featured mobile version of the world’s favorite photo editing software  landed in the Apple App Store today. Named Adobe Photoshop Touch, the app brings new features like support for layered images, an essential capability for doing any real image manipulation, to the iPad 2.

Naturally included in the $10 app are tools to take of advantage of the iPad’s touch-based interface, or work around its limitations, depending on how you think about it. Take for instance, the Scribble Selection Tool. That feature allows users to select and remove elements from photos just by scribbling on them. In a similar vein, Photoshop Touch includes Refine Edge technology, which makes it’s easier to select image elements with soft, blurred edges. Throw out that Magic Lasso tool, Photoshoppers! And check out more tools in our screenshot gallery down below.

Other new features include camera fill, new blending modes, special effects like paint and filters,  and more. Just in case users to want to do a little finer editing, the app supports Adobe Creative Cloud for syncing projects up on your desktop, and because art is nothing without an audience, there’s direct integration with Facebook for sharing all those airbrushed works. 

Adobe Photoshop Touch works with the iPad2 and is available today in the Apple App Store for $9.99. Check out more at www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-touch.html.

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Video: Adobe Demos Content-Aware Move Feature in Photoshop CS6

Adobe’s has introduced some amazing new functionality in CS6, its newest version of Photoshop. On Monday, Adobe released a video on YouTube demonstrating one of the slickest features of CS6: Content-aware move, a tool that lets you seamlessly move or remove an object in an image and then automatically fills in the background. No more using clone brush or other advanced feature to cover up that random guy in the background of your group photo — CS6 will handle it on the fly. CS6 also adds functionality to the content-aware move tool that allows you to extend an object in the image — say, the edge of a roof — without using any complicated tools. Adobe’s video demonstrating the power of these features speaks for itself:

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