App Review

Recently I have been seeing more people using Adobe Fresco app which is intended for painting and drawing with tablets. Procreate used to be the big mainstream painting program for Ipads for a while, and people have been comparing the program to Adobe Photoshop. After a big wave of Procreate, Adobe joined the Ipad painting culture by launching Adobe Fresco in 2019. I am not an expert on Ipad, but I used Procreate when I tried digital art on Ipad and I thought it is time to try out Adobe Fresco. One of the main reasons why I thought it would be worth trying is because I watched a famous Korean webtoon artist using it. Previously, I have seen him using Adobe Photoshop and watching him use Adobe Fresco made me think if Fresco is the real Ipad version of Photoshop. I tried a portrait painting of my friend and from the experience, I want to share the pros, cons, and my personal experience.

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As you can predict, Adobe Fresco is the real Photoshop for Ipad. It had most of the Photoshop functions that you need to paint. Including the brushes to the liquify function, it has the tools that you typically use to paint in Photoshop. Since Ipad users use the Apple Pencil to paint digitally, it also works well with the Apple Pencil. For example, when using the graphite brush, the angle of the Apple pencil affects the marks you make. If the pencil is close to being perpendicular, thin and crisp lines are made, on the other hand, if the pen is tilted, the bigger softer marks are made on the app. Another positive characteristic that I liked was how all the layers are visible all the time and the one you are using at the moment is highlighted. A lot of times, I have a hard time organizing layers on Procreate since you can only see layers when you drop down the menu. However, on Fresco, I did not have confusion with layers because the layers were always visible so I am aware of which layer I am on. Another function that stood out was the vector brushes. I did not try it yet, but I would be happy to explore if the shape I draw can become a vector format. The app also allowed me to save it as a photoshop or Illustrator file which reduces so much time for artists. Lastly, My most favorite part was that the Adobe Fresco was free for both Ipad and Android. Unlike other good painting apps, Adobe provided a free painting program for smart devices that you can link to your creative cloud. These highlights of the app made it convenient for new users to give it a try.

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Even though I was happy with Adobe Fresco, there were a few improvements that needed to be made. As a photoshop user, I thought the icons would look almost alike, however, it was difficult for me to find out which icon meant what. However, if I use the program a lot, I can see myself getting used to it just like how I did for other digital painting apps. Another difficulty that I was having was if the brush sizes were too fine, the pixels did not connect, instead, they are more like a dotted line. This was one of the frustrating parts of using this app because I did not know how to make a fine line and the size gap between the failed fine line and size up was too much of a difference. In addition, the sliding button for changing brush size and others were too sensitive it was hard for me to set a specific number for brush sizes. Because of this reason, when doing line work, it might be hard to quickly come back to the brush size you were using. There are functions that help resolve this issue such as saving brush setting, however, if someone is still exploring digital painting, it might be too much of a hassle. In addition, because I had an Apple pencil, it was easier for me to make an accurate mark on the spot I wanted, however, when using a wider stylus there would a challenge. Lastly, one of the functions I wish the program had was settings color for printing or for the web. Usually, these settings are available when creating a blank canvas but I could not find it to change to either CMYK or RGB. After doing a little research, I found out that they do not have the color mode function and now that I think about it, I did have a struggle picking colors in the beginning. These are some frustrations that I faced while trying Adobe Fresco, however, I do not see these issues as something that is too big it would prevent me from using Fresco.

 

My experience of using Adobe Fresco was amazing. I was able to start painting within a few minutes, on the other hand for Procreate, I remember spending a decent time learning the function. Honestly, I think I would prefer using Fresco rather than Procreate, due to its convenient function that is similar to photoshop. After learning that the Fresco does not have the color setting, I concluded that I need to do more research on how the Fresco digital painting would look printed. Overall, I think this can be a good program to use as a scaffolding method to learn photoshop in education.