14 DAY TRIAL // In an interview with CNET, Manu Anand, Adobe's senior product manager for Digital Imaging, announced the company plans to launch a free iOS app for iPhones and iPads, derived from its famous Photoshop image editing software.
The app will integrate with the company's Creative Cloud offering, and will allow access to basic image editing features, and even a function that's not yet available for the desktop version of Photoshop.
The iOS app, currently nicknamed Project Rigel, will be free for any interested user, but the company actually hopes it hooks more users on Photoshop and its Creative Cloud paid subscriptions.
The app was not a secret, a video demo being available online
According to screenshots obtained by CNET, the app looks almost identical to the one seen in late May, in a video on the company's Photoshop YouTube channel. (see video below)
The Project Rigel app provides access to the most basic editing features you'll expect from such tools, like cropping, color level adjusting, spot healing, morphing and transformation, vignettes, and some other more.
If you're brave enough, you can also use the painting tools, but we warn you, the results are not always the ones you expect.
Its features are way under the desktop version of Photoshop but rank well compared to other mobile-based photo editing applications.
A face recognition system is included just with the iOS version
Under the Liquify menu option, there's also a face detection system that can recognize faces inside images, adding quick editing controls to the person's mouth, eyes, nose, chin, and cheeks.
These points can be used to quickly alter face features, like adding a smile, enlarging eyes, and so on.
This feature is not present in the desktop version of Photoshop, but Mr. Anand said it would be made available in future releases after the iOS app launches.
An Android version is also in the works, but no timeline has been announced for it yet.
