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Writer's pictureLisa M Hascall-Kanazawa

Photoshop for iPad: Creating an Illustration

Updated: Sep 23, 2022

This was originally posted on Might Could Studiomates on July 2, 2020 for Tool Talk Thursday. In this article, I will walk you through my first experience with drawing in Adobe Photoshop for iPad.



Materials/App: Photoshop for iPad (requires an Adobe subscription plan)

Note: Final animation and touchup completed in Procreate. See previous TTBTS post on my animation workflow to learn more!

This week, we are drawing Drink Labels in #mightcoulddrawtoday, so I thought I'd draw my favorite drink right now; the Boss Coffee Latte!


General Outline of My Process


1. Pick a canvas and begin drawing as usual (for those who are experienced in using drawing apps, nothing is different here!)

2. Choose a brush (various defaults are available, expandable with custom brushes)

3. Start drawing your main shapes on a first layer.

4. Draw details on a new layer (I separate out my layers excessively to make it easy to switch things in and out and experiment at the end)

5. Combine layers as you finish up.

6. Add final details.

7. Export to PSD or any standard filetype (It will automatically save to the Cloud if you're logged in)


Things I Liked


🏆 The program's user interface (UI) was easy to navigate and didn't get in the way of art-making

🏆 Many similar functionalities/UI elements carry over into the mobile version

🏆 Cloud saves!

🏆 Easy to make new layers and switch between tools

🏆 Similar to Fresco and other Adobe mobile apps

🏆 Exporting to other programs was easy as pie



❌ App crashed when I used multi-touch functions (double tap for undo)

❌ Sometimes it was difficult to figure out how to do certain things that I find easy/used to doing on the PC version or on Procreate

❌ Seemed a bit lacking in comparison to the PC version, perhaps oversimplified?

❌ I don't know how I got an alpha mask on my layer, but I didn't press the button intentionally, so that was strange...

❌ More crashes randomly occurred, which means they need to do more work on this app for stability (but it is getting updated frequently so hopefully that will improve)


Conclusion

Overall, I think it's awesome that we can finally have Photoshop to go! However, I still think the app needs more work from the developers on stability, and maybe some better tutorials as well to help users become more aware of the differences between the PC and Mobile versions.

For my last step, I exported the PSD into Procreate, where I did some last minute fixes and added some fun animated elements. 🌱🌼



Final Animation (also available in my portfolio)


Thanks for reading! 💞

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