Every artist at one time or another experiences a bit of a creative rut. If your usual tricks don’t work to get your creative inspiration flowing again there’s a new app by Adobe that may help.
Photoshop Camera is a recently released app for mobile and tablet users. This is one of many apps you have access to with a full Creative Cloud subscription, but Adobe also lets you use the apps without a membership. You can simply log in using your Facebook, Google or Apple accounts.
The app is pretty user-friendly right off the hop mirroring it’s UX design off of other familiar interfaces like the iPhone camera app. This allows you to take a photo within the app or by selecting one from your camera roll. You then have a choice from a selection of lenses to customize your photos with. This app uses Photoshops’s legendary masking and image editing technology to create stunning edits. If you’re familiar with the desktop version of Photoshop this is the filter gallery but much better and easier to navigate.
There are a variety of lenses pre-installed to get you started. Some are simply color editing apps while some will replace your background entirely with an animated sky-scape. In our first example, you can use something like the duotone lens to change the look of your photo reference. Give your self a challenge by rendering something with a limited color palette. This can help jog some ideas for you. If you need to stick closer to an actual reference this is helpful as well.
The animated sky or sky replacement lenses work best with photos that actually have a sky in them. The app auto-detects the area and replaces it with a simple click on the lens you want and swipe through the different options. You can pinch with two-finger and change the position or zoom in and out of certain elements. The video icon at the top also allows you to stop the loop at a certain point if you want to export a still image of your scene.
Each lens allows you to customize within it as well as with more advanced Photoshop Express filters by tapping the PSX icon in the top icon bar. The photo will launch in the Photoshop Express app if you have it installed and you will have access to more photo filters and customization settings to really get your photo exactly the way you want it. The great part about these apps is that if you are intimidated by the full Photoshop program, this is an extremely user-friendly way to get Adobe photo-editing technology with a very minimal learning curve comparatively. It doesn’t replace Photoshop and all its capabilities, but it makes it accessible to say artists without training in the program that want to take advantage of some of its abilities.
To export the image simply hide the lens panel by tapping the down arrow on the left and tap on one of the export options at the bottom of the screen. One will allow you to export directly to Instagram if you’re logged in but if you’re using this app to make a creative concept you’ll likely want to save it to your camera roll where you can transfer it to your computer to be printed out or tablet to use a reference while you draw.
This is an example of a reference photo I created in the app and the Cosmic Lighthouse art I then created from it.
Want to see this app in action? Check out my in-depth Youtube Video below!
If you sign up for my Eye of Tiger or Ace of Spades Patreon tiers you’ll get an EXCLUSIVE look at how I created the Cosmic Lighthouse artwork based on an image I edited in this app.
To learn more about Adobe Photoshop Camera visit their website HERE
Have you used this app? What do you like most about it? Share with me in the comments!
