The Adobe Photoshop Express app for the iPad is merely a shadow of it’s desktop big brother, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful.
I’ll admit, if they had such a ranking, I’d be nothing more than the lowest ranked amateur photographer in the world. Right below my daughter and her Fischer-Price camera. So, I’m not doing terribly creative edits to my photos and screen captures. I do know that the Photoshop Express app can do a lot with it’s limited functionality.
Basic Editing
Using the app, I soon found that I could do some cool things with my images. I took some already nice photos of my family and, with my daughter’s assistance, added some effects that were worthy of being placed on her bulletin board. The simplest things to do are adding one of several borders, black and white effects, making photos into sketches, and, of course, cropping rotating and flipping.
The rotation utility is particularly useful with the iPad, as I, more frequently than not, use the iPad in the landscape position. Doing so makes the photos and screenshots appear rotated 90-degrees. The app let’s you correct that in an instant.
Advanced Features
Once this novice gets past the basic editing features, he’s in over his head. But, most people can do alot with such controls as exposure, saturation, tint, contrast, and soft focus, to name but a few.
Adobe Camera Pack
Adobe Photoshop Express, itself, is free, but the $3.99 Adobe Camera Pack give you access to several more tools. With purchase of the camera pack, users can reduce noise and smooth out those grainy photos. Other features with the camera pack are the self-timer and auto-review that are for use with a camera, but not your iPad camera. I don’t understand that logic, but hopefully it will be a part of future updates.
There’s no zoom feature, which is my main complaint with the app, and other capabilities should be included as part of the paid pack, but the app accomplishes what I believe it set out to do; make quick and basic editing easy to do.
