During Monday’s MAX keynote, Kevin Lynch demoed a couple of the tablet explorations we’ve been doing:
As you can see, we’re trying some different design directions, making stand-alone imaging tools for tablets, as well as companions to Creative Suite apps. Props to Iván Cavero Belaunde, Christoph Moskalonek, and the other folks who brought these features to life.
So, what do you think? How would you like to see these technologies evolve?
A good test is to see if people who’ve been using an iPad since they came out have any interest in the product at all. This will help you see which things are just novelty fueled by someone at Adobe’s admiration for a new product. As one of those early iPad users, I feel like this stuff is all just novelty. Tell me there are more organic controls for use with graphics tablets (wacom) and you’ve got my attention. Tell me you think people want to mix colors on a fingerprint covered macro-phone and then shoot it over to their computer and I think you’re just having a techno-lust episode.
I won’t go into all the gory details, but I’d be more excited to hear that Adobe was going to address some of the problems with their existing, shipping, flagship products, like Photoshop and Illustrator (at least fix the thing where you can’t change tools).
Donate a finger painting app to the OLPC project. Someone like David Hockney can make a living doodling on an iPad. Few of your CS users are going to find a productive use. With a 30″ wide gamut calibrated display, why in the world would I want to use an uncalibrated narrow-gamut tablet for color mixing?
I’m sure the other example of context-aware editing will be useful to a wide smart phone user base. I’d have no use for it professionally. By all means, have fun developing playful products and keep an eye out for uses that would translate to the professional tools. But I second the motion to keep the CS suite focus on addressing longstanding issues and with improving consistency between apps.
I take technology demos such as these in the same way I take concept cars at auto shows and fashion on the runway. It’s a peek at what the future could be.
What grabs me about this demo is the the underlying idea that a tablet computer can also be a tablet input device. This speaks to devices that can change roles on the fly, all the while talking among themselves. That is: iPad today, movie player tomorrow, and Cintiq tablet the day after that.
Here is my vision of a workflow. I am shooting a beach out your way in sunny California or, more likely, back here in the chilly East. In my backpack, or on the shore nearby, is my iPad. It is tethered via Bluetooth to my camera. As I shoot, the images load automatically to the tablet. After a time, I stop, pull out the tablet, and with full Photoshop capability, including the ability to use a stylus a la Wacom, I rough out some preliminary takes on my work. For instance, I stack a bunch of surf frames and average them, checking to see if I’ve gotten the anticipated image. Sort of like using Poloroid test shots back in the good old film days. But perhaps I date myself.
After the shoot, I return home. My iPad now takes on the role of Cintiq tablet, talking to my desktop, and I work on the images in more depth. Oh darn, I want to mix colors or have my Configurator panels at my elbow. No problem, I pull out my beat up old iPad and “gang” it with the other iPad and my desktop.
This is what I see in the demo. Pretty exciting, notwithstanding that it’s beyond my budget.
I’m hoping prices will come down with time. 😉
Wrong OS 🙁
[Apple really, really doesn’t appreciate it when developers demo iOS apps that haven’t yet been approved in the App Store. In deference to their wishes, we built and demoed an Android version. –J.]
Ouch! That color mixing looks like it would be a pain to use – literally. Mmh, do I smell one more computer age disease where surgeons need to fix up overstretched tendons coming here? *yikes*
But the grouse made the picture! I thought he was just doing it as a joke at first, and then would do what a real photographer’s task would be more inclined to be: removing the unsightly road. It looked like he just picked the easiest thing he could find, on a photo he already knew would work.
The demo was rigged! Why not take a random photo and audience suggestion for what to remove. Oh wait, then it might completely flop.
What? A tech demo with examples they already know will work? What kind of fraud is that?!
… Now you’ve got me thinking – he probably rehearsed his lines, too. What a joke!
[Sarcasm – in case anyone missed it]
The most revolutionary thing imaginable is to act as if you believe the system is honest and virtuous.
aw, now you’re just grousing…. 😉
Lightroom Express!
I love the color mixing on tablet tech. The color sampling has really started to mature with CS5 and now this stuff. I really would like to see the brush presets menu also mature and allow for easier toggling between sets. It’s too tedious to have to unload and load brush sets and much too tedious to scroll through one giant list of brushes. Ideally there would be tabs of brush sets within the preset pane (up to 5?). Photoshop users are in need of something more robust than this antiquated part of the interface. Keep up the great work!
Been saying that for years.
Grouse ??? That’s a Canada Goose!
ok. so I’ll have a mouse, keyboard, medium wacom intuous3, AND an iPad on my desk? That’s just too much stuff.
The best thing that could ever happen if for Wacom to put their tech into a tablet that uses their pens and the artist can use it as like an intuous or a cintiq. For sketching I’d draw directly on the tablet. For color work i’d work on my pc monitor using the tablet for pen input and activating custom photoshop-related widgets on the tablet to access tools and menus while my monitor is just one big uninterrupted canvas.
Without a doubt the MOST time-wasting and frustrating thing in Photoshop is having to click through menus and sub-menus over and over again to reach things you use all the time. The BEST improvement to productivity would be the facility to make and save your own toolbar. I’ve asked for this before and I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants this. In the program itself and/or as an iPad extension (iPhone TOO small) PLEASE!!
[Thanks for the feedback, Colin. To create toolbars, please check out Configurator. –J.]
What would get me to buy an iPad tomorrow? An app suite that gives me customizable, graphic control surfaces for Production Premium. Jog and shuttle, mark in and out for Premiere with a surface that changes to audio sliders and color shading controls. The same iPad could be a Multi-Touch surface to navigate around images and up and down layers in the graphic programs and After Effects.
It would be a sweet (suite?) victory for Adobe to deliver a feature set like this to Production Premium before Apple comes up with the idea for FC Studio.
I can only second that, to be able to use a tablet as a control surface for Photoshop, Lightroom etc would be fantastic. With practice I can see that really speeding up work flow.
Another great functionality would be to use a tablet like a Cintiq, where you can see the image on the tablet (maybe a lower res version for speed), make multi-touch edits (heal, clone, paint etc) and see the updates in PS on your computer screen. That would be a great tool.
That color mixing looks like it would be a pain to use – literally. Mmh, do I smell one more computer age disease where surgeons need to fix up overstretched tendons coming here? so I’ll have a mouse, keyboard, medium wacom intuous3, AND an iPad on my desk? That’s just too much stuff.
Give us the Adobe tools we love, but can use on the go, and build in easy sharing. We all want it. This IS the future. Produce it! Nice start.