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What is the best Photo Editing app for the iPad Pro

Newtons Apple

Newtons Apple

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Original poster
Mar 12, 2014
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Jacksonville, Florida
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Which is the best that uses the power of the iPad Pro with the Pencil?

I know this has been asked before but looking to see what the latest and greatest is right now.
 
Oh my God, these "photo editing" apps are so dumb... Pixelmator is nothing more than a lousy phone app. Most of the other apps I found do nothing else besides quick filtering and some brushes. Procreate isn't really a photo editor... The Adobe apps don't deserve to be called Photoshop... it's so sad, the iPad Pro deserves better software than this.
 
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Beavix said:
Oh my God, these "photo editing" apps are so dumb... Pixelmator is nothing more than a lousy phone app. Most of the other apps I found do nothing else besides quick filtering and some brushes. Procreate isn't really a photo editor... The Adobe apps don't deserve to be called Photoshop... it's so sad, the iPad Pro deserves better software than this.
Click to expand...
As a "prosumer" these apps get the job done for me. Why so dumb? Would a high-level professional photographer and Photoshop artist even want ultra-high-end tools on an ARM-based device? Can any mobile device handle a 22+ megapixel 16-bit RAW image with multiple layers anyway? The iPad Pro is a fast, modern device, but it can't violate the rules of physics. Apple sells 4, 6, 8 and 12-core Mac Pros with 64 GB of RAM and dual GPUs for a reason. And people still bitch about Photoshop performance on those.

If the developers thought they could write higher-end photo editors for the iPad Pro and get an appropriate price for them (probably $50+)... and have enough people willing to pay that much to make it worth their while... then likely we'll see them. But as it is, the iPad Pro has been out all of 4 months and the quality of the apps available thus far I think is pretty good. It takes way longer than 4 months to develop desktop-level apps, let alone work in a UI that works on a 12.9" screen.
 
One problem I have with photo editing on any tablet is the inability to do any monitor calibration. If my end target is the tablet itself then this isn't an issue but I prefer to do my work on a machine - desktop or laptop - with a properly calibrated monitor for consistent results.
 
dmcnickle said:
Enlight and Procreate for general photo editing. About a dozen more for specific things and composition work.
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Yeah.. I think Enlight is an underestimated photo editing app.

But their recent update supporting the iPad Pro along w/ SplitScreen makes it a compelling editing app.
 
Beavix said:
Oh my God, these "photo editing" apps are so dumb... Pixelmator is nothing more than a lousy phone app. Most of the other apps I found do nothing else besides quick filtering and some brushes. Procreate isn't really a photo editor... The Adobe apps don't deserve to be called Photoshop... it's so sad, the iPad Pro deserves better software than this.
Click to expand...

Pixelmator is better than nothing but lacking some features making it abit useless or hard to use - e.g. a basic function "invert" is missing that is needed very often...

I have PSTouch on my ipad and it was the best photoediting app for ipads, imo. Unfortunately adobe removed the app from appstore and it has been buried...
 
Beavix said:
Oh my God, these "photo editing" apps are so dumb... Pixelmator is nothing more than a lousy phone app. Most of the other apps I found do nothing else besides quick filtering and some brushes. Procreate isn't really a photo editor... The Adobe apps don't deserve to be called Photoshop... it's so sad, the iPad Pro deserves better software than this.
Click to expand...

Most iPad apps are not dumb. Yes there are some but you need to weed through them and find what works for you.

Remember, we have to give developers time to make apps compatible with the iPad Pro. I have heard from several developers that they are working on iOS versions of their desktop apps. JixiPix recently released one of the desktop apps for iOS.

I do the majority of my work on my iPad Pro. I use a combination of apps to create my compositions. I do not use any of the Adobe apps. I use Leonardo for most of my layering, masking and composition building. I have finally figured out how to use clipping masks in Art Studio.

You can do some amazing work if you take the time to find the apps that work best for you and customize what you do.

This is one of my compositions done entirely on the iPad Pro.

IMG_0070 resized.jpg
 
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dmcnickle said:
You can do some amazing work if you take the time to find the apps that work best for you and customize what you do.
Click to expand...

That's awesome, but I don't do art. My work consist in some more mundane tasks like composing images for websites and I need to be able to work easily with images of certain sizes, layers, masks and text and then export to JPG or PNG. So today I started using Pixelmator on my iPP because everybody said it's one of the best, and that app cannot even do layer masks.

I hear the Serif guys are working on iOS versions of their Affinity apps. I just hope they'll be real pro apps not toys.
 
Beavix said:
That's awesome, but I don't do art. My work consist in some more mundane tasks like composing images for websites and I need to be able to work easily with images of certain sizes, layers, masks and text and then export to JPG or PNG. So today I started using Pixelmator on my iPP because everybody said it's one of the best, and that app cannot even do layer masks.

I hear the Serif guys are working on iOS versions of their Affinity apps. I just hope they'll be real pro apps not toys.
Click to expand...

Serif is working on iOS versions of their apps. They are trying to make it as "pro" as they can.

Try Leonardo. I use it for working with layers, masks and other various effects. The developer also has SuperImpose but I like Leonardo better because I can rearrange the layers as I am working. You can save as jpg, png or psd.

I quit using Pixelmator because it would not do layer masks. I keep hoping they add that feature and am not sure why they haven't yet. Art Studio also does layer masks. You can create a mask from a photo. It is very finicky. I still haven't figured out why some masks from photos work and some don't. I try to use it for clipping masks.

Otherwise, Leonardo has all the masking functions I need. If I want to use a specific photomask, I will sometimes use SuperImpose. I have the mask as the foreground layer - click on mask and invert.
 
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Beavix said:
Oh my God, these "photo editing" apps are so dumb... Pixelmator is nothing more than a lousy phone app. Most of the other apps I found do nothing else besides quick filtering and some brushes. Procreate isn't really a photo editor... The Adobe apps don't deserve to be called Photoshop... it's so sad, the iPad Pro deserves better software than this.
Click to expand...
Agree about the possible improvement and the iPad deserving better, but a little harsh maybe? :)
[doublepost=1482259079][/doublepost]
dmcnickle said:
Most iPad apps are not dumb. Yes there are some but you need to weed through them and find what works for you.

Remember, we have to give developers time to make apps compatible with the iPad Pro. I have heard from several developers that they are working on iOS versions of their desktop apps. JixiPix recently released one of the desktop apps for iOS.

I do the majority of my work on my iPad Pro. I use a combination of apps to create my compositions. I do not use any of the Adobe apps. I use Leonardo for most of my layering, masking and composition building. I have finally figured out how to use clipping masks in Art Studio.

You can do some amazing work if you take the time to find the apps that work best for you and customize what you do.

This is one of my compositions done entirely on the iPad Pro.

View attachment 614090
Click to expand...
Nice art. It's so much more compelling when the poster shows an exaple :)
 
sparksd said:
One problem I have with photo editing on any tablet is the inability to do any monitor calibration. If my end target is the tablet itself then this isn't an issue but I prefer to do my work on a machine - desktop or laptop - with a properly calibrated monitor for consistent results.
Click to expand...

iPad screens are pretty accurate, certainly close enough for amateur photography, and anything other than product shots for pros.
 
M. Gustave said:
iPad screens are pretty accurate, certainly close enough for amateur photography, and anything other than product shots for pros.
Click to expand...

They aren't bad, but the older they get the further the display will drift. Hopefully system wide color calibration comes someday. iPads are getting good enough to do some Pro work, imo.

The Color true app and a xrite can display color calibrated images, u just can't edit with icc profiles yet, unless something has changed. I edit on cintiq 27 and display images to clients when I need to be mobile on the iPad Pro.

My iPad screen is pretty far off now after a year.
[doublepost=1482484689][/doublepost]I just use photoshop express and Pixelmator for light duty stuff, it works well and supports raw files. A bit sluggish and limited, but it's cool to do it on the iPad none the less
 
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