Interview: Elise Swopes on the New Adobe Photoshop Mobile App
The iPhone-first digital artist reimagines creative workflows with AI-enhanced tools and effortless accessibility Adobe has introduced the power of Photoshop to mobile devices, providing both accomplished professionals and emerging artists with a …
The iPhone-first digital artist reimagines creative workflows with AI-enhanced tools and effortless accessibility
Interview: Elise Swopes on the New Adobe Photoshop Mobile App
The iPhone-first digital artist reimagines creative workflows with AI-enhanced tools and effortless accessibility
Adobe has introduced the power of Photoshop to mobile devices, providing both accomplished professionals and emerging artists with a user-friendly platform for on-the-go image editing and design. The new Photoshop iPhone app—soon to launch on Android—offers features such as layering, masking and AI-powered tools—all refined for mobile workflows. This innovation empowers creators to pursue their vision anytime, anywhere.
Mobile Photoshop has been highly anticipated, and from our perspective, it’s the AI-powered tools that allow it to excel on smaller touch screens. Manually creating image masks pixel by pixel, especially with a finger, can be tedious, making features like tap to select vital for usability. Seamless access to Adobe Stock and the integration of Firefly’s generative capabilities unlock an expansive array of image options, empowering users to enhance their photography or visualize and collage anything they can imagine.
Elise Swopes, who has spent 14 years creating art on the iPhone and now works at Adobe, played a key role in the app’s development by sharing feedback and insights. She also hosts many of the demo videos, like the one above explaining layers. A friend of CH, we’re so excited to sit down with Swopes and chat about the app.
Why is Photoshop coming to the iPhone now?
We know that many people use their phones, from established creators to aspiring ones. Now, we are ready to introduce Photoshop on mobile in an accessible and intuitive way. Allowing people to have the knowledge and the expertise about what a layer is, what is masking and selection tools, plus access to Firefly with generative expand and generative fill, is a huge opportunity. They also have access to over hundreds of thousands of Adobe Stock images that are all commercially safe. It’s the perfect opportunity because there’s a hole that hasn’t been filled until now.
How did you participate in the creation of the app?
About 10 years ago, I was part of a program called “make it on mobile” as a freelancer, which was when we released the iPad version. In the last three or four years, I was invited to the San Francisco offices to give feedback and ideas about what could be next, especially because of my background. Over the last year and a half, since I’ve been at Adobe, I was put into the room to give feedback and my own personal advice about how we should move forward.
How does this new app enhance your workflow?
100%, especially when it comes to Adobe Firefly. There are many things implemented that help me ideate and create faster, and create elements and images that I haven’t been able to have access to before, only with stock. But the biggest thing for me is now I can actually print my artwork. I can blow up my artwork because it actually has high resolution, unlimited layers and all the different abilities for me to actually go back into mask and adjust where I haven’t been able to before. Over the last 14 plus years, I’ve literally had to redo some entire edits because I had to merge my layers, and because I had to limit the file size, because I had to move forward and add one more layer, but it would say I couldn’t add another layer because the resolution was only so much. So I haven’t had those limitations here.
Is there anything that you’re currently working on, or have recently made, that you’re super excited about?
I love to pride myself on the fact that I have a certain style. The fact that I have access to all of these stocks at my whim, without downloading them to my phone, has allowed me to start really playing with collages, vision boards, different types of album art. I mean, there are so many limitations that I was experiencing that now I can kind of have a little bit more fun and not have to worry about all the different space on my phone. So I’d say that the biggest thing I’m mostly excited about is just different look books and collages and all that fun stuff. I can really just really think outside the box a little more than I always have.
Do you have words of wisdom for someone who might be wanting to make work for the first time using Photoshop for iOS?
Start with what you have. I started off as a college dropout with literally zero money, but I had a broken iPhone 4, and I just started creating in an app and a bunch of different apps that, of course, limited me, but now that I if I had the same access that I have for free with this app, who knows what else could have occurred, but I started where I was with what I had. Wait for that perfect moment to begin. Create with what you have. We have an undo button and a redo button for a reason. If you don’t know what something does, touch it and feel how it feels. See what it does, see how it reacts. If you don’t like it, undo it. If you like it, keep it and then move on to the next. We have masking and layering and adjustment layers and all this stuff so that you don’t have to overthink about what you’ve just done. You can always go back and delete it and restart and have some fun with it. So we have these incredible opportunities now to really express ourselves, to start where we are and to just create.
What are you most excited about?
The biggest thing about this is also helping educate people about the potential future of what they may be utilizing. We’re really setting people up for a successful future to utilize even bigger apps like Photoshop on web and desktop, After Effects and Premiere. The whole suite really sets you up so that you can understand these different features and tools and continue to elevate and grow.
The Photoshop mobile app is available on the Apple App Store, with an Android version coming later this year. The free app offers premium upgrades through a Photoshop Mobile and Web plan. This plan includes additional features on mobile and iPad along with access to Photoshop on the web. All current Photoshop paid plans already include access to Photoshop on iPad and Photoshop on the web.
