Adobe Adds New Smudge and Sponge Tools to Photoshop for iPad

Tuesday December 14, 2021 11:49 am PST by Juli Clover

Adobe today updated its Photoshop for iPad app, introducing two tools that were previously unavailable to bring the iPad version of the app more in line with Photoshop for desktop.

adobe photoshop ipad smudge
With the new Smudge tool, Photoshop for ‌iPad‌ users can blend colors in their images, and with the Sponge tool, different areas of an image can be saturated or desaturated.

According to Adobe, the Smudge tool is able to mimic the effect of a finger running through wet paint, and it can also be used to smudge lines and blend two or more colors together. The Smudge tool can be accessed from the Adjustment tool options.

The Sponge tool can be used to enhance the vibrancy of colors in specific areas of an image, or mute the colors. As with the Smudge tool, the Sponge tool is available by tapping on the Adjustment tools icon.

Today's update also introduces options for adjusting the white balance for Camera Raw images and there are now labels for the tool icons that can be seen when you over over them.

Both tools work well with either a finger or an Apple Pencil, with Adobe recommending an ‌Apple Pencil‌ for the best results.

Photoshop for iPad is available through Adobe's Creative Cloud plans, which are priced starting at $9.99 for the Photography plan. The Photography plan includes Lightroom for desktop and mobile, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop on desktop and ‌iPad‌, and 20GB of cloud storage. A Photoshop-only subscription is also available for $20.99 per month, and that plan includes 100GB storage.

Tags: Adobe, Photoshop

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Top Rated Comments

now i see it

63 months ago

Smudge and sponge tool existed on Photoshop 3.0 in 1994.
A Mac back then was maxed out with a 200 MHz single core cpu and 128 MB of RAM and typically had a 2 GB hard drive.

The iPad is finally now getting a 27 year old editing tool that worked fine on a machine 20X less powerful.
Exciting!

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

MadGoat

63 months ago

I hate Adobe’s subscription plan for Photoshop. Would actually think about buying it if it was a one of lump sum of maybe 30-50 bucks.

Get Affinity Photo. It's almost as full fledged as photoshop and it's a one time payment (Per platform). I bought it during black Friday, and I will be letting my adobe sub expire in Feb when it's up for renewal, because it's that good.

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)