PAD FOR CREATIVES
I see a lot of possibilities for the iPad as far as creative use. An already popular iPhone app, “Brushes” is an art gallery and painting app and has been redone for the iPad. The application allows you to view pictures in full screen and high-definition. You can create your own work or alter other art, share with others and zoom in on the details up to 32X. Every brushstroke can be played back so you see the creation in animation format. “Brushes” is the first introduction of the possiblities of this as an artist’s tool.
5 CREATIVE APPS I WANT TO SEE FOR THE iPAD
I believe that there will be some amazing tools being created soon for the iPad, and will be covering them as they come along. Here’s what I’d like to see Apple and app developers offer for the iPad:
1 – Photoshop app. Being able to work with pictures and art freehand would be exciting. There’s already a Photoshop app for iphone, but one on the iPad in full Mac/PC version would be excellent. Users can take any hi res photo, art or design and edit it with touch or stylus. Boxes and tools are moveable and removeable via touch. Multiple touch processes would allow you to utilize the tools that require you to use multiple buttons to alter, such as magic wand, crop, cut and paste, etc. The iPad Photoshop app would have all the capabilities and options of the full version but with the ease of touch.
2 – Pantone Color Guides. That most desired tool of creatives would be great in digital form. Much like the iPhone app, myPantone, It would have Pantones (& their codes) that you can favorite, combine into patterns/combinations for projects and make them transferable to your Mac or PC for extensive use. Colors can be mixed and matched, sorted through and moved back with the touch of your fingers. It would mimic what it’s like to work with a Pantone color guide without the bulk of having it in paper form. Solid matte, Solid coated and uncoated pantones would be perceiveable via visual photo samples, when you click on the colors. The app would offer a site where you can transfer, save and share those patterns with others perhaps for personal or collaborative use. Having a digital version of the Pantone guide would remove the bulkiness you have in carrying a big book of colors around with you, but have the tactile friendliness that the Pantone color guides mean to be about, digitally.
3 – Reference scrapboard/tack-board - There should be a simple app that lets you copy and paste photos, pictures, sketches and notes you’ve made in iPad or from your computer onto a digital tackboard image that you can use for reference when working on projects, artwork or brainstorms. Much like the tackboard seen in the myPantone iPhone app, you can move the “tacked” images around on the board and reference to them whenever you wish, zoom in on the images tacked or remove them. Reference boards are very vital in creative studios. If you happen to be browsing the web or out with friends and see something that would be a perfect reference piece for your project, being able to take photos, clips from the iPad browser or even videos to take on a still images on the tack-board would be great for later visual reference. It’s fun, convenient and customizeable to your preference and allows a more visual display for going back to notes and pieces that are important for creative work.
4 – Digital Tablet -As an artist, I’d like to be able to use the iPad like a Wacom tablet, with a stylus, something that by Bluetooth could be used to transfer images with ease from the iPad to your Mac or PC. Via touch or stylus I can choose different mediums (brushes, pencils, pens, markers, etc) and create more extensive work, layers and colors based on the choices in the app program. The app would have an intelligent UI that allows you to adjust transparencies, mediums, colors and sizing.
5 – Sketch pad – Something that you can do some spontaneous, off-hand sketch work that can later be transferred either to your Mac/PC or to the digital tack-board app idea. Like iPhone’s Notes, you can simply open up the app and choose a basic tool (brush, pen, pencil) to do quick simple sketch work. The images would be able to be transfered to other apps like the Photoshop app, for use on the Digital Tablet app and moveable to the Tack-board app. This is very important for artists and creatives who need to sketch out ideas or thoughts onto something while they are away from the studio or home. This removes the unnecessary bulk having a regular sketch book, with the convenience of digital transfer to any tool or device at whim.
And with all of these tools, I’d love to see the option to share project ideas, sketches & work via my social media tools: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. The benefits of the iPad for artists are less bulk and disorganization in travel, immediate transference of ideas (for those of us creatives who get ideas and concepts in our mind while on the go) and the capability for more socially connected artists to share their work, progress and notes with their community and fans on the web. There is so much opportunity here for app developers and am excited to see what comes next.
Filed under: Pop Culture, Tech | Tagged: apple, creative tool, gadgets, ipad, ipad art, ipad artist, iphone, natasha wescoat, Tech
First, great post.
Second, the lack of support to the artistic community is the single most disappointing things about this device. I wrote about this in a blog article (http://www.notesfromtherocket.com/2010/01/macbook-air-mark-iier-ipad.html) but I feel that the artist community was left out of the iPad party.
The invitations for the iPad announcement were filled with colorful palettes and lots of “creativity” verbiage. The hype-vacuum of the Internets filled in the rest: multiple uses! Artistic construction! Drawing! Handwriting! Digital paint!
Yet, the iPad (in its current release form) is not a content creation device – it is a content consumption device. (And, with the lack of a 16:9 screen form factor, an odd one at that.) The device could very easily have come out of the gate with a wacom-ish paint stylus, but it didn’t. Neither did it have a camera, microphone or device ports for capturing information from other devices.
The applications you suggest are great – and people will (no doubt) construct them — but the basic design, hardware and layout of the iPad, version 1, limits its very usage in all of the apps you describe. The old adage applies here: never by a version 1 product from Apple. By v3, they’ll have put out what they initially should have put out.
[...] que no quieren traer todos sus libros en la mochila y tener todas sus notas en un sólo lugar; para artistas que se inspiran en momentos inoportunos, y no quieren traer consigo un cuaderno y todo su equipo de pintura; para técnicos que quieran [...]
If we get these apps available for the iPad, I will be in heaven. Put layer functionality in the photoshop app and I am sold. I have figured I will use this thing for content consumption and social networking, but I might use this thing for drawing and other artistic needs if the apps are there.
The real question to me is if I will be able to work on this instead of working with pencil, pen and paper. Maybe it will just be a nice supplement.
yeah exactly. may not be everything we’d need as far as the tablet goes, but at least close!
Oh my gosh! This dweeb at work was pretty much telling me this same exact point. Anyways, since I’m about to quit this crap-lousy company, I suppose I could feed you a hook up. Not too many people know about this, but you can get a $1,000 gift card for f-r-e-e at this time, courtesy of the very lazy regional manager. These guys would do anything to find more people in their stores!!