Everything You Can Do in the Photoshop Mobile App

You know your software is a success when its name becomes a verb: You'll now commonly hear about images being photoshopped, even if the editing wasn't done with the Adobe image editor. Adobe might not like it, but the usage shows how dominant its flagship product has become.

On mobile though, Photoshop hasn't achieved the same kind of ubiquity or brand recognition. We've had official Photoshop apps of various types down the years, but none of them have really translated the power and feature set of the desktop application over to smaller devices in a way that fully works.

Now, Adobe is trying again: The all-new Photoshop app (available now for iOS, and just released in beta for Android), is Photoshop "reimagined" for a smartphone. The app attempts to bring over as many of the tools and features of the full software as it can, while optimizing them for use on a mobile touchscreen.

While it's impossible to port everything over—in the same way macOS wouldn't work on an iPhone—there's a lot to explore in the new Photoshop app. You can download it for free on iOS, though some features require a premium subscription (either $7 a month for the new Mobile and Web plan, or an existing Photoshop plan). Android users can download the beta version and use it entirely for free for a limited time. Regular pricing will kick in when the app becomes generally available worldwide.

By default, when you open up a new image in the iOS version, you'll be invited to apply a “quick action” to it. (Android users, this is coming soon.) If you'd rather just go straight to the full editing interface every time, check the Don't show this again box, and tap Go to editor. However, if you are wanting to apply a basic effect in as little time as possible, these quick actions can be helpful.

You'll see they all involve backgrounds. Tap Hide background, and Photoshop tries to identify the main subject of the image, and cut out the rest—you can then drop in any kind of replacement background you like. Alternatively, there's Solid color background, which drops in a color you can edit, or Black & white background, which keeps the subject in color but turns everything else grayscale.

Whichever one you pick, Photoshop will take care of creating a new layer for you, so you can work on the foreground and background independently. You'll see the layers are available via the thumbnail down in the lower right corner of the image. With the solid color background, for example, tap the layer thumbnail, then the left arrow, then Edit color to switch to a different shade.

Layers and masks are essentially what separates basic image editors from advanced ones, letting you stack different elements in an image on top of each other (layers) and make edits to them (masks). If you've used a quick action you'll already have a layer created for you, but you can create new ones by tapping the + (plus) button just above the bottom toolbar on the right.

The layer types, including Fill layer (which fills an entire layer with colors and gradients) and Adjustment layer (which tweaks the colors and tones of everything below it in the stack of layers), follow those you'll find in Photoshop on the desktop. Each layer comes with its own settings for you to configure, which vary depending on the layer type. You can get to these settings at any time via Layer properties on the toolbar.

Use the Create mask button from Layer properties to build up a mask, either with one-tap or freehand selections. (You'll see Edit mask if one has already been created.) Further layer options can be accessed by tapping on the three dots next to a layer in the full list. You're able to merge, duplicate, and delete layers, like you can in the full Photoshop software.

Many photo edits rely on accurate selections of some kind, and the Photoshop mobile app gives you a fine level of control here. Tap Select area from the bottom toolbar, and you've got seven different selection tools to pick from, including Tap select, Quick select brush, and Magic wand.

There are also simple Rectangle and Ellipse selection options, and you can use them in combination to select the exact area you need highlighted. Tap the - (minus) button to take away from the current selection rather than adding to it. When the selection is made, tap the check icon to confirm.

You're then presented with further options you can apply to the selection. You can add a generative AI fill, make basic adjustments such as brightness and contrast tweaks, and turn the selection into a mask for further manipulation. Just above these options, you have buttons for expanding, shrinking, and inverting the selection.

Photoshop is well known for its comprehensive tool selection of course, and many of these tools have made it over to the new mobile app: Open up an image in the editor and you'll see them lined up at the bottom of the screen. To change the zoom level of the image you're looking at, put two fingers on screen then bring them together or move them apart.

Tap Retouch, and you can access the Spot heal tool (for smoothing out inconsistencies), the Clone stamp tool (for duplicating one part of the image somewhere else), and Lighten and Darken selected parts of the image. Some tools show a small slider icon next to them—tap this to set options such as brush size.

Back on the main toolbar, tap Brush to paint over part of your image. Again, there's a selection of small sliders you can use to set the brush size, opacity, and color. At any point you can switch to the eraser (it's the icon next to the brush) to rub out parts of a layer, rather than painting on top of it.

Once you get comfortable with the different tools and options on offer, and see how they fit together, you can achieve some impressive results using just your phone.

Tap the lightbulb icon in the top right for more help. At any time, you can use the undo or redo buttons up at the top to go backwards or forwards in your edits. Tap the cog icon up in the top right corner to save your image or access the app's settings.