A lot of what makes the best laptops for Adobe Photoshop also makes the best laptops for video editing: a well-balanced combination of performance, battery life, and a bright and vivid display. Whether you're just learning the ins and outs of editing photos or can wield the lasso tool like a scalpel in the hand of a surgeon, there's no shortage of great options, whatever your skill level.

Laptops with Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs are now available for creators with demanding Photoshop needs, as well as all Intel's Core Ultra 200-series and AMD's Max Pro series of processors. Professional editors can benefit from the added performance of a discrete graphics card by enabling Photoshop's hardware acceleration features, which helps power through demanding tasks faster.

A high-resolution OLED display is also something to consider. You'll not only get to enjoy the rich hues and deep contrasts OLEDs are famous for, but some of them also have wide color gamut coverage — wide enough to find colors in between colors.

For beginners or anyone looking to save money, any laptop with last-gen hardware will still provide more than performance to move Photoshop edits along quickly. Even ones without a discrete graphics card. Check out our best laptop deals for the best discounts at various price points.

This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.

Update Log

6/6/25: Updated intro, benchmark comparisons, recently reviewed, and FAQs; added the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a as the best workstation and the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition as the best 2-in-1.

The Quick List

Best Overall

There's little not to love about the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9. It features a gorgeous display, powerful processor, solid discrete graphics, and enough memory and storage for creators of all skill levels. It even comes with decent battery life and a comfortable, bouncy keyboard.

Rami Tabari said in our review, "I love a display with a little kick. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i’s 16-inch, 3200 x 2000, 165Hz panel is gorgeous. It’s reasonably bright and offers a vivid wave of color."

The Yoga Pro 9i covers 105.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is well above the premium laptop average (91.2%). Its display is far better than similar laptops like the HP Spectre x360 16 (87.1%), Dell XPS 14 OLED (79.9%), and Apple MacBook Air (77.8%).

The Yoga Pro's powerful combination of an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card provide enough power for even the most demanding projects. The Yoga Pro 9i also lasted a respectable 9 hours and 51 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which is far more than many similarly packaged laptops.

The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 base model costs just $1,482 for an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The fully specced $2,043 version provides an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor with an RTX 4060 GPU and a 16-inch, 3.2K, Mini-LED display. Our preferred middle-of-the-road spec costs just $1,784.

See our full Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 review.

Best under $1,000

The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425) is a laptop that can do just about anything. It continuously amazes us how budget-friendly this absolute powerhouse is. With its power performance, solid graphics, and almost 16 hours of battery life, we have good reason to love the Zenbook 14 OLED as much as we do.

In my review, I note that "the display panel on the Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) looks incredible. The new trailer for Chris Pine's The Poolman showed crisp, vibrant colors, particularly in the scenes shot outdoors in LA during what appears to be a Lunar New Year celebration."

Starting at just $799, this laptop has a powerful Intel Core Ultra 5 135H processor with 8GB of DDR5 memory, 512GB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch FHD OLED panel. But if you can flex your budget just a bit more to the higher-end spec, at just $1,049, you get an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with 16GB of DDR5 memory and 1TB of SSD storage.

The Zenbook 14 OLED's display could be brighter and more vibrant, but with a DCI-P3 rating of 79.8%, it is comparable to most other laptops in its category, such as the Apple MacBook Air 13 M3 (77.8%) and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED UX3405M (81.7%).

But the Zenbook 14 OLED is more than its display panel. Surviving a shocking 15 hours and 52 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, it is one of the longest-lasting Intel laptops we've seen this year. Considering how budget-friendly this laptop is and how well it handles Photoshop, you can't go wrong with it.

See our full Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) review.

Best under $1,500

The Acer Swift X 14 is a powerful, budget-friendly option for Photoshop users who need more 3D rendering capacity. The base model starts at just $1,099. The mid-range model combines a powerful Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with a workhorse Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU, plus 16 GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. It retails for just $1,299. This mid-range model offers similar performance at a lower cost without sacrificing the display.

In my review, I observe that "the glossy CineCrystal OLED display on the Acer Swift X 14 looks fantastic to the human eye. The colors are bright and vivid, though the display panel does suffer from glare, especially with overhead office lighting."

However, if you'd like more memory, storage, and a more powerful GPU, our preferred Swift X 14 configuration is available for just $1,699. It includes an Nvidia RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage.

Acer rates the CineCrystal display on the Swift X 14 to 100% coverage on the DCI-P3 format. Our lab display test measures OLED panels a bit differently, so our testing indicated that the Swift X 14 covered 79.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro (81.4%) and HP Spectre x360 14 (85.8%) outperformed the Swift X 14 in our lab testing, but the Swift X 14's display looked incredible to the eye. In addition, the Swift X 14 offers a powerful Nvidia RTX 4050 to 4070 GPU, making it a better fit for more in-depth Photoshop work.

Based on the Laptop Mag battery test, the Swift X 14 with an RTX 4070 GPU can last for 7 hours and 33 minutes while surfing the web at 150 nits of brightness. While that isn't the best battery life for a laptop on this list, it's not bad for a laptop packing a discrete GPU and OLED display panel.

See our full Acer Swift X 14 review.

Best 2-in-1

Like some of the other Laptop Mag writers, I'm picky when it comes to convertible laptops — so it's a great day when a highly-rated review of one comes across my desk, and I get to give it a buying guide superlative. The Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition is without a doubt a laptop that deserves to be on this list.

This laptop's headlining feature is the display, a 14-inch OLED that's "far superior and even more colorful than most premium laptops overall," as Laptop Mag reviews editor Rami Tabari notes in his review. Covering 149.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, it produces vivid and richly saturated, drool-worthy colors. The display averages a maximum of 421 nits of brightness, higher than you'd see on many competing OLED laptops —all major reasons why this Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is also our current pick for the best touchscreen laptop with an OLED display.

When it comes to performance, this laptop takes a leisurely approach to finishing demanding tasks. Compared to the other laptops on this list, it was the slowest to convert a 4K video file to 1080p. Photoshop users may experience some lag when batch-processing dozens of images with numerous layers or working with filters and brush tools.

But if you're not a graphic designer or photographer who uses a lot of advanced features in Photoshop, the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 has a lot of other things going for it: a stellar and responsive keyboard; speakers that can actually handle a baseline; nearly 13 hours of battery life; and it weighs just under 3 pounds. (Other 2-in-1s are much more brick-like.) Also, I would feel comfortable putting it on my bare lap. At its hottest point, this laptop didn't reach 88.3 degrees, well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.

See our full Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition review.

Best MacBook

For Apple users and design enthusiasts, the 2024 MacBook Pro 16-inch with M4 Pro CPU reigns supreme for photo editing. While pricey (starting at $2,499), it offers powerful performance and a seamless experience within the Apple ecosystem. Opting for a 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM configuration delivers ample storage and smooth Photoshop performance, making it a compelling choice for creative professionals though upgrading the memory and storage capacity can get pricey.

Reviewer Sean Riley observes, "The 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Pro is more laptop than most people need, but that likely won't stop you from wanting one, and after a week with it, I can't blame you."

With any configuration of the M4 chip, you’ll get a brilliant 14-core Apple M4 Pro CPU, a 20-core Apple GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine, and a gorgeous 16.2-inch 3456 x 2234 Liquid Retina XDR display. Our lab benchmarking rated the 16-inch Liquid Retina panel as covering 81.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is high for laptops on this list. The MacBook Pro also scored well on the brightness test, with an average of 565 nits, much brighter than the category average of 391.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro (2024) is a smart choice for Photoshop because of its beautiful, bright display and powerfully smooth internal specs. However, there’s another crucial spec to consider: battery life. MacBooks are known for having excellent battery life, which is a fantastic feature for those wanting to use Photoshop on the go. The 16-inch MacBook Pro lasted an amazing 20 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, significantly longer than its workstation laptop competitors.

See our full Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro review.

Best Workstation

At CES 2025, we were so blown away by the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a that we gave it our best laptop award — and after reviewing it, we're still blown away by it. At 0.71-inches thick and weighing 3.4 pounds, it could easily be mistaken for a productivity laptop. However, with the driving force of an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 chip, it's anything but.

The great news for Windows users is that it comes "very close to eclipsing the MacBook Pro" in terms of portability and raw CPU power, as Laptop Mag staff writer Madeline Ricchiuto candidly mentions in her review. In some of our real-world testing, it's evenly matched; the ZBook converted a 4K video to 1080p 4 seconds faster than the MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro in our Handbrake transcoding test.

It's OLED display comes in an extremely close second to the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition, covering 139% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. (Many OLED laptop displays don't break 100%!) Its max brightness in on par with other competitors, maxing out at an average 368 nits — but if you're searching for the perfect shade of Pantone-like purple, this could be the workstation you've been looking for.

Being as powerful as they are, Windows workstations usually come with a battery life caveat, and with a run time of 6 hours and 46 minutes, this ZBook is no exception. To be fair, that's typical for a workstation, but it's a key area where this laptop doesn't eclipse the MacBook Pro, as well as other creator-focused laptops like the Asus ProArt PX13.

Ultimately, the ZBook's price tag is where most potential buyers could draw the line. The model we reviewed costs an enormous $4,049, but the base configuration starts at a substantial $2,599. If you're not loyal to a specific operating system, that amount of money can get you a MacBook Pro M4 Pro with better battery life — but it's hard to ignore that the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a is a marvelous laptop for any creative work.

See our full HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a review.

Benchmark Comparisons

Recent reviews

We review more than 100 laptops annually, and while some simply don't have what it takes to make our buying guides, others are still strong options that came up short for one reason or another. Here are some of our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make the cut for "Best laptops for Photoshop" but could still be solid machines for your photo editing needs.

How to choose a laptop for Photoshop

CPU: You want a high-performance processor like an Intel Core Ultra 7 or 9, an AMD Ryzen 7 or 9, or an Apple M4 chipset to handle complex filters, large photo files, and multiple project layers.

GPU: For heavy-duty tasks like intricate filters, 3D effects, or AI generation, you may want to consider a laptop with a discrete graphics card like an Nvidia RTX or AMD Radeon RX card.

RAM: You need at least 16GB of memory, but depending on your budget, Photoshop users will certainly benefit from 32 or 64GB of RAM. I'd stress the latter in particular isn't something you need to consider unless money is no object or you are doing this professionally and every second counts.

Storage: 512 GB is the minimum I'd consider if I'm doing a lot of photo work, though splurging for 1TB or more is a good idea. Unlike the CPU, GPU, and RAM, you can always turn to external storage, so if your budget requires you to save somewhere, this is the place to do it. However, I'd still stress that you want 512GB at a minimum to handle at least one project at a time without turning to an external drive.

Display: You want to be picky about the display since photo editing is a visual medium. You'll want a crisp, high-resolution panel in the QHD to 4K range with accurate color reproduction. For the best combination of brightness and vibrancy, we recommend opting for an IPS, OLED, or Apple Liquid Retina XDR display to ensure a high level of color fidelity.

If you're looking to set up a full photo studio workstation and didn't select a laptop with the best display, you could also upgrade with one of our picks for the best monitors or best portable monitors for on-the-go editing.

FAQs

Q: What minimum specs do I need for Photoshop?

A: Lower than you might think! As of October 2024, the minimum system requirements for Adobe Photoshop running on Windows 11 are: an Intel or AMD processor with AVX2 and SSE 4.2 or higher support, or a WinARM processor; 8GB of RAM; 256GB total SSD storage space; and a graphics card that's newer than 7 years with at least 1.5GB of video RAM, and supports DirectX 12; and a 1080p monitor.

All that applies if you have a Mac, except the graphics card, but you'll want to make sure you have macOS v12 or higher.

If you a faster laptop to run Photoshop, we recommend at least: an Intel 13th-gen Core i7 processor or newer, an AMD Ryzen 7 7000 series or newer, or Apple Silicon M2 or newer; at least 16GB of RAM; 512GB or more of total SSD storage space (PCIe Gen 4 or newer); an Nvidia RTX 2050 or newer graphics card with at least 4GB of VRAM; and a 1080p display or higher.

Mac users should be running macOS Sonoma or newer.

Q: Is a laptop that's good for Photoshop also good for video editing?

A: Most laptops that are good for Photoshop will also work for video editing, but you'll also want to be aware of the audio quality of a laptop when choosing a video editing machine. So not all the laptops on this list will be ideal for editing video or audio files.

Video editing can often demand more RAM and GPU resources than photo editing, so you may want to opt for a laptop with a discrete GPU if video editing is going to be a large part of your workflow.

Q: Why don't we recommend a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop for Photoshop?

A: On the hardware-side, a Snapdragon X Elite laptop is an excellent machine for running editing programs like Photoshop — but few native Windows on Arm versions of Adobe programs exist overall.

Currently, only Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can run natively on Snapdragon X Elite laptops. This might not be an issue if you only use Photoshop, but if you also use Adobe Premiere Pro, InDesign, or Illustrator, those can only run via emulation.

It's a similar concept to running a virtual version of Windows 95 on a Windows 11 PC, but the computer will use more resources running both the emulator and program at the same time, which could slow down various editing tasks. If you don't have enough available RAM or video RAM, the entire program could crash.

How We Test Laptops for Photoshop

Every laptop we test undergoes countless lab tests before a review goes live. We look at how a laptop performs in terms of CPU and GPU-intensive tasks, battery life, speakers, heat management, and display. While each laptop on this list has gone through every test we could run on it; there are a few specific test results we paid close attention to when choosing the best laptops for Photoshop.

When you work with Photoshop, it’s important that the colors you’re working with will translate to other screens when your file is shared. To detect a laptop’s display brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut, we use a Klein K-10A colorimeter, Klein ChromaSurf, and DisplayCal to calculate a laptop's average brightness and color gamut volume. We also pay attention to each laptop’s Delta-E score, showing how accurate a display’s colors are.

Additionally, performance is important in a laptop running Adobe Photoshop. The Geekbench CPU benchmark tests a laptop’s overall performance. To test a laptop’s GPU, the 3DMark benchmarks determine how well a laptop can run graphic-intensive applications. Discrete graphics are ideal when selecting a laptop for Photoshop, but not essential, so you might forgo a discrete GPU for a more budget-friendly laptop.

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over a hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.

We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.

Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

Adobe is often seen as the defining art app for digital creation. We’re long past the point where “Photoshop” became a verb, and while ‘to InDesign’ doesn’t have quite the same ring, art software like Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator underpin nearly as much creative work as Photoshop does.

The thing is, Adobe apps are pricey. Today, a Creative Cloud subscription costs between $9.99 per month for a single app to $59.99 per month for full access to the suite. That adds up to quite a lot over the course of a year, especially when you need to buy a laptop for graphic design as well.

Expensive Adobe software can certainly feel like the gatekeeper of legitimate digital art. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way. Open-source apps like Gimp and single-fee applications like iPad’s Procreate make it far more affordable to create.

I jumped ship from the Adobe suite long ago — at least for most tasks. That decision followed years of experiments with freebie and cheap art software that can do lots of the work that Adobe does.

Here are the art apps that have helped me ditch an Adobe subscription, as well as a couple that are on my wishlist. And if you have a Chromebook, don't forget to check out the best Photoshop alternatives for Chromebooks.

The best open-source art apps you need to try

Gimp: A raster editor you won’t want to miss

As far as software goes, Gimp is an ancient dynasty. First released in 1996, Gimp is the classic open-source Photoshop dupe. In 2025, it’s still a good choice, having been continuously updated since its launch. A labor of love, it’s a free pro-grade toolset that’s community-built and maintained, and it’s as strong of a pick for photo manipulation as it is for image creation.

Gimp’s built-in capabilities include familiar tools like clone stamp, paint bucket, transforms, and various selection tools. In the drop-down color menu, you’ll find classic levels and curves, color balance sliders, and options for more advanced tasks like locating pixels that might be unsafely bright.

Plugins like Resynthesizer add image-processing tools that take Gimp to the next level. (Here are the links to Windows, Linux, and Mac; use at your own risk.)

If you’re newly switching from Photoshop, Gimp’s interface will take some commitment to learn. A Gimp session that’s been updated with plugins will do most of what you’d traditionally expect from Photoshop, but it isn’t laid out the same.

Use it for digital image creation, processing, and retouching photos before they go online. If you work with still images of any type, Gimp is a program you should have in your toolbar.

I bought my laptop for Photoshop, but I’ve had Gimp in my taskbar for longer. I use it whenever I need to crop a photo, tweak a color, or touch up a detail before posting online.

Get Gimp

Inkscape: A vector editor for daily tasks

First released in 2003, this vector art software has been updated continuously and still thrives on multiple platforms today.

Vector art is rarely as intuitive as raster software, which often feels like painting with digital watercolor. Vector software is something altogether different and provides maximum control over solid, scalable graphics. It primarily deals in flat colors and gradients.

Download Inkscape to design website favicons, create a brand logo that can scale to the size of a billboard, and build cartoon artwork.

I love Inkscape’s built-in tools for bitmap conversion. I’ve used the software to turn digital raster sketches into crisp logos. I used it to create the favicon for my website. To do so, simply drop a digital drawing into the software, then use the “trace bitmap” function.

The program will turn your linework into a digital path that can be micro-adjusted using the software’s path editing tools.

Get Inkscape

Scribus: Layout a magazine with an open-source app

Scribus follows the same ethos as Gimp and Inkscape, and it’s designed to play well with both programs. It’s a surprisingly powerful alternative to Adobe’s InDesign that’s completely free and open-source.

Scribus is the freebie option when you’re looking to create an art book, design menus for a local restaurant, or print your own business cards.

In Scribus, you’ll be able to use familiar concepts like grids, guides, and frames in much the same way that you would in Indesign. Set guides and grids to create precise layouts that can be applied across an entire book or magazine, then populate your frames with imagery.

Get Scribus

Blender: Build complex 3D worlds, animate them, and more

Blender is the classic open-source option for 3D modeling, motion graphics, and beyond — and it needs to be on your radar. However, Blender is far from intuitive.

Instead of gaining any real proficiency, the hours I put into Blender only served to clarify just how wide the program is in scope. Thankfully, a vast community of dedicated users has made all the content you could need to help steer you in the right direction.

Get Blender

Canva Free: Make simple graphics for the web

If you’ve spent much time in a corporate environment, you’ve probably encountered Canva. Native to browsers, Canva is free to get started with, though many of its more powerful tools, like its background remover, are locked behind a $120 per-year paywall.

While I’ve heard professional designer friends gripe about Canva, there’s no arguing with its usefulness. When you want to build a simple graphic or format an image for your CMS, Canva Free edition gets the job done quickly … much of the time.

Try Canva

Remove.bg: Get rid of image backgrounds for free

What’s the big thing missing from the free edition of Canva? Well, there’s a lot, but I miss the background remover most often. Thankfully, there’s a simple free service for doing just that. Remove.bg is a website that does one thing — it accepts digital images and sends them back without a background, and it’s really good at it, too.

I use Remove.bg weekly. In fast-paced media environments, where a hero or header image often needs to get built in minutes, Remove.bg enables you to grab a photo, remove the background, then send it on to Canva Free, where you can add it into a photo collage, position it, and then run it on your site.

One thing to note: Remove.bg’s free version only supplies low-resolution images. You’ll need to make an account if you want high-definition images.

Try Remove.bg

One-time fee art software

Procreate: A beautiful digital painting suite

If you’re a digital artist, chances are you’ve been hearing about Procreate for years. The iPad native art app is one of the best art tools I’ve encountered. Running on my 2020 iPad Air, Procreate provides a delicious digital art set that handles drawing as wondrously as it does liquid raster brushes.

I’ve tested industry-leading graphics tablets with Photoshop, and I’ve never yet found a setup for digital illustration that beats the experience of Procreate on iPad.

If you’re working with specific color grading or technical illustration for billboards, the specificity that can come from running Photoshop on a premium machine is unreachable on an iPad. However, for most of us, Procreate is more than powerful enough.

In 2025, Procreate is available for a one-time fee of $12.99. For the money, it’s incredible value. When you need more tools, the internet is happy to help with endless libraries of custom brushes for purchase or download. There’s also just as much learning material out there to help you get started.

The one caveat: You need an iPad.

If you’re new to digital art and trying to decide whether you want to buy a laptop or an iPad, there’s a real argument to be made for choosing Procreate on iPad. I know many professional illustrators who work exclusively in a Procreate environment. For digital illustrators, I think it’s usually the better choice.

Get Procreate

Affinity: The single-fee Adobe competitor

The Affinity Suite contains three software packages that fill the roles of the three Adobe apps most designers use. Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Photo provide a well-rounded set of digital art tools that can be further expanded with add-ons.

Each Affinity program costs $69.99 individually. This one-time fee grants you indefinite use of the software. The whole suite can also be bought for a lump sum of $164.99. Thankfully, free seven-day trials allow you to try the software without committing.

Full disclosure: I don’t use Affinity myself, but I’m eyeing it. If you’re committing to a career in the arts and want to learn powerful software with a polished touch, an Affinity license is an excellent buy that can fully replace the need for a monthly Adobe subscription.

Get Affinity

When to go Adobe

Adobe makes powerful tools — no doubt about it. When I partnered with a publisher to design my first poetry and art book, I got a copy of InDesign and used that to collaborate on page layouts. I’ve also gone back to Photoshop for large design projects. Adobe Creative Cloud is often the standard for collaborative art and design work, and working within it simplifies file exchange.

However, the rest of the time, I get by with Procreate, Gimp, Inkscape, and the rest of the tools mentioned above. Buying a computer for graphic design is an investment in its own right, so why not use open-source and free tools where you can?

Get the Adobe Creative Cloud

Open-source art software thrives on donations

If you find yourself using and loving the open-source software we’ve recommended, we suggest you donate. Open-source software might be free, but it isn’t free to make. Programmers have spent countless hours developing these software suites.

If you get real value from these products, giving back is important. Thankfully, with products like Gimp, it’s easy to do just that.

This year has been great for software. We’ve already seen Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro arrive on iPads, iOS 17 released for iPhone, and generative AI enter the mainstream with ChatGPT, Midjourney, and more. However, 2023’s most impressive piece of software could come by way of Microsoft — and no, it’s not Windows Copilot. 

How do you solve a problem like MS Paint?

You may know it as Microsoft Paint, MS Paint, Windows Paint, or just plain ol’ Paint — the default graphics option for Windows that has spent the majority of the last 40 years revealing to the world that any bored child with access to a line and fill tool is just as talented of an artist as Piet Mondrian.

Often seen as the “It’ll do in a pinch” image editor, Paint has been largely ignored by Microsoft since the Windows 95 era. Its only notable updates have been the app’s adoption of the Fluid Design ‘Ribbon’ layout and the inclusion of a Dark Mode feature. Neither of which is anything to write home about.

Paint has had a quieter stage presence in Windows than cosmic background radiation, and the last time people paid attention to the software at large was when reports swirled that Microsoft was planning to kill it off in 2017 — likely to focus on its follow-up flop Paint 3D. However, the rumors of Paint’s passing were greatly exaggerated, and to this day Paint remains a staple of the Windows platform. An aged and stale staple growing more irrelevant by the day.

Until recently that is.

A glow-up 40 years in the making

Having been long surpassed by the likes of Photoshop, and free alternatives such as GIMP, Photoshop, and even Paint.net, the painful ascent back to any form of relevance for MS Paint is going to be a long, hard slog.

Seemingly, Microsoft abandoned all desire to take on that challenge long ago — having lost too much ground to the competition and with better things to focus on. However, all of that is changing as Microsoft is poised to drop some impressive updates with a host of new features to breathe new life into the aging app.

The following is everything we know to expect from the Microsoft Paint overhaul so far:

Background Removal Tool: A new tool that identifies the primary focus of an image and strips away the background with a single click.

Magic Paint: A generative AI tool powered by Dall-E (the same text-to-image AI tech behind Bing Chat) that turns prompts into on-canvas results in Paint.

Layers and transparency: An upcoming update for Paint will include full transparency support and the ability to work across multiple layers. 

Outlook

The new Microsoft Paint features are already available to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels, with more updates being included based on user feedback.

Could this be the start of Paint’s journey to becoming a truly relevant image editor? Who knows, but this is the first wave of real support for the app in a long time and it’s getting people’s hopes up at the very least. Expect these new paint features to be available to all in the coming months!

For breaking news and updates on all things Microsoft, and Windows, follow Laptop Mag on Twitter, Facebook, and Flipboard for the latest word as it arrives.  

I’ve been living with an Arm-based Mac for close to five years now. Since Apple first debuted its in-house silicon, I have had few complaints, and whatever compatibility snags I faced when I reviewed the M1 Mac Mini have disappeared -- so much so that Apple’s set to phase out Intel chips altogether. 

Despite an eight year head start, Microsoft hasn’t had the same success.  Arm-based hardware like 2022’s Surface Pro 9 (SQ3) hasn’t done well either and met with underwhelming reviews. So when a new Chinese-American startup, Robo & Kala, sent me their latest, Arm-powered Windows two-in-one, I was skeptical, but to my surprise, weeks later, it’s become the computer I reach for daily to work and leisure. 

For a $799 Windows convertible, the Robo & Kala two-in-one, except for its tedious name, gets everything right on paper: it has a 12.3-inch, OLED 2.5K screen, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of upgradable SSD, and a light, slim design. But unlike most of its competition, it doesn’t run on a traditional AMD or Intel chip; Instead, it’s powered by Qualcomm’s ARM system-on-chip, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 -- the same one found inside the Surface Pro 9 ARM, whose otherwise high-end experience was marred with a range of Arm compatibility issues. 

Half a year later, how far have Microsoft’s arm efforts come? Here’s what it was like to live with an arm-based Windows PC in 2023. 

ARMed to the teeth

If you are not familiar with how an Arm SoC differs from typical computer chips, it works similarly to the processor powering your smartphone. This architecture allows manufacturers to integrate various key components like the GPU and the CPU onto a single chip, enabling a more efficient output. 

However, traditionally such chips have been limited to smaller devices like a phone or a smartwatch, PC makers are now increasingly adopting them as well to capitalize on a host of upsides such as a much longer battery life, 5G compatibility, and more. Because it’s so different, it also needs its own kinds of apps, and developers have to update their services for arm-based chips to get the most out of them. While even when they don’t, an Arm SoC can run their x86 apps in an emulation, the experience won’t be nearly as efficient, or smooth as it can be. 

Historically, Microsoft has struggled to convince developers to release Arm versions of their software, unlike Apple, which is why you won’t find many Arm-based PCs on sale. But things appear to be taking a turn for the better. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve extensively put the Robo & Kala computer through its paces. Many of the apps I rely on every day, including Mozilla Firefox, Zoom, Adobe Photoshop, VLC, and Spotify have already been updated for Windows on Arm, and run well. More, such as WhatsApp, and Dropbox, are expected to follow suit soon. 

When I exclusively work from Arm-native Windows apps, the results are impressive: Not only does the Snapdragon chip perform well and do a decent job at preventing lags even when I have dozens of tabs open, but the laptop also lasts comfortably up to nine hours and longer than most Windows PCs I have tested. Another Windows on Arm quality that’s on full display here is that the laptop boots near-instantly and barely warms up under heavy duress. 

In the last two years, Microsoft has made a series of updates to improve Windows on Arm. It has introduced better support for third-party developers, via kits, and Arm-native versions of Visual Studio and .NET platforms. Thanks to some under-the-hood Windows 11 updates, it’s also made it easier for developers to convert their existing x86 and x64 apps and ensure they’re stable even if they’re not completely compatible with Arm-based chips. 

Not quite there yet…

At the same time, there’s still a long way ahead for Windows on Arm to become a default choice for most buyers. While unlike before I’m not constantly reminded -- whether via poor performance or crashing apps -- that I’m on an Arm-based chip, non-native app support is far from perfect. 

For starters, many of the popular apps people look for immediately after setting up their PC like Google Chrome have not yet received the Windows on Arm overhaul. Though most run just fine in emulation, some like Slack are particularly bad and jittery. I could, however, overcome many of these issues simply by switching to a service’s web app or by changing their emulation settings from the right-click menu. 

More importantly, when you do actively work on non-Arm apps, you won’t benefit from the chip’s extended endurance, and in my experience, it can slash the battery life by nearly 2-3 hours. 

The biggest roadblock to Windows on Arm for many people could be the lack of VPN apps. Almost no VPN provider, from ExpressVPN to NordVPN, is available at all on Arm-based chips and doesn’t run in emulation either due to its incompatibility with the TAP adapter, a key module needed to configure safe virtual networks. After some back and forth with the ExpressVPN team, though, I did figure out a workaround and was able to set it up manually but I doubt most users would want to do that. Plus, you still don’t get to use the VPN app interface and have to connect or switch coverage areas through a tedious, technical process. 

Another thing to remember about arm chips is that they’re not nearly as capable of high-performance or graphic-intensive tasks. Adobe, for example, even excludes a bunch of tools from its arm-native Photoshop program like the oil paint filter and video layer edits. Often, new features such as Android’s Nearby Sharing, too are limited to Intel and AMD computers. 

Game on!

Gaming, surprisingly, is not terrible on Windows on Arm. Of course, you won’t be able to install most titles, let alone play them, but Microsoft has been steadily rolling out improvements. 

It recently updated the Xbox app for Arm-based chips so that you can stream any Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games to Arm devices, and added Unity engine support, allowing devs to target Windows on Arm devices to get native performance on current and future titles. 

What was more impressive was that I could effortlessly play a couple of older games such as Team Fortress 2 at 50-60fps. Hopefully in a couple of years, you won’t have to switch on another PC like me to play your usual desktop games. 

Bottom Line

There’s no denying the efforts Microsoft for Windows on Arm has put in have borne solid results. The Robo & Kala two-in-one is one of the best Windows experiences I have had in a while. Yet, Windows on Arm still often feels like an afterthought. Since it’s such a small user set, it’s difficult to get support for it too. 

I couldn’t find any material on VPN installation for Windows on Arm, for example, and there are no dedicated categories on the Microsoft Store for arm-native apps and games and you have to scroll all the way down to an app’s technical details to understand whether it’s compatible with arm chips. 

A Microsoft spokesperson told me the company “regularly shares resources and continues to listen to end-users and developers feedback in these areas, and have more planned ahead.”

The company appears to have momentum now with arm chips with many, reliable hardware like Lenovo’s ThinkPad X13s and Robo & Kala that have done well to showcase the best of Windows on Arm and we expect more from Microsoft itself at its upcoming Surface event. 

But this year and the next may very well be its chance to get it right. The question is whether it can get itself out of its long struggle with arm chips before buyers lose trust.

Microsoft Paint or Windows Paint (or just Paint to its friends), the image editor of choice for bored children or really bloody good artists the world over, is about to get an incredible upgrade — a one-click background removal tool. 

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Currently available to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels (version 11.2306.30.0), the new Paint update features one of the more useful tools out there for photo editing for absolutely free.

More powerful apps such as those by Adobe or Canva will tend to lock such tools away behind a paywall. However, for Windows users, the feature will come as standard — nested away in tech’s most unassuming graphics app.

A new icon signaling the tool’s presence will be seen in the Image Options panel of Paint, replacing the current “Resize and Skew” with “Remove Background.” And it really will be as simple as clicking that button and allowing Paint to do the rest of the heavy lifting. The following is an example from Microsoft of the tool in action:

Users will also be able to fine-tune the results by preselecting areas with the Selection Tool before hitting the all-new button to make sure multiple subjects, or tricky areas of an image to decipher are peeled away as intended. 

Outlook

So, who had Windows Paint getting a step closer to catching up to Photoshop on their Bingo card then? Not me, that’s for sure.

However, changes like this are just the beginning for Paint. Microsoft intends to give the aging app an AI makeover with recently leaked internal mockups of the future overhaul showcasing layers, a new UI, and a Magic Paint tool that transforms your canvas with a text prompt — powered by the same Dall-E tech of Microsoft Bing.

There's no word yet on when the update featuring background removal for Paint rolls out to the wider user-base. But it may take a few weeks or months to arrive as the Insider team collects feedback and irons out any bugs within the new tool.

For news, rumors, and updates on all things Microsoft and Windows, follow Laptop Mag on Twitter, Facebook, and Flipboard for the latest word as it arrives.

Photoshop is great, but those monthly costs of Creative Cloud can be annoying. Here are the best free alternatives to Adobe's editing software.

For all tasks from making quick reaction memes to entertain the work Slack channel, to professional editing and color grading, the default option has always been Photoshop. 

Right now, you can pick up a Creative Cloud subscription with Photoshop for $20.99/mo (or in a special offer for first-time customers, grab Photoshop and Lightroom for $9.99/mo). 

On the face of it, that’s an affordable price; but what if you’re watching every penny at the moment or would rather not get stuck in another subscription plan?

Well, lucky for you, the market for free photo editing software is ripe for the picking. While they don’t come with the same cloud storage and multi-device compatibility as Adobe’s solution, these options don’t cost you anything.

Here are the best free Photoshop alternatives you can download right now:

1.  GIMP

One of the most well-known free alternatives to Photoshop, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP — that’s what it stands for, so get your mind out the gutter) is ideal for photographers looking for something that can keep up with their edits, no matter how simple or complex they are.

GIMP is overflowing with features, provided you can look past the inability to edit RAW photos, and can invest some time in getting acquainted with the complicated UI, this software will cover all your bases.

2. Pixlr Editor

“A browser-based tool!?” I hear the outcry of creative pros out there, followed shortly by laughter as it surely can’t face up to the power and capabilities of Photoshop. 

To that, I say look again, as Pixlr Editor comes from the team over at AutoDesk and gives you some really powerful tools. Without spending a single penny, you’ve got access to curves, blur, sharpen, noise level tools and much more.

Of course, there are some setbacks, such as the limited file compatibility, no rulers or guidelines, and the lack of a pen tool, but this is a strong option when you’re working in Chrome (or Edge) and are looking for a quick photo edit.

3. Paint.NET

If the name is making you think of MS Paint, good. This was originally designed to be a more advanced version of Microsoft’s long-running graphics editor. Now, before you scroll on and ignore this spot, Paint.NET actually manages to do a lot more than you think, and crams its wealth of features into the easy-to-use UI of Paint itself.

Layers and blending modes, rulers and guides, and a great history tool make this a strong option for beginners. However, the lack of slice, patch or spot healing tools and no RAW compatibility mean you will outgrow this as you go pro. Still, this is definitely a top recommendation for a new starter.

4. Photo Pos Pro

Speaking of UIs, Photo Pos Pro brings something unique to the table beyond the core essentials of a good free Photoshop alternative like layers and mask support. As you go from a new starter to an advanced user, you will be keen to customise the interface around your preferences. With Photo Pos Pro, you can do just that.

Yes, much like the previously mentioned software, there are some compromises. The software has some strange performance issues at times and the size of file exports is limited, but you’re still getting something that closely mimics Photoshop’s UI and even has its own extensions and plugins for greater usability. 

5. Krita

And finally, we turn our attention to another free alternative that is highly recommended by photographers. Krita shares a similar look and feel to Photoshop, supports rulers and grids, comes with pre-installed templates, and has a deep set of features and effects to choose from.

The text feature is far more limited than on Adobe’s paid option, there is no history function, and the app is a little slow at times, but look past those and you’ve got a great editor that won’t set you back any dollars or cents.

Adobe Photoshop is the gold standard for photo editing, but despite the tremendous growth of Chrome OS laptops in recent years, millions of Chromebook owners couldn't access Photoshop –– until now.

Adobe just announced a new web-based Photoshop on its blog that is accessible to Photoshop or Creative Cloud subscribers in open beta currently (via PCWorld).

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While the ability to use Photoshop in any capacity from your browser and, by extension, a Chromebook is good news, the downside is that it is much more limited than the full desktop version of the software. Even Adobe says in its blog post that the web version of Photoshop is there to make "light edits." 

You can use Photoshop on the web in either Chrome or Microsoft Edge, and it includes a basic editing feature set for now. However, there are plans to expand it in the future. At present, the available tools include simple layers, selection tools, masking, paint tools, eraser, paint bucket, text tools, cropping and a handful of others. 

Notably, this offers some advantages over traditional Photoshop as you can now share Photoshop images with anyone and allow them to open, view, edit and provide feedback on the images without having to download or install anything. You have complete control over the feedback and editing permissions when you share the link, so you decide their level of involvement. For many users, this will be the highlight of Photoshop for the web as creatives will have an easier time sharing with clients before turning over a finished project.

Photoshop for the web is in open beta for anyone with a Creative Cloud subscription starting today, and Adobe is actively soliciting feedback. Hopefully we will see the feature set expand as they work toward a full release of the product.

The M1 MacBook Air and Pro blew us away with their industry-leading performance, proving that Apple no longer needed to rely on Intel chips to make zippy laptops. However, Apple's new ARM-based M1 chip brought some challenges in terms of app compatibility.

When Apple first announced its novel processors, professional-grade apps like Adobe Photoshop weren't yet fully optimized for the M1-equipped MacBooks. As such, professional editors may have been hesitant about purchasing one. Fortunately, Adobe announced that Photoshop will now run as smooth as Sunday morning on M1 devices.

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Adobe Photoshop gets fully optimized for M1 MacBooks

After months of beta testing, Adobe's ultra-popular Photoshop app can now run natively on Apple devices with the M1 chip. According to Adobe's internal benchmarks, Photoshop is 1.5X faster on M1-equipped devices compared to similarly configured, previous-generation systems.

"Our tests covered a broad scope of activities, including opening and saving files, running filters, and compute-heavy operations like Content-Aware Fill and Select Subject, which all feel noticeably faster. Our early benchmarking also shows that some operations are substantially faster with the new chip," Adobe's VP of Photoshop Product Management Pam Clark said in a recent blog.

Clark boasted that the newly optimized Photoshop app running on M1 chips is so fast, you'll miss the splash screen if you blink.

However, there is room for improvement — Adobe Photoshop has some features that are still not supported on M1-equipped devices, including Invite to Edit, Cloud Documents, Preset Syncing and more. Adobe suggested that editors who depend on these features should continue using the Rosetta 2 version of Photoshop.

You may be wondering why Adobe didn't just wait until all of its features were optimized for Apple's custom-designed chip, but the company was too impatient. Adobe wanted to show off Photoshop's new, M1-optimized app as soon as possible.

"The performance gains across the rest of the application were so great, we didn’t want to hold back the release for everyone while the team wraps up work on these last few features," Clark said.

Adobe also announced two new features for Photoshop on the iPad: Cloud Documents Version History and the ability to work on Cloud Documents while offline. Adobe Photoshop isn't the only big-name app that's been fully optimized for M1 laptops: DaVinci Resolve can also run natively on M1-equipped devices.

DaVinci Resolve now supports M1 MacBooks

Blackmagic Design followed right behind Adobe's footsteps, officially exiting its beta testing stage that launched last November. Its popular video-editing app — DaVinci Resolve — can now run natively on M1-equipped laptops. 

Like Adobe Photoshop, M1 MacBook owners had to use Rosetta 2 to run DaVinci Resolve. Now, the new DaVinci Resolve update takes full advantage of the M1 chip's blazing-fast performance.

"The combination of M1, Metal processing and DaVinci Resolve 17.1 offers up to 5 times better performance when compared to previous generation Macs. For DaVinci Resolve Studio, this update also improves performance by adding support for hardware accelerated encoding and decoding of H.265 10-bit 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 formats on supported Intel platforms," Blackmagic Design said in a recent LinkedIn post.

Adobe and Blackmagic Design's newly optimized apps are now available. You can download the Photoshop update here while you can get DaVinci Resolve 17.1 here.

"C'mon, c'mon and touch me, babe!" It's not only a Doors song, it's what the photos living in your phone are secretly saying to you. They're also secretly asking you to crop out the dude who photo-bombed your girl's night out group shot and increase the overall exposure of the shot. Now you don't have to wait till you get home to Photoshop out that, you can do it right on your smartphone. Adobe has finally brought Photoshop Touch to Android smartphones and iOS, for just $4.99.

Photoshop Touch for phones brings hallmark Photoshop capabilities such as layers, selection tools, filters and adjustments. It even features a new tool called Scribble Selection for making exact selections with just the tip of your finger. Making those selections is made easier by a 400-percent touch zoom. Incredibly, it has the ability to edit photos up to 12MP in size. Make no mistake, this is much more robust version of Photoshop than the previously available Photoshop Express, which had basic photo editing tools, but no layers. Instead, Photoshop Touch for phones is nearly identical to the tablet version of the app. 

The app comes with 2GB of storage on Adobe's Creative Cloud, which allows users to transfer a photo they were working on between phone, tablet, and desktop. In order to use it on your iDevice, you'll need at least iOS 5, plus an iPhone 4S or a 5th-generation iPod Touch. On the Android side, you'll need at least Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It's available in both the App Store and Google Play so head over and check it out.

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Early forecasters who opined that the iPad would only ever be used as a content consumption device have one more reason to eat crow. The Grand Poobah of desktop image editing, Adobe Photoshop, has released a tablet-focused version of its software--and the app is an impressive content creation tool indeed. While (expectedly) not as fully featured as its desktop counterpart, Photoshop Touch packs a lot more functionality than other apps in its category. But at $10, Adobe's Photoshop Touch app costs $5 more than Snapseed and Apple's own iPhoto. Is it worth the extra money?

Interface

Click to Enlarge

When you launch Adobe Photoshop Touch, you're greeted by a screen that asks whether you want to begin a tutorial or start a new project. Choosing the tutorial option brought up a thumbnail grid of 13 walkthroughs, including how to slap a cropped foreground onto a new background, how to apply artistic effects (pencil sketch, painting, etc.), how to create camera layers and more. While the tutorials were quite easy to follow (a banner across the bottom of the app presented step-by-step instructions), there's no way to disable them, which could prove frusrating for experienced hands.

Moving into Project mode, we first chose a photo to edit; you can select one from Local Photos, Creative Cloud (Adobe's cloud storage service), or one from the Camera, Google or Facebook.

To better suit tablet usage, Photoshop Touch presents a simplified UI, but with tools in roughly the same arrangement as on the desktop version. The left side houses a palette where we could find the familiar Marquee Selection, Magic Wand and a new Scribble Selection Tool. Below these options sit Paint and Spray, the Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser, and Smudge and Blur tools. Tapping on the very first icon at the top of the tools palette toggles between the settings of a tool and the tool palette, while tapping and holding on an icon switches between other tools with similar functions.

On the right side of the screen, you'll find the layers palette. Here, layers are displayed as thumbnails and stacked one on top of the other. Like desktop Photoshop, the top layer is what's visible in the main editing space. To toggle between hide and show, we simply tapped on the circle on the top left corner of the thumbnail. We could also add new layers, duplicate a selected layer, add an imported photo layer or make a new layer from our current selection. Each of the layer's settings was adjustable, giving us the ability to modify opacity, experiment with blend modes, and to merge and delete layers.

One neat Easter egg in the app was also tucked away in this palette. When we double-tapped on a layer, a 3D rendering of the layer stacks appeared. We could even touch it to rotate the model, looking at it from several angles.

Finally, across the top of the screen, you'll find a horizontal menu of tools and effects, which includes icons for Back, Add image, Pencil, Selection tools, Transform mode, Levels, Effects, other common tools such as Crop and Image Size, and an icon to toggle full-screen view.

Other photo apps, such as Snapseed and iPhoto, typically allow for whole-image modification while throwing in some features for spot editing here and there. Photoshop Touch is the exact opposite. It puts the greatest emphasis on tweaking smaller details--menu items for these functions are immediately accessible--while it buries the artistic filters and effects deeper within the app.

Multitouch editing

Click to Enlarge

There aren't too many multitouch gestures you can apply within the Photoshop Touch. It's a far cry from both Snapseed and iPhoto, where we made adjustments to images primarily using touch-based gestures such as swiping, tapping and pinching. As a result, the learning curve for manipulating images was much easier in Photoshop Touch. All we had to do was tap on a tool, then touch our image. For instance, we could use our finger to draw a lasso selection within an image, pinch to increase or decrease the size of a brush, and swipe horizontally to adjust its opacity.

Features

Click to Enlarge

In being refitted for the tablet, Photoshop Touch contains the ingredients of only the most popular features of desktop Photoshop, such as brushes, erasers, layers, the Magic Wand, warps, fills, drop shadows, color levels, blend modes and more. In addition, Adobe developed two functions that can only be found within the tablet app: the Scribble Selection Tool, and Camera Fill. Scribble Select let us separate the foreground from the background in our picture by tracing outer and inner outlines with our finger. We could even zoom in on the details to get a cleaner crop of the foreground. Camera Fill let us create a floating layer on top of a camera-enabled layer so that, for instance, we could create our own face-in-hole pictures.

Performance

Since most controls focus on making changes to the finer details, there was little opportunity for the app to show that it lagged. Even adjusting the brightness and contrast didn't provide us with a live preview--we touched sliders along the bottom of the app, and the screen refreshed when we let go of the display.

That being said, we didn't notice any troublesome delay in Photoshop Touch while it executed our gestures and touch commands. The didn't have the same lightning-quick responsiveness as Snapseed, but for the meticulous process of editing details--Photoshop Touch's forte--we didn't find this problematic. This also may be due to a file size restriction, too; you can only edit images up to 1600 x 1600. That means if you wanted to edit an 8-MP image from an iPhone 4S, you'd have to downsize it first.

Sharing 

Click to Enlarge

Options to share images on Photoshop Touch include Save to Camera Roll, email, Facebook or to an AirPrint-compatible printer. We also appreciated the inclusion of Creative Cloud, Adobe's cloud storage locker with 2GB of free space upon sign-up. However, the absence of support for Twitter, Flickr or other popular Web services was disappointing.

Another weakness is that the app is only able to preserve layers by saving the file in an app-specific format, PSDX. If you want to work on the photo on your desktop, you first have to download a free plug-in from Adobe's website. Also, flattened images can only be saved as JPEGs or PNG.

Verdict

On the spectrum of image-editing software for the iPad, Photoshop Touch is definitely the most advanced app we've reviewed. It crams more features into its little package than most amateur photo editors will ever use on a daily basis. Ironically, though, its file-size and format restrictions may make it too limiting for professionals, who should consider the app as a complement to the desktop Photoshop more than anything. And, as far as taking advantage of the iPad's multitouch capabilities, we prefer the $4.99 Snapseed, which also has fairly robust editing tools. But experienced image tweakers will be satisfied by Photoshop Touch.

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What's better than being lucky enough to have that oh-so-expensive license for Adobe Photoshop on your notebook or desktop PC? Having those extensive photo-editing tools available on your tablet. Adobe has made that possible with Photoshop Touch, which is now available for the iPad (it's also available on Android slates such as Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1).

You don't get the full suite of editing tools, of course, but this $9.99 download gives photographers and image enthusiasts quite a bit of photo-manipulation functionality. Crop, resize and paint are all here, as are layers. Photoshop Touch lets users import photos from their tablet, from Facebook and, most interestingly, from a Google search integrated right into the app. Color us (har, har) impressed.

Adobe also gives Touch users anytime access to their edited photos via its Creative Cloud service. This will launch in Q2 of this year, and it lets users merge documents from Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Touch and Adobe Creative Suite into one universally accessible account. Check out our hands-on below for a closer look.

Photo retouchers, charge up your iPads! A full featured mobile version of the world's favorite photo editing software  landed in the Apple App Store today. Named Adobe Photoshop Touch, the app brings new features like support for layered images, an essential capability for doing any real image manipulation, to the iPad 2.

Naturally included in the $10 app are tools to take of advantage of the iPad's touch-based interface, or work around its limitations, depending on how you think about it. Take for instance, the Scribble Selection Tool. That feature allows users to select and remove elements from photos just by scribbling on them. In a similar vein, Photoshop Touch includes Refine Edge technology, which makes it's easier to select image elements with soft, blurred edges. Throw out that Magic Lasso tool, Photoshoppers! And check out more tools in our screenshot gallery down below.

Other new features include camera fill, new blending modes, special effects like paint and filters,  and more. Just in case users to want to do a little finer editing, the app supports Adobe Creative Cloud for syncing projects up on your desktop, and because art is nothing without an audience, there's direct integration with Facebook for sharing all those airbrushed works. 

Adobe Photoshop Touch works with the iPad2 and is available today in the Apple App Store for $9.99. Check out more at www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-touch.html.

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Adobe's has introduced some amazing new functionality in CS6, its newest version of Photoshop. On Monday, Adobe released a video on YouTube demonstrating one of the slickest features of CS6: Content-aware move, a tool that lets you seamlessly move or remove an object in an image and then automatically fills in the background. No more using clone brush or other advanced feature to cover up that random guy in the background of your group photo -- CS6 will handle it on the fly. CS6 also adds functionality to the content-aware move tool that allows you to extend an object in the image -- say, the edge of a roof -- without using any complicated tools. Adobe's video demonstrating the power of these features speaks for itself:

The mobile version of the classic image-processing software is by no means as comprehensive as its desktop complement. Still, we were pleased to see that Adobe Photoshop Express packs all the essential photo-editing features that most mobile shutterbugs could ever want.

After you've selected a picture to edit, icons across the top of the screen provide quick access to several functions: Crop, Brightness, Sharpness, and Special Effects. Tapping an icon opens a drop-down list menu with more specific tweaks. From there you can make adjustments to each setting by swiping from left to right on-screen, though there's no literal slider control.

Unfortunately, in shedding the bulk for its mobile version, Adobe let go of several staple effects in Photoshop. For instance, white balance, fill light, blacks, curves, hue, luminance, and vignetting are nowhere to be found.

Still, in a sea of photo apps rife with duplicates and less-polished options, Photoshop Express is a boon for accomplishing simple post-processing tasks.