For years, people have dreamed of running Adobe Photoshop CC on a mobile device. But while tablets and even phones are getting more powerful, they still can’t compare to laptop and desktop computers. Not to mention that the small screens would drive you crazy! However, Adobe found a way around these difficulties. Welcome to your new best friend for retouching on the go: Adobe Photoshop Fix.

Photoshop Fix is Photoshop, but it’s a tightly targeted Photoshop. The retouching toolset includes only what you need to make an image look better. The simplified interface means that it’s easy for you to get at those tools, even on a phone. And because you can sync Photoshop Fix files with the Creative Cloud, you can open and edit your photos no matter where you are or what kind of computing device you’re on.

THE TOOLS

When you open an image in Photoshop Fix, you’ll see tools at the bottom of the screen.

Liquify: Push and pull pixels using your finger. This is also where you’ll find the face recognition feature. When you select a specific area of a face, Photoshop Fix pops up corresponding menus that let you refine that area; for example, you could slightly change your expression by widening your eyes.

Crop: Crop (freely or in constrained aspect ratios), rotate, and flip your image horizontally and vertically.

Adjust: Using a slider, affect the entire image by altering its exposure, contrast, saturation, shadows, and highlights.

Healing: Spot heal, clone stamp, and patch to remove objects such as wires from a landscape or blemishes from skin.

Smooth: Use a brush to smooth or sharpen areas of your photo. Like all brushes in the app, you can change size, hardness, and opacity.

Light: Brush more or less light into areas, or change the structure of the entire image.

Color: Saturate or desaturate certain areas with brush strokes or “pop” the whole photo.

Paint: Brush on colors, which can come from the image itself or from the Color Picker.

Defocus: Blur parts of the image with a brush.

Vignette: Select the shape and even the color of the vignette.

Most of your edits are non-destructive, allowing you to go back and undo or modify them later. (Using Liquify flattens all edits except Crop and Vignette. To recover those layers, use the Undo command.) Tap Send to Photoshop command to export an edited image as a layered PSD file.

Four pairs of images before (left) and after (right) being edited in Photoshop Fix by Eric Van Huystee. Eric used the Adjust tools for the bridge photo; Liquify's facial recognition feature on a portrait; the Lighten tools on the mountain scene; and he altered the dog's fur with the Healing options. 

THE FAMILY

Photoshop Fix bundles the retouching features of Photoshop CC into a mobile app. Sibling mobile app Photoshop Mix contains Photoshop CC’s compositing features. It’s easy to pass files back and forth between the two mobile apps (and Photoshop CC) with CreativeSync.

If you have a Creative Cloud membership, CreativeSync is already working for you behind the scenes. If you’re not a Creative Cloud member, simply sign up for an Adobe ID. It’s free, and you can sign up from within Photoshop Fix.

Photoshop Fix is also free. You can download it from the iTunes Store for iPhone and iPad.