What is the best Photoshop substitute for iPad?

Answer 1

There are many image editors and paint programs for the iPad. I personally own over fifty. Naturally, not all of them are good... some are quite poor. But it is surprising how many are elegantly excellent and offer many features which Photoshop offers. It is unrealistic to expect all of Photoshop's features, especially when considering that Photoshop sells for much, much, much more than any of these iPad apps. Some of them are either free, or virtually free.

Some of these programs excel in one or more 'Photoshop type' area, but are overshadowed by other apps in some other feature. There's really no do-it-all app that meets all your Photoshop needs. In the past my normal work-around would be to do some of the image editing in one app and the rest in another.

But all of that said, as of August 2012, an app named 'ArtStudio' has released a major update which makes it the all-around closest iPad app to Photoshop. It is by a company called 'Lucky Clan' and is touted as an art/paint program, though it contains image manipulation strengths far and above many apps which claim to be only for image adjustments. The app is not only powerful; feature-filled; but is also quite quick and has excellent performance! For creating layered images containing various adjustments and paint effects, this is about the only app I've found that delivers on the majority of my power-hungry needs.

Next month there could be something better, but as of today, this is honestly the best substitute the iPad has.