Adobe Fresco drawing and painting app is out on iPad, coming soon to Surface

Time to break out the stylus.

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Oct. 2, 2019 11:09 a.m. PT

adobe-fresco-3 — Adobe Fresco is out now.
Sarah Tew/CNET

Adobe's new painting and drawing app, Fresco, is out for iPads and will come soon to the Microsoft Surface. While there are similar apps available, the Photoshop maker says it's designed Fresco to have a natural feel and be easy for anyone to pick up.

Watch this: Adobe announces Fresco for Surface Pro

03:30

Working on it initially as Project Gemini, Adobe used its creative artificial intelligence, called Sensei, to create "live brushes" that perform realistically. This means brush strokes using oil or watercolor paints flow, have realistic physics and can blend into each other.

Adobe Fresco is available in the Apple App Store for the iPad , and it's free... kind of. Those with certain Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions can use the app for no additional cost. Non-subscribers can try out the free edition, which has limited features such as fewer brushes and restrictions on exporting finished artwork. For anyone who wants Fresco on its own, they'll need to pay $9.99 a month. However, there's a promotion until Dec. 31 that will give customers six months free.

During Microsoft's Surface event Wednesday, Adobe Fresco was shown working on the new Windows tablet, but there was no date given for its release.

Fresco works with Photoshop, letting users transfer files between the two apps seamlessly.

Originally published Sept. 24.
Update, Oct. 2: Adds details on Surface release.