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Adobe is adding motion, reference layers and more to its Fresco painting app
Adobe is giving its free-to-use drawing and painting app even more tools.
Italian museum uses cameras to gauge the attractiveness of art
Italy's museums have begun rolling out a camera system that can measure how satisfied visitors are with a work of art.
Adobe's Fresco painting app is now available on iPhone
Last year, Adobe debuted Fresco: a powerful drawing and painting app that brought the realistic feel of watercolor, oils and more to the iPad and Surface devices. As is typically the case at its annual MAX event with Creative Cloud apps, Adobe is showing off a host of new features that are coming to Fresco. First, the company is adding font support through Adobe Fonts.
Adobe brings clipping masks and better brush management to Fresco
The drawing app now works on more Windows 10 PCs, too.
AI uses traditional Chinese techniques to create 'mindscapes'
The Chinese painting style called Xieyi literally means “writing ideas,” and marries the freehand techniques of calligraphy, line drawing and shading. It would seem odd, then, to let a machine interpret such a human-oriented artistic style. But that’s exactly what Hong Kong artist Victor Wong has done with a painting robot called A.I. Gemini
Photoshop for iPad gets Curves and Apple Pencil pressure settings
Curves and Apple Pencil sensitivity settings have finally arrived on Photoshop for iPad.
Benjamin Moore's ColorReader can match your paint with your shirt
Benjamin Moore thinks it has a more reliable way to match house paints than taking photos and comparing them with examples at the store. It's releasing two ColorReader devices and a companion Color Portfolio app that can match colors sampled from any flat surface with not only Benjamin Moore's paint selection, but those of "other leading brands." You could find the exact shade of crimson for your living room by sampling your shirt, if that's your thing.
Adobe's Fresco drawing and painting app is now available for iPad
If the early impressions of Adobe Fresco nabbed your interest, you're in luck. The powerful drawing and painting app is now available for everyone to use on iPad. As you might expect, Creative Cloud subscribers will have the fastest access, and Fresco is included in the All Apps plan, the Photoshop-only plan and education plans. If that's not you, there's an option to purchase it separately for $9.99/month with six months for free if you sign up by December 31st. There is also a free version that Adobe says will offer "many" of the same features, but you'll lose the ability to use some of the app's "professional tools."
Adobe Fresco brings realistic painting to the iPad
Adobe has a second major app release for designers coming this year. Sure, Photoshop for the iPad is going to get most of the attention, but for illustrators and designers who dabble in digital drawing or painting, Adobe Fresco could be the real game-changer. In addition to syncing with your Creative Cloud workflow across desktop versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and more, Fresco's marquee feature makes digital painting with watercolors and oils a lot more realistic. Gone are the days when hardness, opacity and a few other parameters were the only variables you could control when painting in Photoshop. Now you can select an oil or watercolor brush and watch in awe as your strokes blend with the wet paint already on your (digital) canvas.
Google's VR painting app is coming to Oculus Quest
Google's Tilt Brush is available on multiple platforms, but there's been one common limitation: you've had to use a wired VR headset, which puts a damper on your creative freedom. Those cords won't be a problem soon. Google has revealed that it's bringing Tilt Brush to the Oculus Quest, giving you the same core experience without the risk of tripping over cables as you paint your 3D masterpiece. It could well be a device seller, although Google is quick to admit that there are technical limitations associated with jumping from the PC to a headset with a mobile chip.
AI faithfully recreates paintings with the help of 3D printing
It's easy to get a basic reproduction of a painting, but getting a truly accurate copy is harder than you think. Modern 2D printers typically only have four inks to work with, which simply won't do if you're trying to mimic a classic. Researchers at MIT's CSAIL might have a much better solution -- they've developed RePaint, a system that recreates artwork using an AI-guided 3D printer. The technology promises color-accurate reproductions even in less-than-flattering conditions.
How Aardman made a WWI game look like an oil painting
Most video games set in the First or Second World War shoot for gritty realism. In Battlefield 1, for instance, there's an extraordinary amount of detail in every uniform, firearm and mud-filled trench. It's the visual fidelity, paired with addictive combat, that draws players in.
Banksy painting uses hidden shredder to destroy itself after auction
Banksy just delivered a masterclass in using technology to both create and comment on art. The mysterious artist hid a shredder in the frame for his 2006 painting Girl With Red Balloon, and when it was sold at auction for £1,042,000 (about $1.4 million)... you can probably guess what happened next. The moment the gavel came down to close bidding, the painting largely destroyed itself. Banksy didn't say much about the tech involved in a brief clip, but he clearly had a remote trigger to cut his work into ribbons.
The Sistine Chapel's masterpiece frescoes have been digitized
To prepare for future restoration projects, the Sistine Chapel's world-famous frescoes and mosaic floor have gotten the up-close-and-personal treatment by way of an army of DSLRs. The last time the Sistine's masterworks were documented photographically (both by Michelangelo and other artists) it was a 14-year-long job that wrapped in 1994, according to Reuters. This time out, photographers spread 65 nights of work across five years, resulting in 270,000 digital still photos.
Tell this robot to graffiti a wall for you
We've seen our fair share of weird things at CES this week, but there was one thing outside the Las Vegas Convention Center that surprised even us Engadget editors. As we were walking toward the building, we came across an unattended (and seemingly unnamed) robot that takes voice commands to show off its spray painting skills. While it's obviously no Banksy, it's yet another example of how Bluetooth devices are being used to control stuff around you. Sure, this isn't the most practical use for voice commands, but you can't deny how neat the project is.
Google's VR paint game 'Tilt Brush' will get multiplayer
Google's Tilt Brush debuted in September 2014 as a virtual reality painting experience -- immersion with the creative simplicity of MS Paint, as The Verge put it. They've added more in-game tools and hosted the odd art exhibit in the two-year interim. But as more VR headsets filter into players' hands, the game will soon get a big feature: Multiplayer. There's no release date yet, but here's a few things to look forward to while we wait.
Adobe's virtual oil paint adds texture to digital painting
While there are plenty of apps that can realistically emulate the look of brushstrokes on a 2D digital canvas (and even some in 3D space), none have accurately simulated the way a paintbrush actually behaves in a realistic, 3D environment. Now a new collaboration between Adobe and NVIDIA called Project Wetbrush claims to do just that by simulating the movements and interactions of each virtual bristle and rendering the results in three-dimensional virtual paint.
'The Next Rembrandt' is a 3D-printed take on the painter's style
A new Rembrandt painting has been unveiled in Amsterdam on Tuesday, and we're not talking about a newly discovered work. No, this one called The Next Rembrandt is truly brand new, created using data, algorithms and a 3D printer within the span of 18 months. A team of data scientists, engineers and scientists from various institutions, including Microsoft and the Rembrandt House Museum, joined forces to create this homage to the great painter. The team examined all the Dutch master's known paintings to come up with the perfect project: a portrait of a 30 to 40-year-old Caucasian male with facial hair, wearing dark clothes with a collar and a hat on his head, facing to the right.
Break out your paintbrushes again: Twitch launches Bob Ross Mondays
When Bob Ross began painting happy trees and sunlit fields on public television in 1983, there was no such thing as Twitch, no online streaming and certainly no KappaRoss. But now, there's Bob Ross Mondays on Twitch. The streaming site will air The Joy of Painting, Ross' beloved show, every Monday from 3PM PST to 9:30PM PST, starting tonight. Isn't life in the future grand?
Eye-tracking robot arm lets you paint while you eat
One day, you might not have to even touch a canvas to make a masterpiece. Scientists from Imperial College London have developed a system that lets you paint hands-free through a combination of eye tracking and a robotic arm. All you do is adjust your gaze and blink at the right times -- you can even munch on breakfast while you're in mid-oeuvre. The technology is crude at the moment, but it should eventually become intuitive enough that you can focus on perfecting your style, rather than mastering the basics.
