Adobe Fresco: Painting Studio Reviews

by Ghastly28

Got AdobeFresco on my new ipro, and the first few days it worked great, now it pauses randomly after some strokes. It also doesn’t always register the touch to step back so you keep tapping, it then catches up and goes back multiple steps...annoying. I’m using the same vector brushes and same size artwork I did with Adobe DRAW and never encountered these problems. The other day I discovered that if I hold after a curved line, I could scale and rotate!!!! My mind was blown! ....this option stopped working.
HUGE PROBLEM: I spent 2 days working on a piece, went to work on it the next day and MY VECTOR ART WAS RUINED!! All my VECTOR lines became PIXEL lines. I then realized that right above the MERGE LAYERS BUTTON, Is the TURN LAYERS TO PIXEL button......are you kidding me?!? If your pencil slips and you don’t catch it, your screwed. You can’t turn them back once you close AdobeFresco (possibly even before) if these items were fixed AdobeFresco would be wonderful, and I wouldn’t feel bad dishing out more $$ to adobe. Also I noticed a new vector brush was added, please continue to add vector brushes, as that was my one original issue. I cant wait to rate AdobeFresco 5 stars!

by Kaletbh

AdobeFresco is not ANYWHERE near as user-friendly as Adobe Draw was. The only reason I installed it in the first place was because Draw was discontinued and merged with this one. I thought this would be fine because all of my old files from Adobe Draw were carried over to AdobeFresco, but when I went to continue a project I was previously working on, the features were completely different and much more difficult to navigate than Adobe Draw ever was. For example, you can't easily use the color picker tool on a single layer without selecting all the other layers you have created, meaning you can't easily create other layers to begin with. The double tap features from Adobe Draw are also completely gone, so if you want to single out or access certain options on layers, you have to go through an entire toolbar to do so. In summary, it's WAY more complicated and essentially a lot less user-friendly. In the end, I made a single mistake on one layer that ended up compromising an entire project, because I couldn't properly merge or un-merge the layers I was working in. Which means I'm now going to have to start over from scratch.
I don't know what the purpose was for transitioning Adobe Draw to Adobe Fresco, but I wish we had the option to change over instead of being forced to use AdobeFresco instead, since it ruined all of my progress on an important piece of work.

by Maylin And Ziggy

I used to use an app called Adobe draw, and I loved it. Then one day I open AdobeFresco , and it says that Adobe draw is being taken away, and to get all my art, I have to download Adobe fresco. I dealt with it, even though it took me a while to learn how to do everything. The old app was much simpler, but there are some new features on this one I like. But like I said, this one isn’t as user friendly as the old one. I’ve been trying to avoid leaving a bad review, because I didn’t want to say negative things about it until I gave myself a chance to learn how to do everything. But today was the last straw, when I accidentally filled a photo layer, that was under my drawing (I had been working on the drawing on Adobe Draw). I couldn’t undo it, so I deleted the photo layer, and tried to re-add it. Turns out, you can’t do photo layers on this new one. I spent hours trying to figure it out, researching it, trying every button, but nothing worked. I am angry and I am tired. If I’m wrong, somebody please let me know how to do it. If adding a photo layer as a reference really isn’t an option…
I don’t know why they got rid of the old app, but it was a horrible decision, and I hope AdobeFresco goes away as well. If the developers are reading this PLEASE fix this problem. This is ridiculous

by Mgh1130

I love AdobeFresco and it’s ability to allow me to be creative. but recently, AdobeFresco began to crash multiple times. it wasn’t saving any of my drawings/artwork after crashing either which is the biggest upset. piece after piece, destroyed, unsaved, back to a blank canvas again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to completely re-do entire art pieces. then I finally figured out it was because of the storage. the canvas sizes I use aren’t even that big, and I don’t even have many art pieces in my gallery. so that leads me to believe that the cloud storage is just small to begin with. and it’s a bit too much for me to pay $10 a month just to get more storage and free me of worry. AdobeFresco has great tools and I love the features that allow me to be creative, I really do, but fresco has deleted my hard work one too many times lately. and I don’t see these issues getting fixed without me having to pay for premium. so I’m ending this review in saying I will be playing around with non-adobe apps in hopes of finding something that will always save my work for me.

by Kwotonz

AdobeFresco is fine as far as a drawing/painting app is concerned. I like Procreate better, but the brush engine for the live brushes is impressive. Adobe’s pay monthly per app subscription model, in addition to having to pay them a subscription for CC connectivity, is the reason I no longer utilize Adobe’s ecosystem for my professional work. If AdobeFresco, like Procreate or the Affinity apps, offered a $10-$20 one time purchase option (maybe more, just using those numbers because the mentioned apps are in that range) then I would absolutely pay once to add a fully featured painting app to my workflow. But alas, like the rest of Adobe’s products, I have downloaded and played with the trial of this one and cannot find anything that would motivate me to pay a monthly fee for AdobeFresco let alone to then pay more to be able to have a CC account to save and export my files to. This payment model must be successful for them because they keep doing it, but it’s alienating me and a lot of their other independent/non-enterprise users. To the point where neither I nor anyone I know in my professional circle use Adobes CC products to produce their work. If anything, it has driven the people who want to continue to use Adobes programs to piracy and other ways of getting access to CS6 and the like. Good app, I will continue to avoid unnecessary nickel-and-dime subscription models like the plague.

by Violethyung

Not enough space for brushes, you can't move the icons around, icon placement makes no sense, too many useless functions, don't like brush options. AdobeFresco is extremely laggy even with full bars of service/wifi. I spent 10 minutes customizing the eraser and it still functions incorrectly, it seems that the proportions of where you touch the screen to where the eraser begins erasing are slightly off of balance. These are only some of the flaws I care to list. The transition from the old app to this one was aggravating. They said that it would be possible to keep the old app and that updates would just stop being made to it, but the old app was removed. Not all of my projects transferred over. The projects that did transfer either have to be redone or trashed because they do not have the same tools that I used to create them, so I can not finish them, or edit them properly. The undo/redo buttons are very small compared to the size of the canvas, which makes it difficult to accurately press the one that I want. Perhaps this is not supposed to be a phone app? I do not see myself keeping AdobeFresco unless many changes are made.

by Kristcath

I’m sure AdobeFresco is great, but this review is my plea for Adobe to bring Sketch back online. I’m a Set Designer in Chicago and when I started working here in 2017, all of the Senior Designers were still using grid paper and pencil to draw their sets. I bought myself an iPad and found Sketch and it changed everything. It was just one step above pencil & paper - very basic and intuitive and had everything we needed to get the job done. Finding Sketch lead to every designer in our company getting a iPad and going digital. Designers who have been in the business for 30+ years, who never thought they’d be able to learn a software, were confidently drawing on their iPads because it was SO easy to use. This switch will be catastrophic as it’s just too complex and the features are unnecessary for what we’re doing. I think the apps are completely different and Sketch is the perfect app for entry-level digital design or basic digital drawing. You can become familiar with a base level of Adobe vocabulary without feeling completely overwhelmed and left behind. Unfortunately Fresco will alienate half of our team and we’ll be forced to find something else :(

by Lemrisin

I’ve been around with Adobe since Photoshop CS3. And I’ve read Adobe’s responses to the people who dislike this subscription model. Adobe, you can tell us that $10 a month is ‘worthwhile’ because we also gain access to Photoshop for desktop, but I’m not buying it. You’ve done very little over the past few years to genuinely improve the brush engines in desktop Photoshop for artists or added any new feature that significantly add to the field of illustration or 2D artists. You’ve stopped innovating. While it is true the brushes in fresco are far better than anything in desktop Photoshop, that isn’t enough to warrant a monthly subscription. I will give my money to developers who let me OWN the software perpetually. No strings attached. No what ifs, and no worry if I can’t make a payment one month. As others have pointed out, what incentives DO you all have to make any improvements if people will give you a monthly infusion of cash? Ultimately, I have more faith in smaller development teams who aren’t multi million dollar companies who are out to make as much money as they can. Procreate, Infinite Painter, and Artstudio Pro are far better alternatives to this sub-par software.

by Yolorambo

App is all around fantastic make no mistake. The problem is that for those who have just been forced off of adobe sketch, the OS jump and tools to create things you love, is like going from a bicycle to a car at age 10. I personally think the application is great but my girlfriend who has no prior experience with large scale adobe products is left in the dust with the removal of the option to use adobe sketch here. She doesn’t have the tools and simplistic operations to create anymore. Though the application is deep with features, she really misses the simple eraser/brush/pencil/pen options to draw with and is having a very difficult time adjusting to the new application. Because of her difficulties on the new app she is actively discouraged to create any more drawn content and create her designs. I would love to see adobe sketch back on AdobeFresco Store and fresco be kept for those who intend to do more professional work. Or a side application that is more suited for those with less experience with these products. For myself, as an adobe suite owner, I am disappointed to see that certain products not be kept around for those less fluent in adobe.

by Fromadesigner

I love Adobe products and have relied on this company for all of my professional career. The fact that they would take the time to flesh out a “Vector Based” platform and not include Vector File Format Exports is beyond me. You only have the option to export as rasterized files or send to Illustrator ** HUGE CAVEAT ** on desktop. What is the point of spending all of your time with the limited selection of “Vector Brushes” if you can’t finish the file in the same platform? The reason I am giving this 3 Stars is because it does have potential to be fantastic. This is ONLY if Adobe adds in vector file export options. Ideally, they would add in SVG, EPS, and Ai file export options with full functionality. For artists who are reliant on a tablet, mainly iPad Pro, and cannot afford to buy a new laptop this will not work for them if they are trying to create package ready VECTOR files for clients. Which if I understand the brand identity for Adobe Fresco, was the main purpose.

If this matters to anyone, I am 28 and this is the first review I have ever posted on any platform. I am an understanding person who loves a good beta testing platform, but we are out of beta and I am tired of spending 10x the effort trying to get my hard work of Fresco vector files into an actual vector format.

by :Lb08:

So Ive been eagerly awaiting the straight edge/shapes update..and I get that fresco is likely trying to differentiate themselves from procreate, but I think it’s fine to acknowledge/adopt some of the features that just work.

The shapes/straight lines are much more intuitive in procreate if fresco’s solution is really this draggable ruler thing...? (Maybe I’m missing something?) I totally understand that a new app should have time to work out the kinks and update their way to a more robust tool. But this ruler interrupts the drawing flow and requires too many taps to get one simple result, tainting what is otherwise a pretty good UI. And we still can’t make a circle/arc so I guess we wait for yet another related but separate tool that could have been solved in one gesture. You guys already won me over with the vector brushes (and I’m already an Adobe user thus nothing beats an interconnected ecosystem) so there’s no need to be different for the sake of being different when the market has already shown us a more efficient solution. Please employ the drag and hold for perfected lines/shapes 🙏

by Confetticannon

I’ve been playing around with Procreate for a while now and fresco just didn’t match the quality in their UX or execution of brushes. A lot of brushes do not pick up/mix with colors underneath. And the live ones feel more like blending brushes rather than painting brushes because they mix more of the initial color already there than they put new color down. The oil brushes have this odd bevel and emboss effect that reminded me of the early 2000s days of photoshop effects. And only like 4 brushes could tilt.
I was impressed with the halftone brushes. They worked very well and is something Procreate doesn’t come with. You can buy brushes from other places for Procreate that work just as well though.
The lack of blending brush mode is the most frustrating experience as that is what I use most to create my work. The eraser is just one solid circle. A massive drawback.
-SUMMARY-
In general the brush selection was underwhelming and not as impressive as one would hope for considering there is another app with a one time payment of $10 instead of a monthly creative cloud subscription for the rest of your life. I’m hoping as time goes by there will be major improvements in store.

by Appalcarp

1. Kyle's brushes are not working, for example if I choose a spatter brush, it simply puts up the 'gauge' for color and then does not do anything at all. It works the first time then freezes up. Needs fixed as I have a subscription!

I have worked a lot with photos as art the last 15 years but this particular product has gotten my artful creative juices flowing again so I will be working on getting familiar with this as I have always hated mice as ‘uncontrollable.’ BUT the Apple Pencil and an iPad Pro make this now workable digitally. Why? Because combining great software with the new high-tec devices is putting ease-of-use at a whole new level. I have a couple of other apps I can easily ‘prep’ my photos or even do some pre-processing then zip it into Fresco or Photoshop. I abandoned Windows long ago as I had both a laptop and a Surface and am glad to be rid of same. I didn’t like a Mac, either, so the whole idea of being ‘tied to a desk’ or table was repugnant but few choices to transit to until recently. NOW we need Apple to give us artsy types who like hands-on a 14.7” iPad Pro and we can take this to a new level. I choose this over Procreate though Procreate has some advantages for simplicity. I wish Fresco was a bit easier to transfer other file types used.

by Abhisek Jana

I am a student and learning painting as a hobby. I have been painting when I was 3 years old, I am not professional however drawing/painting has been part of my life for nearly 4 decades. I am trying to move to digital painting for sometime now and used different softwares like photoshop with stylus, procreate etc. I wanted an app which can provide real painting/drawing experience and adobe fresco fulfills that dream. The live brushes are just amazing. There are reviews which talk about not having many tools but I don’t think we really need them unless you are working on a time constraint production. Real painting is not about having multiple tools, it’s about the experience. I am glad that there is a eraser option as in real media you don’t even have that luxury. I used procreate it’s a great app for digital artists but does not mimic the experience of real painting. So don’t go by the bad reviews and try out AdobeFresco. I really really don’t want adobe to kill AdobeFresco just for bad reviews. Also there has been a lot of feedback on high prices, however I think they are just for professionals who are mostly already paying for creative cloud. I just have the free app ( didn’t register for 6 months ) and I have access to all the tools I need to learn and practice. I believe adobe did a great job here and should be appreciated.

by Super Annoyd

Hi there! I just recently downloaded AdobeFresco, (as in, yesterday) and I am a aspiring 10 year old artist. I want to specialize in the Japanese art, anime and this helps a bunch! All though I can draw on paper easily, I’m still trying to find what suits ME, so I went on a adventure throughout AdobeFresco Store, and came out empty. One day I was watching TV and your commercial came up for photoshop, so I searched up Adobe, and got this. I download AdobeFresco and it was surprisingly easy to navigate. I thought all the techniques would be hard to use, but I was wrong. It was actually really simple. Everything was easy to use.
I kinda wish, and I know y’all have to make money somehow, but I wish it was all free. Like the Manga and Comic features so I can practice that (I also would like to be a author) but it wasn’t free and I’m using my school account so I can’t access it.
Going into 5th grade art is gonna be my elective, so this will be really helpful. I wanna be a pro some day, so this is probably gonna be a keeper until I get more advanced. If I have anything else to say, or anymore comments or concerns, I’ll edit… If not then I will leave it. Until then, happy creating aspiring artist like me, or good luck out there ya pros!!! Bye bye!!

by Wademyers44

I’ve been using AdobeFresco for about a month or so now to create a detailed map for my new dungeons and dragons world. I started using Adobe Sketch and it was so limited, but the Fresco app popped up through the Sketch and I transferred my map right over. The Fresco is so amazing because it has every tools I’m looking for. I am able to draw anything that I am capable to do myself. The lasso is super handy, as well as using the filling option, and being able to copy and paste sections and layers. AdobeFresco is rather easy to use and figure out, and the interactive walkthrough answers any questions. Lately, I’ve been noticing my files taking longer to load in and even load marks or movements while working on it. I still have 94% data left on the cloud so I know it shouldn’t be a space issue. I have a lot of small details on the map, but that should cause it to run slow.

by Alvin Oei

After hearing much talk about Fresco, I wanted to try it as an alternative to Procreate and was pleasantly surprised. The most attractive feature to me is the pencil brush and how real it feels by default. I have not been able to find something as natural with the perfect amount of noise yet for PC even though I’ve been using it for years. Yes, the default pencil is beautiful so I have been using this for ideation.

I am only giving Fresco 3 stars, however, because in 2 days of using AdobeFresco it has already crashed 10 times. That makes it really difficult to keep a steady workflow. The files aren’t particularly big, which makes me raise my eyebrows.

Also, the lack of being able to distort or warp images in perspective, which is essential in both Photoshop and Procreate, makes it difficult for me to use this professionally. I am subscribed to CC so this comes with the bundle, but unless these very basic essentials are fixed, it will be hard to compete with Procreate 5 in my opinion.

by Willitz

I am really surprised by this, but the more I use this, the more I realize it gives me a better and more accurate ‘feel’ while sketching and painting than ProCreate does. I think the brushes have a bit less lag on my IPad (2020 non-pro version) than I get with ProCreate using the comparable ones. Also the live brushes are just astounding; they are fun to use even if you don’t know a thing about watercolor, oils, or even making art in general. Anyhow, in AdobeFresco I can sketch with what feels to me to be a more lifelike level of control than I get with ProCreate and that seems to make all the difference to me using this vs a physical sketchbook.

The only downside I really can speak of is the lack of a floating reference window like ProCreate has, but I’ve been using VizRef in a side window instead.

There is no reason you shouldn’t check AdobeFresco out. Even if you are super comfortable with ProCreate, this is like trying out a new set of pens and paper to see what works best for you in the long run, and it works great for me.

by Detective JJthe Cat

I don’t know where to start! AdobeFresco is so amazing! First it has so many different brushes that you can use for free which is really cool. I’ve used a lot of drawing apps in like 30% of them were not free so I deleted them 50% weren’t even that easy to use and they also have limited ways of drawing and brushes and about 20% of them were just absolutely horrible. When I downloaded Adobe fresco I was not expecting this much it has tutorials on masking which I think is amazing there is tutorials on sections and a tutorial on brushes which was really helpful since there’s so many and I was trying to get the hang on all of them. I also love that you can basically use the lasso select to draw inside or outside of something which is really helpful and I also really love the water colors and how they can stay wet it looks really pretty so yeah as basic as AdobeFresco gets it’s really cool and I love all the features and the free version is perfect and yeah plus the not free version seems good for professionals and it’s only $10 so maybe I will get that anyways I love AdobeFresco I recommended it to my friends.

by Shield Anvil

For starters, the free version is a full app. It’s not shackled by intrusive, subversive ads or prompts to buy. I cannot tell you just how much that means to me. For that reason alone, it’s my favorite app of all time. I’m a new artist, where digital art is concerned I’m limited to my phone. It has a small screen, so workspace in my user interface is limited. Fresco’s UI is pretty efficient, uncluttered. Gesture control is fairly intuitive. A good variety of drawing tools available, even without the premium options. I rarely write reviews for apps, and it’s usually to leave scathing bad ones on apps that irritate me. This one’s kinda special to me because it’s helped me be more creative and I feel thankful for it. I have one idea for the developers: would it be feasible to add some optional feedback sounds? Being able to hear the sound of a pencil scraping when I use a pencil tool, for example, would make it easier to get a feel for what I’m drawing. That’s not something AdobeFresco needs urgently of course

by Mar Goran

Good Afternoon, To All adobe fans. Yes fresco is another great adobe app with killer features and versatility, but once again they created another app where the the selection tool is still to in simplest words, basic. Not sure if there are many who can relate, but those of us who spend quite the time with line art and block out areas freehand and just want that simple, quick, right to the point deletion from an area would probably agree that Quick selection tool and the Magic Wand need to make an appearance. Now I know Fresco is new and there have been some who’ve yet had the chance to check it out, but I think quick ways to delete white space should be available on these awesome programs, meaning I should be able tap the area I want to be deleted and delete that area. Similar to the selection tool in Autodesk Sketchbook which is similar to Photoshop in so many ways it’s not even funny. Just my thoughts.

by Cousinike

I’m an amateur artist. Have been drawing/sketching since I was a kid. I got an iPad Pro a little a year ago, because I had become temporarily disabled, and needed something to keep me busy, for I would be confined to a bed for a long time. I of course got an Apple Pencil, and started doing the “paint by numbers” apps on here. Then of course, I downloaded the the Adobe Sketch app. It was okay. I literally have no idea what was/am doing, so I was very limited. Then Fresco was released. At first it still felt like the Sketch app, just a bit more customizable. Then when you guys finally released the big update after the 6 month trial, it opened a whole new world for me. Everything became more streamlined, and super easy to understand. Adding Brushes from PS super easy, but still limited. But over time, with more updates, it has become something special and unique. I bought and tried Procreate, several times, but I always end up going back to Fresco. Watching, and experiencing AdobeFresco evolve, while I’m learning and evolving with it, has been amazing, and with so much time in the future to refine it, and better integrate PS with it, it will become the new standard. I’m so excited to see it happen, knowing I started from the very beginning. Thank you to the whole team over there!

SeanieDee