Released today as a free upgrade for existing users, Astropad 2.0 brings major performance improvements and new features to the popular iPad-to-Mac graphics tablet app. Described as a “Wacom Cintiq alternative,” the app allows for a stylus-wielding iPad user to perform photo retouching in a way that many prefer over clicking with a mouse.
When you open the new app you’ll notice an updated user interface, a refined pressure curve for a more natural feel, panning and zooming enhancements for more applications, and a new setting that will auto-hide the cursor on your Mac while drawing.
Under the hood, Astropad 2.0 now runs three times faster due to a “Liquid” upgrade. Liquid is an in-house core technology developed specifically for Astropad’s performance demands. Astropad describes Liquid as being responsive up to 60 frames per second (improving on Apple AirPlay’s 30 frames per second), GPU accelerated, color corrected to the source material, and better than the highest quality JPEG with no compression artifacts. Astropad 2.0 also uses three times less CPU power and four times less memory.
You can find the free update today in the iPad’s App Store, or first-time customers can purchase Astropad 2.0 for $29.99.
[via Astropad Blog]
I wonder does anything like this exist for non Apple users. Something with similar functionality for Android/Windows users would be really useful.
Hi Dave, unfortunately it does not exists because there are nothing as good as the new iPad pro. I was skeptic, now I own one (small version). The pencil is just great. I tried Surface pen, it's rubbish!!
I used Astropad but I wasn't satisfied, I joined the beta of Astropad 2 and it is good, even if there are still pixelation problems. In general, for beauty retouch is good, it is much better than Wacom, but not for liquify, there is still some lag.
Astropad has been everything the company claims for my illustration and fine art. All the subtleties of pressure and tilt together with pixel-level precision make going back to my Cintiq 13 HD an impossibility. Even over wifi rather than the Lightning cord, performance is a joy. Take a peek at some finished pieces at www.lifeascinema.blogspot.com
I'll have to take your word for it. I don't own a single Apple product and no plans to own change that any time soon.
Cintiq was always a clunky, cable ridden proposition and even Wacom's tablet offerings seemed far less than perfect. Astropad for me has been the best kept secret for integrating Photoshop and Apple Pencil into my illustration and painting workflow. Hope there's an alternative offering on Windows you can try. All the best.
No Windows equivalent to my knowledge. I searched about a year ago but the search came up empty. I have a Surface Pro 4 (i7, 16GB) and was hoping to use Lightroom/Photoshop to edit photos using the pen. I personally like the pen input, it's responsive compared to other devices and should be sufficient for basic retouching. The problem is that my SP4, despite being the highest spec model in the lineup, chokes on the D810's 36mp raw files. I can't do any editing as it's just frustrating.
Ideally, I could run Lightroom Mobile on my Windows PC, which would sync collections I choose and let me edit the smaller file on the SP4 and those changes would get synced back to my full copy of Lightroom on the desktop. Having a full version of Lightroom on the SP4 is nice but for my workflow the more crippled mobile version would be far more useful.
Yea there are a few options for windows users; Wacom makes drawing tablets that run windows there are two-in-one drawing tablets running windows, and specifically android to windows you can use apps like GfxTablet or mirroring360 ( there are few other apps) but getting a tablet running windows like the Cintiq companion2 or the surface pro is probably your best bet. astropad just fills a gap that Windows users had for a while