Adobe Fresco Overview and Features

Jul 28, 2025

Overview

The speaker shares a comprehensive introduction and walkthrough of Adobe Fresco, highlighting its advantages over Procreate and providing a practical guide for beginners to navigate its main tools and features.

Key Advantages of Adobe Fresco

  • Fresco offers a free version with optional upgrades for brush sets and cloud storage at a low annual cost.
  • Projects sync seamlessly across Adobe Creative Cloud, enabling work on multiple devices including iPad, iPhone, and desktop.
  • Fresco’s motion tools enable dynamic animation, offering more flexibility than Procreate’s frame-by-frame approach.
  • Photoshop brushes and files transfer smoothly into Fresco, supporting an efficient workflow for existing Adobe users.

App Navigation and Main Menu Features

  • The home screen displays recent documents from Fresco and Photoshop.
  • The 'Learn' tab provides live and hands-on tutorials for tools and features.
  • The 'Discover' tab allows users to explore streamed content, though it is used less by the speaker.
  • The 'Shared with You' section enables easy collaboration with other artists.
  • Standard file management options, including recently deleted files, are available.

Document Creation and Setup

  • Custom document sizes can be set and saved for ongoing use in various formats (e.g., for social media, print).
  • Preset options are available for typical digital and print sizes with appropriate resolution.
  • New documents can be started quickly using these presets for different uses.

Core Tools and Brushes

  • Pixel brushes offer a variety of traditional and digital styles, with customizable smoothing for cleaner line work.
  • Live brushes simulate realistic watercolor and oil paint, allowing digital mixing that mimics physical media.
  • Vector brushes allow for infinitely scalable, crisp lines and shapes, with layers clearly segregated by brush type.
  • Brushes can be favorited and Fresco tracks recent brushes for easy access.

Editing and Manipulation Tools

  • The eraser tool can adopt the texture of the current brush, preserving stylistic integrity.
  • The smudge tool allows for realistic blending and texture effects, enhancing depth and realism.
  • The transform tool supports scaling, rotating, skewing, perspective, and liquefy adjustments for advanced edits.
  • The lasso and selection tools enable detailed area selection for copy, paste, or transformation.

Layers and Organization

  • Layers can be grouped, merged, and adjusted for opacity or blending mode.
  • Clipping masks and adjustment layers allow for non-destructive modifications.
  • Comments can be added for collaboration within specific layers.

Animation and Motion Features

  • Motion tools allow both frame-by-frame and motion path animations for dynamic visual effects.
  • Objects can be duplicated, moved, and animated along paths with options for growth, shrink, and sway.
  • Multiple animation features surpass Procreate’s linear approach, promoting greater creativity.

Exporting and Sharing

  • Finished projects can be exported as time-lapse videos or motion exports for social media.
  • Collaborative features support sharing and feedback among users.

Getting Started Advice

  • Beginners are encouraged to download Fresco and experiment alongside the tutorial.
  • Viewers are invited to share questions, comments, and their artwork for community support.