Yeah when I first heard about it and saw there was a subscription/paid cost I automatically assumed the free version was just a trial like with so many other pay-to-subscribe apps
Hi Brad-One of the absolute BEST features when drawing vector lines is the ability to easily “trim” excess/overlapping lines. This will make pefectly intersecting lines. Try it out. With a vector brush tool, draw a bunch of lines that overlap. Now, while holding the modifier button “outer ring”-(slide your finger directly up or down while on the modifier button and hold)-then, with your finger (or apple pencil,) just “swipe” across the excess-overlapped lines, to delete them. Bam, you have perfectly intersected lines. Note: the lines have to be vector, and they have to be separate lines. Meaning, for instance, if you drew a quick circle that’s ends overlap, you can’t trim the overlapped part without deleting the whole thing. Having said that though, the technique does make a quick way of quickly deleting any specific vector lines as well. I was in on the Beta, and it took Adobe a good while to make vector lines like these “convert” cleanly, without a bunch of tiny artifacts, but, finally, it works beautifully. GREAT way to create fluid, tight, line work!
… and don’t forget about the incredible Multicolor painting abilities with pixel brushes and live brushes - paint with as many colors as you want on your brush simultaneously by selecting any area of your canvas while holding down the Touch Shortcut. This doesn’t exist anywhere else (except in Photoshop with the Mixer Brushes + eyedropper).
One trick to get brushes, just trial fresco for a couple days and add all the brushes you want, even photoshop ones, after trial ends the brushes stay in the program
I use fresco just cause it's the only program where tilt works the way i expect it to. Like the tilt is offset so it feels like using the edge of the brush. Using a pencil in fresco is the best thing ever on my surface. If more programs used tilt like this i would use it way more.
It has been updated every 6-8 weeks since its launch in 2018! Over 100 new features added since launch. Well worth a good, hard look - it’s brimming with great stuff now. 😊
I'm on Windows (with a Huion Display Tablet). No "Touch" functions, but still good. Didja notice the ability to "erase past intersection" feature with the Vector tool? Used to be, only Clip Studio Paint had that feature. It's still much better implemented in CSP, but it's still good to see. I got Fresco mainly for the watercolor features.
Fresco is actually a super awesome program/ app. I’ve been using it for a bit and it’s great. I just wish it was available for MacOS.. seems silly at this point it’s still not available. I read somewhere it was because MacOS was lacking some touch functionality, or such? I hope at this years Adobe Max, they announce it for Mac.
I also was surprised at how little is missing from the free version of Fresco, really just the brushes you mentioned and some of the fonts, nothing you can’t manage without. The only thing I couldn’t work out how to do and think there is no way was to add text and make it follow a curve. But Fresco has come a long way, I tried it quite a long time ago and set it aside as not really useful, then recently tried it again and was really surprised.
My only real complaint about Fresco is the poor pixel art support. I'd really like to make sprites on a canvas that's smaller than 100x100 pixels! I also haven't figured out how to make pixel art using the built-in brushes. I'm assuming you could get a good pixel art brush by importing one from Photoshop, but it feels like it shouldn't be a premium ask to get a hard square brush.
Fresco is actually a really awesome app. What you get in the free version is more than enough for most users, I feel. Love drawing in vector on it, the cloud saving easily allowing jumping between iPad and desktop, the speed and control...not much to complain about here. It doesn't have filters that I can see, and it's missing some small things like symmetry tools (but it's also constantly being updated) but it's a great tool overall. I now do all my line art in Fresco.
Brad is a human. I think we can let him make mistakes. Cherish his presence now because in the near future, artificial intelligence could replicate his voice and create a virtual avatar, with ChatGPT producing his video content.
I would have never imagined giving up Procreate for Fresco but I did the combination of the vector brushes, trim feature, animation on different layers better work flow with Illustrator, color palettes. I don't like pattern making in Capture as much as in Affinity Designer but other than that I can do most of my work in Fresco and finish details in Illustrator.
you don't need touchscreen to draw u can just turn on windows ink and u will get pressure sensitivity even with drawing tablets. No touchscreen required
They also don’t share you can get their entire suite of mobile apps for $14.99 a month (Ps, Fr, Ai, Ru) which gives you full features on iOS. Includes CC storage. Not need to pay for the more expensive CC.
Too bad us Windows users do have to pay $110 more for exactly the same app as on the iPad. It's the main reason I haven't bought it and of course there's subscription. I like to pay once, own forever and decide my own upgrade path.
Okay, Brad ... But 10$ a month will also get me Clip Stuido Paint EX... I mean Frsco looks nice and all, but I can get a full-on PS competitor with a qubic ton of features. Fresco is still a hard-sell.
The reason I have stayed away from Fresco is every example I have seen of artwork from it just looks digital. That watercolour brush you showed looked very artificial. Have you tried creating some finished artwork with it? What did you think? Also do you know, can you still access any brushes you import AFTER your subscription expires? I only miss one Photoshop brush on my iPad but do not want to be paying forever to access that brush. Thanks for all the reviews!
Did I really waste money on Procreate? Before buying Procreate, I was using Fresco. On all of Brad's videos he would say Fresco wasn't just as good like Procreate on iPad.
Something I learned yesterday is that Fresco is a memory hogger, the size of the app was 189GB yesterday on my iPad, and all I did was import some brushes, so I think that is something to be aware of.
NOT on android, subscribed to Adobe Cloud or not... So I will stop at 0:23...seriously, Procreate or Adobe, developer need to BE with digital artists and not just bloody platforms. That there is discrimination. [Full Stop]
Yeah the company basically responsible for the whole start of the digital art revolution. That is been the core ground for the majority of digital 2D art in almost all areas ( art , design, film, games) since the last 30 years. Those guys.
This reminds me of how Adobe pushed Quark XPress out of the publishing number 1 spot by giving away InDesign for free or almost free all those years ago. Then when all the design agencies had stopped paying for Quark and had put all their eggs in the InDesign basket - you had to pay for it. Apple don't care about Procreate but Adobe do and that is why Fresco is almost give-away. It won't remain that way forever. So for me - I'm going to continue sleeping on Fresco.
My first drawing is in fresco because I have Adobe photography package for my work. I just started my drawing on tablet stuff and fresco working really well. I just bought procreate and still adapting to it. One note is the manga brush on fresco are great, couldn’t find one on procreate yet, I know we can create and customize but that just a plus for fresco for providing that on the get go. Edit: stupid of me, fresco paid version is NOT included in the photography package lol so I’ve been using the free version, so I’m not using the comic brush but the basic inking brush haha glad that I just bought procreate.
Also, Fresco's oil brushes, when applied to a single layer, appear to use realistic color mixing, not RGB or CMY mixing. For example, blue + yellow = green, like it does when you mix real paint. Procreate uses RGB mixing, and so does Photoshop, that is, blue + yellow = grey.
Great review! I agee with another commenter. Adobe really didn't do this app any favors by not promoting it. That fast animation was also pretty impressive.
I've used Fresco on iPad more than Procreate due to the limited canvas size. I have an ancient iPad gen 6 so it left like 5 layers when I worked on a 6k canvas. Fresco let me set unlimited canvas sizes which is so much better. I rather draw on the big canvas with a bit of laggy every now and then than drawing on a small canvas just for smoother zooming. I can't use the small one for print, that's the point. The sacrifice for 10% better workflow isn't worth enough for me.
You can see all of the functions of the Touch Modifier (the white circle floating on the screen) by tapping on the little Question Mark icon in the top right menu of your screen (along with a ton of other great Help/Learn content). 👍
If I have Illustrator open on my Macbook and ask Fresco to open it in Illustrator it just opens it, almost instantly. I would call that seamless :) Fresco is great
You know, I'm surprised nobody, not even Clip Studio or Procreate, has tried to get physics like as seen in Fresco working on them. To this day, only Fresco is the only drawing program to have this feature, where the drawing has actual physics and not static layers.
I used to use this for making “animations”. I used that frame by frame feature in it that I thought was really cool. At the end, I had to make separate PNGs and stitch them together in like Davinci Resolve or smth (I now use Adobe Animate)
I started checking out Fresco this past weekend. The animation feature is definitely better Procreate. It’s great to be able to animation one layer and elements on different layers.
I think Adobe needs to change their advertisement strategy cuz I see nobody but you talking about how the animation works. When procreate added their animation they explained to the public and also had other artists use. That gave people a clear idea of how it works.
Hi! Great review! Can you also help compare this to something like Affinity Designer? I have the affinity suite(its just cheaper to learn vectors on than adobe illustrator)
I haven't been on my ipad in a while! Now that I have a desk mount for my cintiq i've fallen back in love with PS lol. Fresco is fun I don't really have need for it though. I don't get the point of it I guess? I'm a graphic designer so I already sub to CC. I've used PS and AI for the ipad and they've improved quite a bit. I actually really like working in them save ipad's bad file management as you mentioned! That yoga laptop is INSANE though. Major wants lol. Dual screens on the go with nice keyboard sign me up! Goofy name though. Love your videos!!
After struggling with Procreate and Affinity Designer I switched to Fresco a while ago. Really great for novice artists. Vector is just drawing, no worrying about points, etc. Love Fresco!
Fresco is a good software but the canvas limitations makes it hard to work with. An 11x17 at 600 ppi psd files won’t open unfortunately. Great video as always.
This is a function of iPads, mainly - as soon as Apple makes the iPad capable of supporting a file that large without significant lag, Adobe will be ready to provide Fresco users with bigger canvases - promise!
Hello Brad, I've a video request for you. Please review xiaomi pad 6 with their 2nd gen pen. Please Brad, I want to know if it could be good for drawing. Thanks. MI PAD 6 with 2nd Gen Pen.
Gonna use this to try and paint realistic portraits, I usually use an anime style and I can’t figure out how to make realism look good in digital, but I’m going to try and use the live brushes to make one
wait, Fresco is $9.99 per year now??? it's been there forever or it was $9.99 per month? I"M SURE that it was $9.99 per month? like previously mention is other yt vid I watched somewhere that the price of procreate is the same as monthly subscription fee for fresco 😕😕😕
Hey Brad! I recently started using AF and love it. Unfortunately I'm having an issue with Vector Trimming. For some reason, the previous vector paths that I've made are no longer trim-able. Now when I try to trim it, it removed all the paths that are touching each other (95% of my artwork). What really trumps me is that vector trimming works just as its supposed to with new paths that I lay down. This issue has really interrupted the workflow I was enjoying with Fresco. Would you happen to know anything that I'm experiencing? Theres nothing I can find searching online.
