Adobe has just made its Fresco drawing application completely free, whereas until now it required a subscription of €9.99/year to benefit from all the features. A radical change in strategy to better compete with competing apps like Procreate, market leader in graphic design software on iPad.
Fresco goes 100% free to counter Procreate and others
Since its launch in 2019, Adobe Fresco has been trying to find a place in the highly competitive market for digital drawing and painting applications. Its main advantage was its deep integration with Adobe’s Creative Cloud ecosystem, allowing seamless synchronization of creations with Photoshop and Illustrator.
But its paid subscription model, even at a reasonable price of €9.99/year, struggled to compete with alternatives like Procreate, sold for a single price of €14.99, or the open-source software Krita. , free or available from €8 in support of developers.
Adobe has therefore decided to radically change its approach by simply removing the paid subscription to Fresco. From now on, the app is 100% free for everyone, giving access to all the features previously reserved for subscribers:
- More than 1000 high quality brushes imitating different mediums (oil, watercolor, pastel, charcoal, etc.)
- The ability to import your own custom brushes
- Access to the entire Adobe Fonts library
- Advanced tools like symmetry, predefined shapes or vector painting
The advantages of Fresco to attract creative people
Beyond free, Adobe puts forward several arguments to attract digital artists to Fresco rather than the competition:
- Full and optimized support for the Apple Pencil, with all its pressure levels, tilt etc. But also styluses for PC like the Wacom range.
- Unique vector drawing tools for a tablet app, allowing you to create high definition illustrations.
- “Live” brushes faithfully simulating the mixing of pigments as with real oil or watercolor paint.
- Instant animation options to bring your drawings to life in just a few clicks.
- A refined but powerful interface, inherited from Adobe’s experience in professional software.
- And of course seamless integration with Creative Cloud to move from Fresco to Photoshop or Illustrator frictionlessly.
What future for competing apps?
This surprise decision by Adobe could have the effect of a bomb on the market for creative apps on iPad and other tablets. By making Fresco free with such rich functionality, Adobe is clearly calling into question the relevance of paying for solutions like Procreate, despite their current popularity.
However, Fresco is not without its flaws. Its surprising absence on Mac (while it is available on PC) raises questions. Just like the absence for the moment of functions based on generative AI, yet Adobe’s great workhorse at the moment.
Procreate and the others therefore still have a few tricks up their sleeve, banking on their unique user experience and their well-established positioning among illustrator communities. But the pressure has clearly increased a notch. Response in the coming months to see who will emerge victorious in this new war of graphic design apps. Artists have everything to gain with more choice and innovation at their disposal!
Download the free app Adobe Fresco
