“This technology was built with deep interplay between artists and scientists,” says Nathan Carr, senior principal scientist at Adobe Research. Its fall 2019 debut was met by the acclaim of artists, who are now able to use realistic watercolor and oil paints on a digital platform. (The app is currently available for free for iOS and Windows mobile devices.)įresco was born of an interweaving of science and art, a collaboration that made this new technology shine even for traditionalists. The powerful results of this union of technology and creativity can now be found at the heart of Adobe Fresco, the mobile painting app built and released by the Adobe Fresco team. Their goal? To satisfy a most discerning audience: traditional analog painters who want their digital “paint” to seamlessly simulate the real thing.

A partnership of Adobe Research scientists and artists set out to create a revolutionary digital painting technology, one that would form the backbone of a new painting tool from Adobe. And until recently, the tools of watercolor and oil painting were ancient, too: brush bristles and colored pigments. Early humans’ cave paintings reveal that they were already eager to express themselves this way. The art of painting pre-dates recorded history. By Meredith Alexander Kunz, Adobe Research

Adobe fresco oil painting