(See Cary Sherburne's commentary on this announcement here.) 

Last October Adobe announced Project Paras, a plug-in to Photoshop. The response was very encouraging. A broad range of textile designers, from major brands to independent professionals to part-timers and hobbyists signed up to test it. Our team listened closely to their feedback, and used it to make the product even better. The result is Adobe Textile Designer Plugin for Adobe Photoshop, which will be shown in the Print-Make-Wear exhibit at FESPA, a major industry trade show taking place in Munich from 14-17 May. In June, Adobe will also exhibit Textile Designer at ITMA (booth #H3-A123A), the quadrennial textile technology show (20-26 June, Barcelona).

Adobe Photoshop is an indispensable tool for fashion and décor artists to translate their vision into an eye-catching design, and a printable pattern. However, even with the power of Photoshop, repeating artwork often means repeating steps, which can be cumbersome, and can undermine the creative impulse. The designer must work on the core tile, and the overall pattern, simultaneously paying close attention to both the tree and the forest. Changes to colors and shapes in the core tile must be meticulously propagated to each unit in the full pattern. A late change may mean going back to “square 1”, and starting over.

Adobe Textile Designer Plugin for Adobe Photoshop will help fashion and décor artists to streamline this process. It is basically a set of tools which enable greater creativity and productivity in designing prints for fabrics. Designers can build and preview repeating patterns, define separations, and work with colorways, all within Photoshop, while keeping every element editable, and reversible, until the design is ready for printing. Like most Adobe Creative Cloud applications, Adobe Textile Designer supports non-destructive elements, with independent layers, adjustments, filters, and allowing users to place an Illustrator smart object (vector) in a Photoshop design that can be edited later. After a design is ready to print, designers can save their work in various formats, and can include XMP metadata in their output files that will be used in the fabric production process.

“Adobe Textile Designer was conceived to help designers make prints for fashion and fabrics for furnishing” said Mike Scrutton, Director – Print Technology & Strategy for Adobe’s Print & Publishing Business Unit. “Designers can be creative today, without worrying how they will print tomorrow. Adobe Textile Designer is flexible to allow traditional screen and engraved roller printing, as well as the latest digital techniques.”

Adobe Textile Designer Plugin for Adobe Photoshop is now in beta. So it is free for anybody to try out, test and provide feedback to Adobe. For more information, please visit https://adobe.com/go/TextileDesigner.