Adobe Capture: An All-In-One Creative Companion

Ever wonder what font you were reading? Take a picture and want to pull it into a color palette? How about creating a unique brush with a handmade texture? A tool that can do all that might sound too good to be true.

Luckily for us, it’s real, and its name is Adobe Capture.

I like to think of it as one of Adobe's best-kept secrets. Not only is it a free-to-use tool, but it's designed to work with and enhance your experience in nearly every Adobe program you already use.

We're going to look at its capabilities for digital artists and explore how it can improve your workflow and expand your creativity.

Why Adobe Capture?

This is the best friend you always wanted for your creative work. When you open the app, the presentation is simple, showing your Libraries tab. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it doesn’t have a lot to offer. It works as a vector converter, font identifier, color palette generator, and more.

With all of the things that it can do, you’ll benefit from exploring the Create and Learn tabs. Under Create, you’ll see all the compatible programs that you can use your assets in. Going to the Learn tab will walk you through in-app tutorials of how to use each feature.

When bringing in an asset, you simply scroll to the feature that you want to use.

And all of these features and more are available for free for iPhone and iPad. Adobe subscription prices are ever-changing, so this feels like a welcome reprieve.

But with so many options, which features can digital artists get the most out of? We'll explore them and identify best practices to support your creativity.

Working with libraries

Compatible programs: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fresco, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Adobe Express

Libraries aren’t unique to Adobe Capture. You might even be using Creative Cloud Libraries in other programs. They connect your assets across Adobe programs and apps.

The libraries in Adobe Capture work the same way. You can create your own libraries from the home page by selecting ‘New library’ or place your work into existing libraries.

Once you start saving assets, you'll find them organized into groups. These align with the app's capabilities: shapes, colors, graphics, type, patterns, materials, brushes, audio, and looks.

As with other Adobe iPad programs, you can switch between List and Gallery views, Name, and Date. This keeps your assets where you can find them.

Creating brushes

Compatible programs: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fresco, Adobe Illustrator

Brush creation has become a recent pastime of mine. I’ve found that much of the magic behind amazing brushes lies in the textures you use. Getting great textures is even easier with Adobe Capture.

Create brushes by enabling your Camera. To build your brush, you can import photos from Lightroom, Creative Cloud, Adobe Stock, or your Files app. No matter which method you choose, you’ll want to have the Brushes action highlighted.

You can edit your image using the Image Adjustment filters. Once you’re ready to make edits, you’ll see that your brush is in black and white. This is because Capture will simplify your image into values. Similar to creating custom brushes in the Procreate Brush Studio.

Edit your brush profile and size, and decide whether to create a vector brush for Illustrator or a pixel brush for Fresco and Photoshop. I like that you can test your brush before saving it so you get an idea of how it’ll behave in your programs. Everything from brush size and style to pressure can be edited in Capture.

Creating color palettes & gradients

Compatible programs: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fresco, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere, After Effects

Trust me, I know that choosing colors can be complicated. And learning to use color effectively is a journey every artist eventually takes. Part of that journey is taking color inspiration from your surroundings.

With Adobe Capture, you can take an image and automatically generate a color palette from it. You can use the color nodes and move them around your image until you have a palette you like. Then they’ll be available as color themes that you can use across Adobe programs.

If you want to improve your approach towards color, you can try using color theory to help you understand color relationships.

Creating gradients follows a similar process. Instead of using the color palette icon, you’ll select the gradient icon. This will take your images and extract a gradient based on their colors. You can still make edits to your gradient before saving it. The image asset you used to create the gradient will be preserved in Capture for your reference.

Working with type

Compatible programs: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign

As a lettering artist, this is one of my favorite features. Have you ever seen a font in the wild and wondered what it was? With Adobe Capture, you don’t have to wonder anymore.

Not only can you take a picture of any text, but you can also reference drawn text. This is thanks to the magic of the Adobe Fonts library. When you pay for a Creative Cloud subscription, you also gain access to thousands of fonts from the Adobe team and professional type foundries.

Type plays a huge part in design, so this might end up being one of your favorite features as well.

Shapes, graphics, & repeat patterns

Compatible programs: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fresco, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Adobe Express

In Adobe Capture, every photo is the start of an exciting new asset. A few of the main ways to use photos are for Shapes, Graphics, and Patterns.

Shapes are for creating vector graphics from images. With any picture you take or import, you can transform it into an SVG file that’s editable in Illustrator. You can even send your shape files to Illustrator directly from Capture.

Graphics are a quick and easy way to save image files to your libraries. They’re saved as PNG files that you can edit and take into Adobe programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. No more worrying about where you last saved something or whether you remembered to send yourself a file.

I love a repeat pattern, but setting them up yourself can be tricky. To start your pattern with your camera in Capture, tap the screen to quickly freeze your shot. You can easily tap it again to unfreeze and make additional adjustments.

Choose from five different pattern types. Each will change the shape of your final pattern. You can also apply photo filters and edit your color settings. As you make selections, you’ll be able to see a preview of the pattern before proceeding to save. You can also make edits to your patterns after you’ve saved them.

It’s a seamless process that makes creating patterns faster and easier than traditional methods.

3D materials

Compatible programs: Dimension, Substance 3D Apps

Capture isn’t just for traditional or 2D artists. 3D artists will enjoy the Materials feature that helps you create textures for 3D models. Like most of the features we’ve seen, your camera or photo library will be your key resource.

Choose from five different 3D object models to preview your material. Similar to creating a pattern, you can apply photo filters as you’d find in Adobe Photoshop Express or other photo editing tools. Then use the sliders to fine-tune your settings.

From there, you’re ready to give your material specific property edits like Metallic, Roughness, and Details. You can export your asset preview as a PNG file.

Or take your materials into your favorite 3D modeling app to create inspired characters and environments.

Wrap up

You're probably sitting on a treasure trove of assets in your photo library right now. Using them in Adobe Capture could unlock the missing link between you and your creativity.

Use them to create patterns, brushes, color palettes, and more. Even if you've never created any of those before, give them a try and see what happens. It's a free app, so there's literally nothing to lose (except a little storage space). In my opinion, totally worth it.