Adobe Fresco
Version 5.7.0.1447 · Adobe Inc. · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit, touch or stylus) · ranked #241 in the library
A drawing application built around a pen rather than a mouse, holding raster brushes, vector brushes and physically simulated live paint in the same document without forcing a choice between them.
Read the installation section below before you start. The order of the steps matters on this release.
About this release
Overview
Fresco is a painting and drawing application designed for a stylus on a touch screen. The interface gets out of the way, with the canvas taking the whole display and controls collapsing to the edges, and the pressure, tilt and velocity response is tuned for drawing rather than retouching. On a machine with a pen it feels like a drawing tool. On a machine without one it is largely pointless, and that is a deliberate trade.
The interesting part is that three brush types live in one document. Raster brushes cover the familiar pixel painting, including the full brush engine from the desktop applications. Vector brushes produce resolution independent strokes that stay crisp at any zoom, useful for line work that will be scaled. Live brushes simulate watercolour and oil physically, so watercolour bleeds into wet areas and oil paint carries pigment and mixes on the canvas as you drag through it.
Around that sits a proper layer stack with blend modes, masks, clipping, groups and adjustment layers, a frame by frame animation timeline with onion skinning for short animated sequences, and selection tools including automatic subject selection. Documents open in the desktop applications with layers intact, and exports cover layered files, flat images, vector formats and animation as video or animated GIF.
What it does
Feature breakdown
Three brush types in one document
Raster, vector and physically simulated live brushes coexisting on separate layers in the same file, without choosing a document type up front.
Live watercolour and oil simulation
Watercolour that bleeds into wet areas and dries over time, and oil paint that carries pigment and mixes when you drag through existing strokes.
Full desktop brush engine
The brush library from the desktop applications, with imported brush sets working identically and pressure, tilt and velocity all mapped.
Vector strokes that stay sharp
Resolution independent line work on vector layers, so a drawing scales to any size without softening, in the same file as painted layers.
Complete layer system
Blend modes, masks, clipping masks, groups and adjustment layers, matching the desktop applications so files round trip with structure intact.
Frame animation timeline
Frame by frame animation with onion skinning and adjustable timing, exported as video or animated image for short sequences.
Changed in this build
Version 5.7.0.1447
- Live brush simulation rewritten for lower latency on high resolution canvases.
- New vector brush set with textured edge options.
- Selection tools gained automatic subject detection.
- Improved pressure curve editor with per-brush overrides.
- Faster document open on files with many high resolution layers.
Installation
Follow these in order
- Disconnect from the network before installing.
- Extract the archive and pause real time protection.
- Run setup as administrator and choose your language.
- Apply the included activation before the first launch.
- Open the application, calibrate your stylus pressure curve, then restore protection.
- Import any brush sets you already have from the brushes panel.
Release notes
From whoever packed it
- This needs a pen or touch display to be worth installing. With a mouse only, most of what makes it distinct is unusable.
- Live brush layers are heavier than raster layers. Flatten finished sections on large canvases to keep performance up.
- Cloud document features are disabled here. Save locally and everything behaves normally.
System requirements
Minimum and recommended
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | Quad core recommended for the live brush simulation |
| Memory | 8 GB minimum, 16 GB for large canvases |
| Graphics | GPU with DirectX 12 and 2 GB VRAM, 4 GB for large live paint canvases |
| Storage | 5 GB for the application and brush libraries |
Questions about this release
Answered before you ask
- Does it open Photoshop files?
- Yes, with layers preserved, and files saved here open on the desktop side the same way.
- Can I use my existing brushes?
- Yes, the brush format is shared with the desktop applications.
- Is a graphics tablet enough or does it need a touch screen?
- A pen tablet works. A display with a pen is better, but pressure and tilt are what actually matter.
Download
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