Photoshop Touch SDK contains an ActionScript 3 Library too

Posted on April 11, 2011 | Comments Off

If you haven’t heard about the Adobe Photoshop Touch SDK go check it out. Adobe is releasing application three iPad applications using the Photoshop Touch SDK. This same SDK is available to developers to build their own applications that can drive Photoshop.

Daniel Koestler and I developed the AS3 library for Photoshop Touch SDK, which you can find in the SDK download under the sdk/samples/air/photoshoptouchsdk folder.

Along with the library you’ll find a few samples which I wanted to highlight. These three samples all leverage the Photoshop Touch SDK AS3 library using Flex, AIR, and/or Flash CS.

DeviceCompViewer (sdk/samples/air/psdocumentview)

This is a Flex 4.5 mobile application (the Flex 4.5 SDK will be available May) that lets you view all the open documents in Photoshop. It allows you to create a new document in Photoshop based on the dimensions of the device, and then view the document as you build out comps using the Photoshop’s LayerComp’s paradigm to view your progress.

Photoshop Touch Console (sdk/samples/air/photoshoptouchconsole)

This is an AIR desktop application that allows you to test out ExtendScript and Touch SDK specific commands before building out a full blown mobile application. It also shows that you can use the SDK on the desktop if you really wanted to. The source code is a good place to see how to use the AS3 library for Photoshop Touch SDK as it uses all the classes in the library.

A fun tidbit if you are new to ExtendScript and scripting for Photoshop is to use the Photoshop’s ScriptListener plugin. This plugin logs the JS equivalent of what you are doing in Photoshop, which helps finding commands that ExtendScript JS reference doesn’t discuss or implement. Then you can copy that JS code into the Photoshop Touch Console AIR app and see it work.

Here is a look at what the application looks like:

Photoshop Touch Console Application

Flash CS Photoshop Touch SDK Example (sdk/samples/air/flashcspstouchsdkexample)

This is a basic example of changing a few tool settings in Photoshop from a SWF file created with Flash CS. It’s purpose is to show how to hook up the appropriate libraries and how to use the Photoshop Touch SDK for AS3 library in a .fla project.

I will be showing off some custom AIR applications working with the Photoshop Touch SDK at WebDU and FITC Toronto, so if you are attending those conferences come say hi and get look at a cool SDK for developers to play with.