Today, we’ve got lots of great updates for Lightroom for iOS and Android.
iOS
Available now through the iOS App Store, today’s release includes a new selective brush, a new details tab, and an improved interface for iPads. As always, Lightroom for iOS is free to use and can be downloaded here.
Selective Brush
One of the most requested features in Lightroom for iOS is now here—the selective brush. Using this tool, you can selectively paint in enhancements to any part of your image. If you’re using an iPhone that supports 3D Touch (such as an iPhone 6s or later), you can even vary the effect by just pressing softer or harder as you paint. And for iPad Pro users working with an Apple Pencil, you get the same capability—press harder to apply more of the effect, or softer to apply less.
We’ve also added in the ability to selectively erase both the linear and radial gradients, making them even more powerful than before.
Details Tab
Another often requested feature has been added in this release—global control over sharpening and noise reduction. These advanced tools are often used to add the finishing touches to photographs by controlling noise and enhancing image details.
New iPad Interface
With the introduction of the iPad Pro, and now the iPad Pro 2, the iPad has become a serious option as a laptop replacement for any photographer. To that end, we’ve worked hard to make a truly portable and yet powerful version of Lightroom that is designed for the larger touch-based interface of an iPad.
Android
We wanted to provide the best Android experience possible so we redesigned Lightroom for Android from the ground up to be faster, more efficient, and, well, more Android-y. Every screen has been redesigned with the goal of ensuring a natural, native Android experience while providing the highest quality, professional-grade mobile photo editing app ever.
Check out some of the new and updated interfaces below or just download this free update now by tapping here.
Updated Lightroom for Android Organize View
New Lightroom for Android Edit Experience
Improved Lightroom for Android Selective Edit Mode
Desktop updates:
We also released updates for Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. Check out all the details here and here!
Drop us a Line, We’re Listening!
As always, please let us know what you think about these updates, features you’re missing, and any other comments you’d like to share with us.
We’re excited to announce that Lightroom Mobile now has a new raw HDR capture mode that lets you achieve a dynamic range on your mobile device that was previously only possible shooting with an DSLR or mirrorless camera.
This new HDR mode harnesses the power available in the latest mobile hardware on both Android and iOS. These updates, version 2.7 for iOS and version 2.3 for Android, were released today and make the HDR mode available for free. The updates for both Android and iOS can be downloaded by tapping here.
The new HDR mode works by automatically scanning the scene to determine the correct exposure range and then capturing three DNG files which are then automatically aligned, merged, deghosted, and tonemapped in the app. You get a 16-bit floating point DNG, with all of the benefits of both an HDR and a raw photo, which is processed by the same algorithms with the same quality as the HDR technology built into Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom.
Previously, capturing an image in HDR either meant using a DSLR or mirrorless camera, capturing multiple exposures, copying to your computer, and then merging in an application like Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw, or Lightroom. Alternatively, you could capture an HDR JPEG on your phone, though those images normally used only two shots and often failed to capture the full range of tonality in difficult lighting scenarios. By capturing three raw shots and merging on the phone, you get a greatly increased dynamic range with the ability to edit and share right away. Creative Cloud members get the additional benefit of automatically syncing with their desktop, ensuring that the photo, plus all of the edits that were made to the photo, are backed up and available in the desktop version of Lightroom.
Our very own Russell Preston Brown has created a great tutorial for using this new HDR capture mode within Lightroom Mobile, check it out!
HDR Processing & Supported Devices
When we started working on HDR for Lightroom Mobile, we realized that adding desktop-caliber, pro-quality processing algorithms to mobile devices is no easy task. Our team was able to make some pretty amazing breakthroughs that eventually made it possible.
For iOS users, the HDR mode requires a device that can capture in DNG, such as an iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, iPhone SE, or iPad Pro 9.7″.
For Android users, at this point only the Samsung S7, S7 Edge, Google Pixel, and Pixel XL are supported. So that we’d adhere to our stringent quality and reliability requirements, our primary goal was to ensure the stability of the app while enabling the algorithms to provide the highest possible quality. Thanks to the processing and memory available on the Samsung S7 and Google Pixel devices, we were able to achieve the quality and capabilities required by these incredibly powerful algorithms. The team is working hard to support additional devices as quickly as possible.
Other features in these releases
In addition to the new raw HDR capture mode, iOS and Android users get the following new features:
iOS
Export Original, enabling you to export the original files, including DNGs captured in the camera as well as raw files imported through Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom web (Lightroom Desktop does not upload originals to the server):
Gestures to rate and review in the Rate & Review mode, greatly speeding up your review process:
New Force Touch and Notification Center widget, making it even easier and faster to launch Lightroom’s camera:
As well as a new option available in settings, Prevent From Sleep, which will keep the screen from locking as long as the phone is plugged into power, improved synchronization stability and speed, and general bug fixes, performance enhancements, and UI tweaks.
Android
For Android Creative Cloud members, the Radial and Linear Selection tools are now available:
As well as general bug fixes and speed improvements.
Today we’re announcing updates for Lightroom Mobile, Lightroom CC, and Adobe Camera Raw. Read on below for the updates in Lightroom for iOS 2.6 and Lightroom for Android 2.2.2 or click the following links to open new windows for the announcements of Lightroom 6.8 and Adobe Camera Raw 9.8.
Lightroom for iPhones includes a new edit experience, a new info section, a new capture interface with a brand new professional mode, support for all of the latest cameras and lenses provided in today’s Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom releases, as well as bug fixes and improvements. Lightroom for iPads adds in the new capture interface, camera and lens support, and bug fixes, and Lightroom for Android provides support for new cameras and lenses as well as bug fixes. To download Lightroom for iOS and Android, tap here.
The teams for both Lightroom for iPads as well as Lightroom for Android are also working on adding in the new edit and info experiences and we hope to release those updates soon.
Check out the new series of videos our very own Julieanne Kost has made covering Lightroom Mobile from end-to-end, including these new features, by clicking here.
In Lightroom for iPhones, you’ll find the following updates:
New Edit Interface
Lightroom mobile 2.6 represents a significant evolution of editing on mobile devices. We wanted to improve the ability to quickly find and access tools and ensure the fastest way to enhance and edit images on a phone. Our design team reached out to photographers of all skill levels to help us figure out how people edit with Lightroom mobile, what’s missing, and how we could make it even better. This update represents our first release taking advantage of this research.
The first step we took was to organize similar tools into categories to make it faster to use tools that are often used together.
We then built an interface that was easy to use with a single hand, something we find ourselves doing pretty often while on our phones. This meant ensuring that you could see the entire image while editing it, but also to ensure that you can easily get to often used tools like showing the before and after without having to use your second hand (goodbye three-finger before and after, hello single finger tap and hold).
New Info Section
Finally, we built ways of expanding the interface so that additional groups of functionality could be added in, like the often requested ability to add in titles, captions, and copyright from mobile devices. This new interface extensibility means we can continue to deliver on the features that photographers have been asking for, turning their mobile devices into more and more capable image processing devices.
New Capture Interface and Professional Mode
Version 2.6 also adds in a brand new capture interface (the same that Android users received earlier this year) that provides access to a new professional mode that provides control over all aspects of your camera’s exposure and focus. This new mode makes it easy to dial in exactly the exposure you need to capture the shot you want.
Photograph by Elia Locardi of the valley in Meteora, Greece. Shot in raw on a Fuji XT-2 and edited on location with an iPad Pro with Lightroom for iOS.
Lightroom for iOS 2.4
In version 2.4, two major improvements have been added: a raw technology preview and the addition of local adjustment tools. In addition to these major improvements, we’ve also added the ability to use keyboard shortcuts with physical keyboards connected to iPads, the ability to add your copyright to all imported photos, functionality to turn on lens profiles (if your camera and lens combination are supported), as well as the usual bug fixes and improvements.
Raw Technology Preview
We’re sure it’s happened to you before: you’re out taking photos (in raw of course) and you capture a real stunner that you can’t wait to share with the world. Until now, you had to either transfer a JPEG version of the file over or you had to wait until you got back to your desktop or laptop. With the raw technology preview, you’ll be able to import raw photos immediately to either your iPhone or iPad, edit them, and then share them, anywhere you’ve got a connection. Our goal with Lightroom for mobile is to make it an indispensable part of your photography workflow, providing the tools that you’re familiar with and the quality you expect in a product that can be with you, no matter when inspiration strikes. With this technology preview, we want to push the boundaries of how photographers around the world work with their mobile devices.
You get all of the benefits of raw, such as the ability to change the white balance, being able to recover blown out highlights, access to the full range of color information, as well as editing an uncompressed file, all using the exact same technology that powers Lightroom on your desktop. An added benefit is that the raw file that you’ve imported into Lightroom for iOS will be synced with Lightroom on your other devices, such as Lightroom for desktop or Lightroom on the web, along with any of the edits, star ratings, or flags that you added.
Lightroom for mobile supports all of the same raw files that Lightroom for desktop as well as Adobe Camera Raw support, with the full list available here.
To transfer photos to your mobile device, you need to use either the camera connection kit or the lightning to SD or USB kits from Apple to transfer your raw files over to your device, which will bring up the Import tab within the iOS Photos app. Importing the files will add them into your camera roll, where you can then access and load in any raw file directly into Lightroom mobile. It’s important to keep in mind that raw files are significantly larger (3-5 times larger) than JPEGs, meaning the raw files will take longer to import, upload, and take up more space on your device. Even as such, we found that the added control and quality that the raw files afforded were so useful that it outweighed the negatives.
Just as when working with raw files that were synced from Lightroom for desktop or Lightroom on the web, you’ll be able to perform raw-specific enhancements, such as changing the white balance with greater control and recovering clipped highlights, but unlike when working with raw files synced from Lightroom for desktop, you’ll have access to the full resolution file AND you can do it anywhere in the world, even from your iPhone!
We’ve run Lightroom for mobile through its paces on a number of different files, including the 50MP Canon 5DS running on an iPhone 6, proving that you really can edit nearly any photo anywhere. After playing with the app for a few months, we’ve found that it’s a really great way to take a few of your favorite images from the day (or even that you just captured), review to make sure you captured what you saw, edit, and then share them, all right away, and with all of your edits carried through the rest of the Lightroom ecosystem.
We had the pleasure of working with a number of photographers while creating the raw technology preview, take a look at how travel photographer Elia Locardi was able to put the technology to use while shooting on location in Greece.
In addition to the raw technology preview, we’ve also added in the ability to perform local adjustments with linear and radial selections, the two most requested features after raw support.
With the Linear and Radial Selection tools, you can either add or modify existing selections made to your photos and use the tools to draw attention to certain parts of your images.
Lightroom for iOS Availability
Lightroom mobile 2.4 is available immediately for iPhone and iPad from the iOS App Store for free. Both of these improvements are available only for members with a creative cloud subscription or or if you start a free Creative Cloud trial.
Lightroom for Android 2.1
Point Reyes captured with Lightroom for Android’s in-app camera in DNG format.
While the iOS team was working hard on the raw technology preview, the Android team doubled-down on the unique end-to-end DNG capture experience first announced in Lightroom for Android 2.0 and created a brand new capture experience. Our goal is to create the best mobile photography experience available, and with the amazing quality possible on Android devices, especially thanks to DNG raw capture, we wanted to provide all of the controls and functionality needed.
Now, the built-in camera has a new Pro mode that lets you control the shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and focus all manually, in a brand new interface.
You can access the camera directly using the new Lightroom Camera widget. This new widget will launch the Lightroom camera directly, making it faster for you to get in and start taking pictures.
In addition to the new built-in camera, we’ve also improved the app’s ability to export full-resolution files. If the files are available somewhere within the Lightroom ecosystem, Lightroom for Android will now download the full resolution version and enable you to export them.
