Adobe Lightroom enhances photo editing on iPhone and Android phones

There is no shortage of photo editing apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms. There are users who prefer a slightly more professional touch to editing photos, something the likes of Snapseed and even Adobe’s own Photoshop Express cannot provide. This is where the Adobe Lightroom app comes into the picture. The company has released the latest iteration of the photo editing app for iOS devices, and it packs in three big changes as well as an update for Android phones that add a feature which iPhone users have enjoyed for a while now.

First up, in the iOS app, is the new editing mode. Instead of all the tools being spread out in a horizontal menu, the new Lightroom app combines similar options under separate groups, such as Light, Colour, Effects and Optics. For example, settings such as vibrance and saturation, which were individually placed earlier, are now combined under the Colour group. What remains the same are the horizontal sliders to manage each option while editing a photo, albeit with a slightly tweaked look.

There is also a new info section in the iOS app that lets you add data such as image title, captions as well as copyright info. This gets added to other metadata such as capture date, camera and lens used.

While the Lightroom app added the ability to shoot in RAW format on an iPhone, in an update rolled out in September that feature has been enhanced with visual tweaks as well as a new pro mode that allows manual control of exposure and focus.

For Android, the update does not add all these features just yet. But for those who take their photography seriously, the app now adds support for capturing photos in the full RAW format. This was earlier restricted to the company’s own DNG RAW format.

The new Lightroom app update for iPhone is now available on the Apple App Store, and Android users can download it from the Google Play Store. The app is free to download and use. However, if you want the ability to sync images from your phone’s Lightroom gallery to the desktop, you will need to subscribe to the Creative Cloud Photography plan, which costs Rs676 per month.