Adobe updates Lightroom pro photo apps for iOS with 'Authentic HDR' & more

Adobe on Monday released updates to the iPhone and iPad versions of Lightroom, making various enhancements including the addition of "Authentic HDR," a new shooting mode.

The technology takes three photos to gauge the best exposure values, and will automatically align and "de-ghost" the resulting composite image, according to Adobe. Images are saved as 32-bit floating-point DNG RAW files.

Notably Adobe claims that its method is better than iOS 10's built-in HDR mode, which doesn't shoot in RAW and therefore automatically applies processing such as sharpening and noise reduction. Professional photographers typically prefer RAW for the leeway it allows in controlling post-processing.

The iPhone and iPad apps now also offer an improved rating system, and the option to export RAW files to a device's Camera Roll, which changes their format but also makes them more accessible.

Some other changes include faster, more stable cloud sync, which should moreover run in the background. A new widget is launched via the Notification Center, or else the app's homescreen icon on devices with 3D Touch — namely, the iPhone 6s and 7. This lets users jump into front or rear camera modes, or view the last photo they shot.

Both apps are free downloads, and run on devices with iOS 9.3 or later. Some features require a paid Creative Cloud subscription however, including local adjustments, importing RAW photos from a camera, and syncing photos across devices. DNG shooting also requires a device with a 12-megapixel camera, meaning an iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, or 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

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11 Comments

polymnia

said about 7 years ago

Lightroom has been on fire lately! Since enabling RAW capture about 9 months ago, it's been continuously updated.

Processing RAW on an iPad Pro 12" is amazing.

Really lookng king forward to trying this new HDR mode.

The Raw capture in iOS is the real deal. Makes a big difference. Hopefully the HDR capture is as big an improvement over the stock Camera App feature.

LoneStar88

said about 7 years ago

Love the controls/settings choices in the camera app! Very sweet! So many new reasons not to bother with any other camera than my Apple iPhone 7+!

melgross

said about 7 years ago

I've been experimenting with the new update to LR on my 7+ today.

so far, I'm pretty impressed with what it does. It's always been a very good mobile version, but this adds the extra zing. So, what it does is to shoot, very rapidly, so rapidly, I didn't think it worked, at first, the three over, norm and under pics. You can see the basic photo right away. But it's processing, and processing, and processing. It can actually take several minutes to completely process a photo, plus CC sync.

fortunately, you can take more than one HDR at a time. It will just take more time to process and sync the photos. But these are big files, so you may not want to do it with everything. The pro DNG RAW is good enough for most photos, particularly if they're taken outside.

another thing to think about is the noise reduction inherent in HDR. When longer shots are taken, there is less noise in shadows because of the greater exposure. But don't expect miracles, these are still smartphone cameras. So there's less noise in dark areas, but there is still noise. Another thing is that when taking shots indoors, through a window, the light balance is going to differ in the indoor and outdoor portions. This is normal in photography. Outdoors and indoors, where outdoor light is reflected off objects, will be more cyan than you see it as being. carefully, you can mediate some of this using the curves tool, by selecting the red circle. Holding the midtones, and moving the top of the curve slightly to the left will help. There is more than can be done, but for mostphotos that's all you will need. You could also select the eye dropper and put that on a highlight, but the entire photo will move to the red because of the large difference in tone. That can be modified too, but basic white point correction for dual lighting is easier using curves.

maciekskontakt

said about 7 years ago

It would be good if there were no cheaper perpetual license professional solutions like that on Mac. Running this on iPad for professional is slighly odd. 12" screen... hmmm. what kind of professional work are you doing? Picture editing for some website JPEG ultimatelly? Then why RAW?
Just for the record pros still uses DSLR with proper quality purpose lenses.

polymnia

said about 7 years ago

maciekskontakt said:

It would be good if there were no cheaper perpetual license professional solutions like that on Mac. Running this on iPad for professional is slighly odd. 12" screen... hmmm. what kind of professional work are you doing? Picture editing for some website JPEG ultimatelly? Then why RAW?
Just for the record pros still uses DSLR with proper quality purpose lenses.

Don't be dense. Obviously the final work is done on a real Mac. In my case, I'm using a 30" Eizo 4K DCI hardware calibrated display. Is that "pro" enough for you?

There is a lot of review involved before a photo is even selected and approved for final production. In the early days of digital imaging, you couldn't even do proper preliminary review on anything but a full-blown workstation (more likely on a paper printout than on-screen). Then the iPad came along and you could look at preview images from the photo set in near-real-time. Now you can actually load the camera RAWs in near-real-time and manipulate based on an art director's feedback right on set without a computer.

Anyway, I could go on and on about what a compelling tool Lightroom on iOS is, but if I haven't made my point with the above example, there is probably no convincing you.

Gotta get back to editing images.