Category Archives: Lightroom mobile

Adobe Lightroom 3.1 Desktop and 5.1 Mobile| December 2019

This latest update to the Adobe Lightroom Cloud-centric suite of applications was released to customers on 10 December 2019.

In addition to new features (discussed below) this update includes bug fixes and support for new camera models and lenses released since the November update.

New in Desktop and Mobile

Contribute photos and videos to a Lightroom shared album

In May this year Adobe provided support for sharing and inviting others to view or contribute to an album. Lightroom now makes it easy contribute photos to shared albums – You can also view and add photos to shared group albums to which you’ve been invited. all  directly from within the desktop and mobile apps and Lightroom on the web.

Share Album and Invite others to Contribute

To use the Contribute feature, you must click the ‘View album’ button in the email invite that is sent by the album owner. Then, open the app and click the ‘Share’ icon. Under section ‘Shared with You’, you can view the album(s) that are shared with you.

Directly import photos from a camera or SD card (Lightroom iOS)

From it’s inception customers have been pressing Adobe to include the ability to directly import their photos into Lightroom iOS rather than through the Apple Camera Roll. Unfortunately, until recently the necessary  APIs, etc were not in iOS. However, with the introduction of iOS 13 direct import was now possible. Time for Adobe to step up!

With Lightroom 5.1 for  iOS  you can directly import photos and videos from an SD card or other attached media into Lightroom. However, your iOS device needs to be running iOS 13.2 or later to support this feature.

To import photos directly into Lightroom, follow these steps:

  1. Launch the Lightroom app, and navigate to ‘All Photos’ or select an album. The Import button appears at the bottom-right corner of the screen.
  2. Connect your mobile device to the camera memory card, camera, or USB storage device. In the Device connected dialog box, tap Continue.

3. Tap Import in the bottom panel

4. Tap From Camera Device.

5. In the Direct Import screen, you can view the files in the attached media. Tap the Add To drop-down list for options – All Photos, Current Album, or Create a New Album to import the photos to. The default location for import is the current album you are in.

Lightroom 5.1 iOS Direct Import

Adobe provide detailed guidance on using this new feature at Import photos from a connected camera memory card or camera

Export photos in the format of your choice (Lightroom 5.1 iOS)

Select the photos you want to export and click the Share icon to quickly access the Export screen. You can export edited photos as JPEG, TIF, DNG, or as the original photo with applied settings. Moreover, you can access export setting options such as JPG Quality, Output Sharpening, Colour Space, and File Naming.

Adobe provide detailed guidance on using this new feature at Export and share photos in Lightroom for mobile (iOS)

Support for new cameras and lenses

For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles for Lightroom desktop and Lightroom for mobile (iOS and Android), see the following resources:

Adobe Lightroom CC | October 2018

The last major update to Lightroom CC  was back in October 2017 (v 3.0). This latest update (v 4.0) includes several new features that customers have requested over the last 12 months.

So, what’s new in Lightroom CC | October 2018?

People View

(Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS)

People View allows you to quickly find and name people in your photos. It’s powered by Adobe Sensei. Using this machine learning technology from Adobe Lightroom CC automatically tags people in photos and provides you with an easy way to see all the photos the person appears in.

Adobe Sensei-powered People View in Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)

Improved Search

(Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS)

Searching has always been one of the stronger features in Lightroom CC. This is mainly due to the advanced server side technology (Adobe Sensei). Search suggestions are presented as you as soon as you start typing in the Search bar, recommending things like cameras, lenses, shutter speeds, apertures, ISOs, keywords, locations, and more.

Example of autocomplete suggestions when using Search in Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)

For example, you can type ‘car’ in the Search bar to quickly search for all photos that have cars in them. You can also search your photos using ‘facets’. With facet’s you type a name (e.g. ‘camera’) followed by a colon ‘:’ to display a list of camera models used. I’ve included a list of currently supported facets below:

  • keyword:
  • camera:
  • lens:
  • location:
  • rating:
  • flag:
  • flash:
  • orientation:
  • iso:
  • type:
  • f-stop:
  • ss:
  • edited:
  • media:

The Filter UI in Lightroom CC for the Desktop has also received some attention.

Improved ‘Filter’ organisation and layout Lightroom CC Desktop

Additional sharing options for Share to Web

Sharing photos has some useful improvements. For example, you can now choose to only share images that are flagged or have a particular star rating while also providing control over the display theme and appearance.

Display options when sharing collections on web in Lightroom CC for mobile

Guided Tutorials

New guided tutorials for First-Time Adjustments and Healing Brush have been added to iOS and the Android versions now has tutorials for First-Time Adjustments, Target Adjustment Tool, and Guided Upright. The new guided tutorials can be found under Help & Support in Lightroom CC for mobile. If you’re not sure what guided tutorials are or don’t use Lightroom CC on a mobile device, then below screenshot shows how they can be accessed in Lightroom CC (Desktop).

Guided Tutorials on Lightroom CC (Desktop)

HEVC file support on macOS

Lightroom CC now supports Apple’s HEVC video format (High Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265) on macOS High Sierra (10.13) or later.

For more information, see HEVC video files support.

Camera and Lens Support

A full list of cameras and lens profiles supported by Lightroom CC can be found at:

Adobe Lightroom Classic 7.4 | June 2018

This release of Lightroom Classic CC add a few new features and enhancements, support for new cameras and lenses, and bug fixes. Full details of what’s new and fixed in Lightroom 7.4 can be found on the application support page.

Before discussing new features there are a couple of tweaks to the Presets and Profiles functionality introduced in version 7.3. The first and probably most annoying for customers editing large images such as HDR are Panorama is the delay in loupe view screen redraw when the mouse is hovered over a preset. To address this, Adobe has added a new preference in the performance panel (see below screenshot). There is no similar preference for the Profile Browser but you can press down the Option/Alt modifier key to temporarily turn off the profile preview in the loupe.

Enable Hover Preset Preview in Loupe View

Manage Presets and Profiles

With version 7.3 Adobe introduced a new method of previewing and applying Develop Presets and Camera Profiles. Unfortunately, the ability to manage the presets and profiles was absent. It was a strange omission, especially since customers have, since the very earliest versions of Lightroom, asked for a way to hide presets they don’t use. With version 7.4 Adobe have addressed this omission, which will no doubt please many customers. However, you can only disable/hide groups, not individual presets or profiles.

To show/hide preset groups:

Click on the [+] button at upper right corner of the Presets panel to bring up the context-menu then choose Manage Preset groups to activate the Preset Manager. Also, notice that the presets that shipped with Lightroom for years are now prefixed ‘Classic’. If Adobe wanted to confuse customers this is the perfect way to do it.

Preset Manager

To show/hide profile groups:

  1. In the Profile Browser, right-click (Win) / Ctrl-click (Mac) any profile group and choose Manage Profiles from the menu.
  2. In the Manage Profiles dialog, select the profile groups that you want to show in Profile Browser. Deselect the profile groups that you want to hide from Profile Browser.

Profile Manager

Colour Labels for Folders

The addition of colour labels, like show/hide presets is, in my opinion, long overdue. Customers have been asking for folder labels since back in the days of the Lightroom 1.0 public beta (i.e. 2006).

In the Folders panel (Library module), you can now organise assign colour labels to folders.

  1. In the Folders panel, select one or more folders and right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) to bring up the context-menu.
  2. From the context-menu, choose Add Color Labeland then select any color from the submenu.

You can also filter all the folders that have been assigned a colour label. If you prefer to structure your catalog based on folder dates rather than names, then I think you’ll be very pleased.

Colour Labels on Folder

The folder search feature has also received some attention in the form of a performance boost. A new database file  ‘Helper.lrdata‘ is used to assist Folder Search is stored alongside the catalog (.lrcat) and previews (previews.lrdata).

HEIC image files support on macOS High Sierra

Lightroom Classic CC now supports Apple’s HEIC image file format.

Auto stack HDR and panorama

You can now configure the HDR/Panorama dialog to automatically create  stacks for HDR and Panorama images. For example, in the HDR Merge Preview dialog, select the Create Stack option to group the exposure-bracketed images and the HDR image in to a stack. The merged HDR image will be displayed at the top of the stack.

Auto-stack in HDR dialog

New Camera Support

New support added since the last release appears in green.

  • Fujifilm X-T100
  • Pentax K-1 Mark II*
  • Phase One IQ3 100MP Trichromatic**
  • Samsung Galaxy S9
  • Samsung Galaxy S9+

*Dynamic Pixel Shift Resolution is not currently supported. Opening images captured in this mode will display only the first raw image frame.**Denotes preliminary support.

A full list of cameras supported by Lightroom can be found at Cameras supported by Camera Raw.