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Adobe’s Lightroom for Android app update lets you shoot and process Raw

Jackie Dove | Published: Feb 22, 2016 at 15:00 UTC

Adobe has released a major update to its Photoshop Lightroom for Android mobile app, now achieving feature parity with its iOS counterpart — and even surpassing it in one major way. A brand new in-app camera lets you shoot in Adobe Camera Raw DNG format.

Announced at the Mobile World Congress annual smartphone extravaganza, Lightroom for Android version 2.0 inaugurates a complete, non-destructive Raw workflow that supports shooting, editing, sharing and syncing full resolution uncompressed files from Android handsets. iOS does not have the ability to shoot in DNG format, though Adobe hopes to work with Apple to eventually make that happen.

Note that this complete Raw workflow, which Adobe calls the first end-to-end mobile Raw solution, works only via Creative Cloud. Subscribers to the Creative Cloud Photography Plan pay $9.99 per month for a plan that includes the desktop versions of Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC. With access to Adobe’s server, photographers can sync edits automatically with the desktop app or Lightroom on the Web. Changes you make to an image in any location automatically show up everywhere in real time. For non-subscribers, a 30-day free trial with 2GB of online storage is available, which you can continue indefinitely after the trial period expires. And you can always use the free mobile Lightroom as a standalone app.


Split toning can be used to add a color cast to highlights and shadows	Adobe's Dehaze tool is available with the Lightroom for Android update

While the camera Raw workflow is huge, it joins many other updates to the Android photo editor and organizer. Feature updates include:

Five shoot-through presets, available within the new in-app camera, let you preview and capture images with non-destructive built-in creative effects. Shoot-through presets require support for OpenGL ES 3.0 or later.
The popular Dehaze adjustment tool, which corrects haze and fog, has now arrived on the Android app. Use it to enhance color and contrast, or create special effects.
The new Split Toning enhancement lets you add a color cast to image highlights and shadows or create a black & white split tone look.
The Target Adjustment Tool function in the color and black & white editing tools provides direct controls for shifting colors (hue, saturation, and luminance values) in specific areas of your photos.
The Point Curve mode in the Tone Curve tool offers complete control over an image’s tonality and contrast by letting you access RGB and discrete red, green and blue color channels.?
A single tap hooks Lightroom for Android into the mobile Adobe Premiere Clip app, making it easy to create videos from your Lightroom photo collections and sync them to music.

You can download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Android 2.0 now from the Google Play Store. The app is free for both smartphones and tablets, though the tablet version does not yet support the in-app camera.

Comments

Total comments: 27

I downloaded it, but I couldn't figure out how to point the thing to the folder where I stored my photos on my tablet where I transferred from my E-M10. I don't know how well it supports ORF files, since I never could see them.

After about 15 minutes of fumbling around, I downloaded the Photo Mate R3 trial, which I found much more intuitive. PMR3 is not perfect, but it supports ORF and it works reasonably well. It Cost $9 USD, but I never lost confidence in it and the price is roughly the cost of a trip to McDonalds.

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 2 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

hmm, I am a LR 6 licensee. I could see myself travelling with my Nexus 5, taking pics in .dng, maybe doing a few edits, and importing in desktop LR. Will give it a try. Free is good.

Comment edited 10 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

Nice feature, works on my Note 5. You don't need to subscribe to use Lightroom mobile on your phone. Only the sync requires subscription but I too would love to sync via USB.
If you don't like CC just use one of the many other just as capable apps out there. What is the point in complaining about something you are not planning on using?

1 upvote

I suppose the point of complaining is that, if not for the subscription requirement, they would use it.

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Which is just as likely to happen as me winning the lottery so again, why complain about something that is never gonna happen? Lightroom mobile works fine without a subscription, you just can't sync to your desktop.

0 upvotes

Sometimes complaining works. Users complained about the Lightroom import dialog, and Adobe restored the original, so you never know. When you win the lottery, your chances of winning become 100%.

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It sounds to me as if you joined CC, and now you resent those people who refused to do so.

0 upvotes

Would really like for the ability to sync a desktop Lightroom library with the mobile version without using any cloud (ie. internet) features. Direct sync via USB/wifi/lightning/bluetooth please.
Sometimes you just don't have fast internet or unlimited bandwidth, or any internet at all.

1 upvote

Great news. Kudos to Adobe for moving the bar up again. I hope iOS follows suit.

1 upvote

I got excited when it said RAW editing... But it's only DNG? - That's not going to help my in-the-field workflow is it?

Still, DNG from the camera-phone going straight in to LR is certainly interesting. Might replace Afterlight in that case.

0 upvotes

And what did you expect? dng is one of many formats capable of holding raw photo sensor data.
Or did you expect they will replicate someone else's raw format? what for? and what would you have gained from that?

7 upvotes

I think Apple is lagging behind on that. be great to edit RAW on an ipad

1 upvote

Works with RW2 files. You can import Panasonic RW2 files on your Android device, view & edit them and they automatically sync to all of your other Lightroom cloud devices.

Unfortunately support is limited to DNG & RW2. It doesn't support ORF files from my Olympus camera.

0 upvotes

@miksto

To clarify, I'm talking about opening RAW from a 'real'camera in this app. I shoot with my Sony, wifi it to the phone, edit RAW. You know, like I can with desktop LR.

I understand your point about RAW *capture* using the app - Makes total sense that it does so in DNG.

1 upvote

The Squire,

Camera as hardware does not produce any RAW files in any specific format. Camera as hardware just sends the data back to the application that requested it.

It is the camera application that then puts into a file of some format. And all those files of all the different raw formats are alike in a sense that they are containers for raw data with some extra camera settings stored on top of that. DNG does that and practically all other raw formats do the same.

So with the above in mind what exactly makes you think it is not real raw? Dng is just one of many formats for storing raw data.

And you can send these raw dng files back to your desktop (e.g. sync via cloud) and edit them with desktop LightRoom.

In fact when you edit in LightRoom all the raw data is preserved and Lightroom only stores additional metadata on top that list the corrections you conducted to the raw data. It does not change raw data and does not change the original camera settings data.

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 4 minutes after posting

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Hi miksto,

I know how RAW works. I know how Lightroom works. I have no idea what point you're making.

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The Square,

So if you know that then what is this statement about?
>> I'm talking about opening RAW from a 'real'camera in this app

What is "RAW from a 'real' camera"? There is no such thing in terms of a file format. Your 'real' camera on the phone is the hardware inside the phone.

If you are talking about editing files from other cameras like .nef, .cr2, .arw, etc then LightRoom does not understand other formats even on desktop. But on the desktop Adobe ships it with Adobe Raw Converter and LightRoom can seamlessly delegate raw conversion to Adobe Raw Converter. Adobe never announced the release of Adobe Raw Converter on mobiles and the above news article does not say so. So it would have been rather strange to expect that as it was not announced.

But you can use third party raw converters to convert to dng. There are such for Android at least. But... I personally would never seriously consider editing on a mobile device that way.

0 upvotes