Lightroom for iPad
Photo-editing on the go
Lightroom’s chief strengths are in its organisational power and non-destructive image editing, which allow you to make unlimited changes to an image without affecting the original file. And Lightroom Mobile’s release on the iPad means – in theory – more flexibility than ever when it comes to editing shots on the move.
The key feature is any change you make in Lightroom Mobile is synced to Lightroom on your Mac, so edits or flags are waiting for you when you get home. Likewise, if you edit a shoot on your Mac, the changes are synced the next time you open Lightroom Mobile on your iPad.
Lightroom Mobile works in a similar way to Lightroom on the desktop. Images are stored in Collections, and can be imported from your Camera Roll. Images can be moved between collections, and, shared to Twitter and Facebook, or emailed or sent using iMessage. It’s also possible to save back to your Camera Roll once images are edited. You can flag images as well, with Picked, Rejected and Unflagged as options. Swiping a finger upwards allows you to cycle through flagging options. Not every tag available in the full version of Lightroom is available, though – the option to give images keywords, captions or ratings remains desktop-only.
The app’s editing tools are extensive rather than comprehensive, but there’s more here than you get with more consumer-focused apps. White balance is selectable by type (tungsten, daylight and so on), or by temperature, while exposure, contrast and saturation can be changed, with your changes applied to the image when you let go of the slider. The editing options mean
Extensive rather than comprehensive editing, but there’s plenty here compared to more consumer-focused apps
minor problems with images, such as under- or over-exposure, lack of saturation and lack of contrast can be corrected easily, but the lack of, for example, a clone tool or a tone curve means Lightroom Mobile is currently better suited to ‘first pass’ image editing rather than the creation of finished pieces. Usability takes a knock versus functionality, though. Editing tools are labelled by name – there are no icons explaining what each does. Instead you get a brief label, so new photographers face a rather steep learning curve, compared to iPhoto, say.
Otherwise, the interface works well. Some well-implemented gestures make navigation easy. A two-fingered tap cycles through histogram and file info, and hold an image with three fingers to see what it looked like before editing.
Crucially, synchronising images across desktop and iPad works well – this is the best implementation of cloud-based photo organisation and editing currently available. There are, indisputably, omissions compared to the desktop version. Some of these are forgivable; others, such as the inability to add keywords and captions, less so. Still, with Lightroom Mobile available as a free service to existing Creative Cloud subscribers, it’s obvious to go for it. If you’re on CC, download it, forgive its early flaws and keep your eyes peeled for an improved version 2.0. Dave Stevenson