How to Edit Photos in Lightroom Mobile

Editing Photos in Lightroom Mobile (Android/iPhone)

Many photographers and several Kamera Express colleagues frequently work with Lightroom Mobile — and for good reason. It is easy and fast. Many cameras nowadays have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity, which means freshly taken photos can appear on your phone within seconds. You can then import and edit them in the Lightroom app. You can even edit RAW photos in it, right on your smartphone.

The Lightroom Mobile app is available for Android and iOS. The app itself is free to download and use. A few advanced features are only available to paying users, but trust us, you really do not need them to edit your photos beautifully. On this page we show you all the important features and how to turn an ordinary holiday photo into a little masterpiece. We worked with an Android smartphone, but you can easily follow our steps with an iPhone or iPad — the app is identical on both platforms.

Getting started

First download the app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. When you open the app for the first time, Adobe will ask you to sign in. You can do this with your Adobe ID or by logging in via a Google account. Because the app is linked to your Adobe ID, photos will automatically appear on other devices where you are signed in, such as the desktop version of Lightroom at home.

On this home screen you normally see an overview of all your photos. With the blue button in the centre you can add a photo by taking one or selecting one from your phone gallery. In the top right corner there is a cloud icon to quickly add photos from your Adobe Cloud. There are also handy tutorials from Adobe on this screen — well worth checking out if you want to learn more.

Once you have added a photo, it is visible on this home screen. Tap the photo to start editing. Lightroom Mobile can be used both vertically and horizontally.

Editing: the basics

This is the main screen of the editing page in the app. At the top you can switch between editing modes. There are also handy tips at the question mark icon, and you can save or share the photo via the other icons at the top. At the bottom you see a bar with editing options that you can swipe through. Some options have a blue icon with a star — these edits are only available in the paid version of Lightroom Mobile.

In the centre you see your photo. With two fingers you can zoom in so that every detail is clearly visible. By holding the photo with one finger you can see the difference between your current adjustments and the original — so you can see the effect of all your changes at a glance.

Crop

With the Crop option you can crop your photo: cut out parts or straighten the image. This is very handy if there are unwanted tourists in your holiday photo or the horizon is slightly crooked. You can also change the aspect ratio here. Did you shoot in a 4:3 ratio but want to post on Instagram? Choose the classic square 1:1 ratio or 16:9 for a portrait format. Happy with your adjustments? Tap the checkmark in the top right.

Profiles

The Profiles option is for the quick editor among us. Here you will find all sorts of preset filters you can apply to your photo in one tap. From artistic to modern and black-and-white to vintage, there is plenty of choice. With the slider you can set the intensity of the filter. If you want to quickly edit a photo to share on social media, this feature is very handy. Tap the star in the corner of a profile to mark it as a favourite for faster access in future.

Light

Under the Light option you edit the exposure of your photo. If you have a RAW file you can get even more out of it than with a JPG. Lightroom Mobile accepts RAW files, just like the desktop version. With the handy sliders you drag everything to the right settings and see the adjustments live on your photo. The exposure slider adjusts the overall brightness and is especially useful to compensate for over- or underexposure. The other options let you fine-tune contrast, shadows, and dark and light tones.

For more advanced photographers there is a curves option. With this you can adjust exposure and contrast even more precisely using a graph. Drag the points of the line to the right position for perfect exposure. In the bottom left of the graph you adjust the blacks, in the top right the whites. The other options let you adjust the individual colour curve.

Color

With the Colour option you adjust the colours until they almost literally jump off the screen. Correct the colour temperature and tint of the image, and drag the vibrancy and saturation up to enhance the intensity of the colours. If the white balance on your camera was not set correctly, you can still fix it here. To enhance the tropical holiday feel in our photo, we made it slightly warmer with a touch of extra colour.

There is also an advanced option via the MIX button, where you open a panel to adjust the intensity, hue and exposure per colour. This is useful for quickly correcting colours such as skin tones in a group photo or the green leaves in a forest scene. We used this to enhance the blue and turquoise tones so that the water and sky in the photo stand out even more.

Effects

Effects can give your photo that extra touch to make it special. The Texture option adds extra definition to a texture in your photo — for example wrinkled skin, a wooden surface or waves in the sea. The Clarity option does something similar but also enhances detail in other subjects. The Grain setting adds grain for a vintage feel, just like with an analogue camera.

Tip: If you are not sure what these effects do, drag the slider all the way to the left and then to the right. By comparing the extremes you can clearly see what the effect does and whether you want to use it at all.

Details

Adding digital sharpness is a very personal choice — some photographers swear by it, others never use it. With some photos a small addition of sharpness can give just a little more detail, making the photo appear sharper overall. You can refine the sharpening further by adjusting the radius and detail settings. In our example we left the value at 0.

We all encounter noise in our photos at some point — often caused by a high ISO setting. The Noise Reduction in Lightroom Mobile removes this noise for you. Bear in mind that the photo may lose some sharpness as a result, so do not apply this too heavily.

Optics

When working with different lenses you can quickly get small variations between photos, as every lens is constructed slightly differently. With Lightroom Mobile you can apply lens corrections to make every photo consistent. If you have imported a RAW file, Lightroom will in many cases automatically recognise your camera and lens from the EXIF data. If not, you can set it manually by selecting your camera and lens to apply an image or colour correction. For many users this feature will largely go unused — so do not worry if you are unsure what to do with it.

Save and share

Have you completed all the edits you wanted to make? Your photo is ready to be shared with the world! You can save it via the options at the top: directly to your smartphone or tablet, or share it immediately via social media, email or cloud storage. With the Export option you adjust the file settings — just like on your computer, you can change the file type and size as desired.

Presets

With Presets you can quickly edit your photos while retaining more detail than with a standard filter (profiles). Here too you can choose from various settings to give your photo a beautiful exposure and rich colours. A nice option is that you can also create and add your own presets. With the option in the top right you turn your current settings into a preset, which you can then apply to all subsequent photos from your holiday or shoot.

Do bear in mind that these settings are perfect for your current photo, but not necessarily for another one. If the exposure on a different photo varies, your preset will not give the same result as on the first photo.