Lightroom Mobile App Review 2024

By Ann Young 5 days ago, Lightroom Tips

Lightroom CC Mobile 2024

  • Rank
    (4.5/5)
  • Platforms: iOS, Android
  • Price: Free

Are you a Lr CC user but still don’t use a free Lightroom Mobile App? Don’t know how to use this official free Lr version and what picture editing functions does it have? Want to understand how to apply Lr presets and synchronize the app with the desktop version? Let me help you with it!

Lightroom Mobile App alternatives:

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    Fotor
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What Is Lightroom Mobile App?

Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

lightroom mobile app interface
Pros
  • Quick management of a large number of photos
  • Color correction of several photos at the same time
  • A large number of tutorials
  • Many useful presets
  • Supports almost all RAW formats
Cons
  • Inconvenient catalogue system
  • Inopportune photo export
  • You should have the smartphone of the latest models to work with many RAW files
  • Weak portrait edit capabilities

VERDICT: Adobe Lightroom CC Mobile is a free app for smartphones and tablets that allows editing and sharing photos. You can synchronize your phone with the Lightroom CC desktop version. Adobe Lightroom CC Mobile offers the same image editing possibilities as the PC version including RAW image editing, color correction, and more, while also being portable and easily accessible.

Besides, this version allows capturing photos with the app on your smartphone or tablet. In addition, Lightroom CC is regularly updated and FREE of charge.

Read my full Lightroom CC Review.

Lightroom Mobile App Review

To start using Lightroom CC Mobile, you need to download the appropriate version (on your smartphone or tablet) and log in using Adobe ID, Google Account or Facebook. You will see a brief outline of all available features and then you will be able to upload your pictures from the device, cloud storage, or even take a photo and start editing it.

Syncing Photos between Lightroom Mobile and Desktop

lightroom app syncing photos

It’s a very useful feature that allows working on several devices simultaneously or even using the app on the road if you have the Adobe account. However, to sync with Lightroom CC you need to have either the free trial desktop version or paid Adobe Creative Cloud membership.

Lightroom apps have a highly optimized synchronization system.

If you set up the synchronization correctly, you’ll be able to access your images anywhere at any time, using the mobile version. To start the synchronization, you have to log in with your Adobe ID both in the mobile and desktop Lightroom versions.

Next, in the PC version, choose the ‘Sync with Lightroom Mobile’ option in the top corner and the synchronization process will begin automatically.

After receiving the Lightroom Mobile free trial version or purchasing a subscription, you can synchronize Lightroom with all your devices. Any changes you make to your photos will also be synched. If needed, you can turn off this option and synchronize specific files instead of entire collections. That’s a very useful function that isn’t available for all apps.

If your free desktop Lightroom trial version has expired and you still don’t have a subscription, you won’t be able to synchronize with the desktop app and you can only use the limited Lightroom Mobile edition.

High Images Upload Speed

Adobe Lightroom Mobile offers a high upload speed that allow users to transfer large bulks of photographs simultaneously. If you want to avoid feeling lost amidst hundreds or even thousands of images, you can group them into collections using the app.

Thanks to Lightroom’s optimized synchronization process, you can also sync your collections by putting a specific flag in the app that will automatically upload all your collections to Adobe Cloud, creating Smart Previews (on iPads and iPhones) to view photographs on your phone.

Extensive Image Editing Capabilities

You can make your photographs black and white, and change exposure, temperature, contrast, and white balance settings. Lightroom Mobile allows the same photo color correction as Lightroom CC offers.

You can cut or rotate the image using the Crop tool and adjust the settings in the Optics menu:

lightroom crop tool

It’s possible to change the tonal scale of an image using the Histogram menu:

lightroom histogram tool

You can also use the Lightroom app to apply various effects to your photos or correct specific details such as making photos sharper or adding a vignette. You can also apply free presets to make color corrections faster.

lightroom app presets

Advanced Portrait Enhancement Features in the Premium Version

lightroom advanced photo retouching

If you want to retouch a photo (light skin retouching and small objects removal), you need to use the Premium functions of the Mobile Lightroom app. To get them, you should sign in to the Adobe website and pay for a subscription:

  • You can use the Healing Brush tool to remove distracting objects from the photo regardless of their size or change them by copying textures from a specific area.
  • The Selective Edit function helps in editing the image or a specific part with incredible accuracy just by moving your finger over the phone screen.
  • You can use the Geometry function and the Auto Upright tool to fix photographs with distorted geometry.

You Can Use and Create Presets

Lightroom Mobile Android and iOS versions allow you to create your own Lightroom mobile presets as well as use professional Lightroom presets.

color correction color correction

Moreover, you can also use all the presets that you created in the desktop version. If you’re a member of Adobe Creative Cloud, you can get all your Presets by syncing the app with your PC or laptop.

Find more information about where to download free Lightroom presets, how to add presets to Lightroom, how to use Lightroom presets, and how to install and delete them on your laptop and phone.

Simple Picture Culling Using Rating

lightroom app picture culling rating

Lightroom image filters are one of the app’s handiest functions. Thankfully, the Lightroom Mobile version allows filtering your photographs as well. Using this photo culling software is incredibly useful if you have a large folder with images, but only want to choose a few of them for photo editing.

Just switch between the Edit and Review modes in the upper left corner. Then, you can use either the Flag (in the bottom right corner) or the Star rating (bottom left corner) to select the necessary images.

Usually, I mark the photos I plan to edit with stars and the finished ones with flags. However, you can come up with your own system.

Sort Your Images in Albums

Lightroom Mobile allows users to sort photographs not only with image filters but with albums as well. You can create an album by pressing the “+” button to simplify the process of finding the necessary images when you don’t have access to your PC. If you want to arrange your albums more conveniently, you can sort them by Import Date, Title, Photo Count, and Locally Stored.

lightroom mobile app sorting

The Lightroom Mobile app sets a default cover for an album, but you can change it by pressing the magnifying glass icon. You can add images to an album by selecting the ones you want in the All Photos folder and pressing Add To button. Alternatively, you can open an album, select Add Photos, and choose the storage location of the photographs you want to include.

You can find definite pictures in the album by choosing the filter you’ve tagged them with. Lightroom Mobile creates albums like “All Photos” and “People” automatically. The All Photos folder has all your added images while the People album is used to view and comment on pictures taken by your friends who have Adobe ID. However, the latter function is only available for premium subscribers.

Ability to Edit RAW Shots

Lightroom Mobile app allows you to edit RAW images, which is one of its biggest advantages over other free photo editing apps. So, you can take RAW-quality photographs and edit them directly in the app. Moreover, the images can also be imported/exported and shared with other users.

The HDR preview function supports various Lightroom photo editing techniques that were previously available only in the desktop version, including white balance, glare recovery, access to original colors, and full-size image editing.

The primary minus is that importing and editing RAW images takes a lot of time on iPhones and iPads and is virtually impossible on regular smartphones. If you want to work with such files, your phone should have a powerful OS and certain optical expansions.

Provide Access to Your Images Through Link

Every time you sync your Collection with the Mobile app, you can make it public so that anyone who has a link to it can view your works online. Moreover, if the user who has the link is an Adobe ID member, he/she can leave comments and check the marked photos.

If you don’t want to share your entire collection, you can make only specific pictures public. You can see all the likes and comments left by other users under your public images. This way, you can see how your work is evaluated, which is one of the little things that make Lightroom Mobile great.

View Photo Metadata

lightroom app view photo metadata

Once you’ve selected a photo in an album, you can switch from Edit to the Info menu to see the data about the picture: caption, copyright, applied filters, image format, import date, camera, EXIF info, and keywords.

You can also view some info in the Edit menu by pressing Show Info in the top right corner. That data is easily accessible thanks to the user-friendly Lightroom Mobile interface.

Sensei AI Search for Premium Subscribers

In addition to the Healing Brush, Selective Edit, Geometry, and People Premium functions, a Lightroom Mobile paid subscription offers several other interesting features. One of them is the Sensei AI image search function.

It allows users to search for photographs by a variety of different parameters such as keywords, camera type, rating, lens, location, orientation, flash, aperture, mass media, and more. All the keywords you’ve typed into the search bar are also synchronized with Lightroom’s desktop version.

In addition, you can take advantage of the tooltips and autocomplete function when viewing your album by typing into the search bar. To find the needed images even faster, you can add a couple of search parameters. The search results can be displayed by sorting, segmentation or as a slide show. This is one of the most convenient search systems I’ve ever used.

Easy Photo Sharing

lightroom easy photo sharing

If you use the Sharing Photos option, you can send your images via email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, and other social media apps installed on your smartphone. You can also use the Sharing options to add or change the watermark that will be added to the photos. It also allows you to show your location, file and camera info, and other metadata.

You can print, copy and move photographs before exporting them or share a couple of images simultaneously by choosing the ones you need to send. Also, Adobe Lightroom Mobile for Android and iOS smartphones gives you the opportunity to make your albums public with the Share to Web option so that you can share many photos without selecting them one by one. This is also a premium function and is only available if you have a paid subscription.

Use Lightroom Mobile App for Taking Photos

The Adobe Lightroom Mobile app camera allows you to take high-quality images. It works in two modes: Automatic and Professional. Both allow you to control the flash, the front camera, and the auto-exposure settings. The Pro mode enables you to control the focus, exposure, and white balance.

What’s especially impressive is that when you’re editing photographs, they aren’t being overwritten, so you can always return to the original version. One of the most useful Lightroom Mobile editing tips is to adjust only the most important settings while shooting and fix everything else during image post-processing.

lightroom mobile app photo tool

Both shooting modes allow you to take pictures with different aspect ratios (16:9, 3:2, 4:3, 1:1). You can preview a photograph in various crop ratios and choose the one you like best before taking it. You can also choose between Thirds, Halves, and Golden Grid settings.

The same panel also has a timer icon that allows you to set a delay (2, 5, or 10 seconds) after which the photo will be taken. In addition, if you press the gear icon, you can change or turn on/off certain settings (volume key functions, max screen brightness, geotag photos, etc.).

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can use the Lightroom app iPhone version to take images in RAW format, which ensures a more accurate and professional photo editing process. Also, you can save unedited pictures in DNG format (if the phone’s camera has at least 12MP and runs on iOS 10.0 or higher).

Note: To create RAW images in HDR, you need to have a mobile device with a powerful CPU and RAM.

Premium Lightroom Mobile App: Price

Lightroom Mobile is FREE for your Android or iOS smartphone. You can enter Lightroom app using your Adobe ID or Creative Cloud accounts, thanks to which you can synchronize with Lightroom desktop version. All the premium functions including synchronization are available only if you have a Lightroom CC subscription.

If you already have one of the offered Adobe plans for Lightroom, you can receive all the Lightroom privileges for your mobile version as well. If you don’t have a Lightroom subscription and want to know how to get Lightroom for free, download the trial mobile version right now:

Read more about how to download Lightroom for free to test it before subscription.

Freebies for Lightroom Mobile App

Lightroom CC Mobile supports presets to help you save a ton of time while editing photos and correcting colors. Our image editing specialists have collected the best presets that you can download below for free.

Nightclub

nightclub freebies for lightroom app nightclub freebies for lightroom app

A common problem with club photography is strong overexposure and lack of shadows, or heavy noise. Specifically for such cases, FixThePhoto developed a free collection of presets for club photographers to fix the most popular problems of these images.

Warm

warm freebies for lightroom app warm freebies for lightroom app

The correct warm preset will make your photo lighter, as if it was taken at the “Golden Hour”. These free presets will add matte touches to your photos with a gentle transition to warm colors.

Matte

matte freebies for lightroom app matte freebies for lightroom app

This preset eliminates deep shadows, corrects colors and makes them slightly muted. Now, matte presets are frequently used in children, port.

SAVE UP TO 60% OFF SAVE UP TO 60% OFF