Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Adobe Lightroom for mobile adds RAW support to iOS, improves camera on Android

By Daven Mathies July 13, 2016

Adobe today released updates to both flavors of Lightroom for mobile, bringing the iOS app up to version 2.4 and the Android app to 2.1. The bulk of the changes happened with the iOS version, which, among other things, gets a RAW technology preview.

Mobile Lightroom users were previously limited to importing and working with JPEG files on iOS, but the new technology preview opens the door to the full power of RAW image editing. Adobe claims complete parity between desktop and mobile versions of the app in terms of RAW file support, so if you’ve been importing RAW files from your camera to the desktop version, it’s guaranteed to work on mobile, too. Adobe even tested it with a 50-megapixel Canon 5DS file on an iPhone 6.

This is great news for travel photographers, who now have control over white balance, highlight recovery, and all other standard RAW adjustments.

In addition to RAW support, Lightroom for iOS gains local adjustments thanks to new linear and radial selection tools. These tools were the second most requested feature after RAW support, according to Adobe, and let photographers draw attention to specific elements of a photo.

For power users, Adobe has also added hotkey support when a physical keyboard is connected to an iPad. This is a small addition, but could potentially save a lot of time.

Related: Adobe CC Update Makes it Easier to Straighten Lopsided Buildings

The Android version didn’t receive quite the same love as its iOS counterpart, but Adobe did significantly bump up the functionality of the Lightroom Camera to take advantage of the power of end-to-end DNG capture that’s unique to Android devices. The camera’s new Pro mode grants full manual exposure and focus control, so users can get the most out of their mobile device’s camera. It is also easier to access, with a widget that lets users launch the camera directly without first opening Lightroom.

Additionally, Lightroom for Android can now also export full-resolution files, even if they aren’t stored locally on the device.

Both iOS and Android versions are available now as free downloads. For more information, see the Lightroom blog.

Download for iOS

Download for Android

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Daven is a contributing writer to the photography section. He has been with Digital Trends since 2016 and has been writing…

Audio / Video

Netflix begins rolling out support for spatial audio, starting with iOS devices

Person listening to spatial audio using Apple AirPods Max headphones.

Apple's spatial audio feature, which works with the company's AirPods Pro earbuds and AirPods Max headphones, offers a pretty cool way to get immersive audio from both music and movies. Support for spatial audio, however, is far from universal when it comes to streaming video services, with the most notable holdout being Netflix. But that's about to change, aswe've had confirmation from Netflix that the streaming giant has begun to roll out spatial audio support to iOS devices.

Spatial audio, in Apple's world, works in two different ways. If you're listening to Apple Music on an iOS device (and soon, Android devices, too), you can use any set of headphones or earbuds to experience tracks that have been recorded in Dolby Atmos Music the way they were meant to be heard. Spatial audio provides that wide and airy 3D-like sound that typifies Dolby Atmos Music.

Mobile

How to share iPhone photos with Android devices

Photography feature image.

Photo sharing is a universal activity regardless of whether your mobile device follows the Apple or Android persuasion. But it sure doesn't feel that way much of the time. In fact, it can be a challenge to share a simple photo or photoshoot cross-platform -- complex, but not impossible. We show you how it's done in iOS 14.6.
Reconcile photo platforms
While JPEG and H.264 are widely viewed as universal photo and video formats, since iOS 11, Apple's newest operating systems have updated them with even more highly compressed HEIF (High-Efficiency Image File Format) and HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding). The newer Apple formats are not proprietary, but they are less popular, and some Android devices may have trouble translating them. You can rectify that by switching formats on your iPhone so that it records JPEG stills and H.264 video instead of the newer highly compressed formats.

Go to Settings > Camera > Formats and choose Most Compatible. The resulting images will be of equal quality, take up more space on your device, and be compatible with all Android devices. Then, go to Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC and tap Automatic to ensure photos and videos get sent using the JPEG and H.264 formats.
Sharing options
Now that the formats are compatible, you can now decide how to share them -- email, text message, or via apps like WhatsApp, Google Drive, Dropbox, Twitter, or any other app that allows attachments or lets you upload and download files and folders, or access links. Below are a few different ways to accomplish this.

Computing

Everything Apple announced at WWDC 2021: iOS 15, MacOS Monterey, and more

Tim Cook Apple WWDC 2021

The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is one of the biggest events of the year for Apple developers, and this year's show is no different. Apple announced key updates across its entire ecosystem, with new releases for iOS on the iPhone, MacOS on the Mac, iPadOS for its line of tablets, WatchOS on Apple Watch, and so much more.

"We're excited to share our latest technologies with you and with the incredible community of millions of Apple developers around the world," Apple CEO Tim Cook said as he kicked off WWDC 2021 to an audience of developers represented by Memoji. "Your creativity and groundbreaking apps continue to deliver new and meaningful ways to enrich people's lives," "We've continued to look for ways to cultivate the next generation of developers, with an emphasis on those underrepresented in technology."