For the moment at least, I see Lightroom for iPad as a basic editing app for RAWs. While Adobe has its own limited presets, most photographers have their own presets which they would prefer to use.

The biggest problem however is the inability to sync custom presets. Some functions like cropping & pinch zooming weren’t as smooth as I had hoped. On the original iPad Mini, I found the software lagged and was buggy. You can’t add colour labels to images either. However, while it is a good start, Lightroom misses key features that would have made a world of difference. Curves, Camera RAW controls, Sharpening, Noise Reduction are all missing. You can double tap on any option to get rid of the adjustment all together. These adjustments are easy to undo as well. The layout of the software is quite intuitive and uses gestures, swiping and taps, as an alternate for the shortcuts used on the desktop software, to speed up editing. Once synced, the images appear on your iPad through Creative Cloud and can be organised by date, flag status, file name and other parameters.įor editing though, Lightroom offers only basic tools like Exposure, Shadows, Highlights and Colour Temp which can be found in many photo editing apps. With the desktop Lightroom 5.4 or higher you can sync entire collections with your mobile. Using Smart Previews, the apps save edits made to them, letting you go back and tweak them later on your desktop. This is then sent back to CC with all the editing info stored which you can later access from your desktop. The apps import a compressed file for you to preview and edit. The way Adobe gets around this is by using an ingenious hack, which they call Smart Previews. The most significant of which is that the computing power of tablets hasn’t been enough to process heavy RAW files. There have been some obstacles that have prevented photographers from using their mobile devices to make edits for their serious work. The other caveat to these apps is that while free to download, you need to subscribe to at least one of Adobe’s subscription plans. Which means needing a WiFi or 3G connection at all times.

The only problem is that you need to sign into your Creative Cloud every time you need to use them. You can also use the app to access PSDs or even edit images from your Camera Roll. Photoshop Mix is designed to be more of a photo compositing software, which is made easy by the its Cut Out function.

Download photoshop mix ipad