Adobe has launched an update to Lightroom Mobile that will allow users to take HDR photos on iPhone and Android using the Lightroom Mobile app. Adobe’s great photo editing and editing app allows users to capture their footage and then edit the photos after they’ve taken them. We will show users how to use the app to take beautiful photos in difficult lighting conditions.
Why Take HDR Photos on iPhone?
First, what is HDR? It stands for High Dynamic Range and refers to a special type of photography where the photographer takes three or more photos using different light settings for each shot. For example, one will take the first shot to well illuminate the brightest parts of the scene, but this leaves the midtones and dark areas too dark. So they take another photo of the same scene so that the midtones get the best exposure. However, this leaves the brightest areas too bright, such as a window in a room or the sky in a landscape photo. The darkest areas in a landscape, such as the shaded area under a tree, appear very dark. The third shot gets the best exposure for these dark areas, leaving the midtones and bright areas too bright.
Professional or high-end consumer cameras often offer photographers the best option for capturing HDR photos. They will automatically take three or more shots using different exposure settings. Some apps will emulate this HDR look, but they don’t really work well. The HDR setting on the iPhone 7 camera works fine, but not as well as Lightroom Mobile. Until now, using the HDR setting of the camera app gave users the best option to take HDR Photos on iPhone, but not anymore.
Before Adobe’s Adobe Lightroom Mobile update, taking HDR Photos on the iPhone meant taking three shots and then transferring them to a computer. The photographer then combines three or more shots into a single shot with perfect lighting for all three areas—lights, darks, and mid-tones. That means uploading the photos, going to your desktop or laptop computer, and opening a photo editor like MacPhun’s Aurora HDR 2017 editing software or Adobe Photoshop CS.
How to Take HDR Photos on iPhone with Lightroom Mobile
First, install the app and sign up for an Adobe account if you don’t already have it. You will need a subscription to get the most out of the app. The Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan costs just $9.99 per month and includes access to full desktop/laptop versions of Photoshop and Lightroom, as well as the ability to sync between mobile devices and desktop/laptops. The free version allows users to take photos using the steps below.
Once installed, open Lightroom Mobile and sign in to your account. To do this, tap the Lr icon in the upper left corner and then sign in using the account’s email address and password.
Take a photo using the Lightroom Mobile app camera by tapping the camera button in the lower right corner. The first time the app requests access to the camera. Tap on it and let it use your iPhone camera to take HDR photos on iPhone.
Lightroom Mobile App Camera Settings
Next to the big white shutter button, you’ll see a drop-down list with an arrow pointing down next to it. It will probably tell, but you can read or . Tap the down arrow and select it from the list.
The app shows several options. The user can start taking HDR photos or adjust one of the options as on the iPhone. Options include:
When your settings look correct, take the photo using the large white circle at the bottom in portrait mode or the large white circle on the side in landscape mode. Most shots look best in landscape mode, but you can shoot a scene using both and then decide which one looks better.
Editing and Editing Photos with Lightroom Mobile
After you shoot the scene, the camera takes the RAW photo and then briefly displays the results on the screen. It will upload the photo to Adobe’s servers for processing. This may take some time, so wait patiently, especially on LTE or a slower Wi-Fi network.
Tap the white X in the upper-right corner of the camera app screen (in landscape mode) to see the results. The photo library in Lightroom will appear. Tap the cloud to see the upload progress. Tap the first entry in the list that says Lightroom Photos. Any photo taken using HDR will display a small HDR icon above the photo. Tap one to see it full screen and edit it using Lightroom’s editing tools. The videos below will show you how to use the app.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries
You can sync photos between your iPhone and computer using the steps in the video below.
Sample Shots of HDR Shooting on iPhone with Lightroom Mobile
I shot a difficult scene using my iPhone. This is an example of the kind of setting one might want to use HDR. I turned off the lights in the room and pointed the iPhone 7 Plus camera at the window and tapped the window for light leaking through the window late in the morning on a slightly cloudy day. Here’s what the room looks like from a regular photo taken on an iPhone 7 Plus camera without HDR.
Shot using iPhone 7 Plus with HDR not turned on.
Now take a look at the same shot using the built-in HDR setting in the iPhone 7 Camera app.
Shot on iPhone 7 Plus using the HDR setting of the built-in iOS Camera app.
Finally, a shot using Lightroom Mobile’s new HDR feature.
Taken using Adobe Lightroom mobile on an iPhone 7 Plus.
As you can see, the first shot just shows what’s outside the window with good lighting. Everything else looks too dark to see what’s inside the room. There is very little detail in the shadows. Strangely, the iPhone 7 Plus Camera app HDR setting doesn’t light up the room at all. The two photos without HDR and then with HDR look almost identical in exposure. The third photo taken using the Adobe Lightroom Mobile app and uploaded to Adobe servers looks better. You can see more details inside the room and outside the window. You can even see some of the molding around the door of the room, which looks completely black in the first photo and looks extremely dark with little detail in the iOS Camera HDR shot.
Solution
The Adobe Lightroom Mobile app does a good job of creating HDR photos. It takes a while to load photos and will consume data if you’re shooting away from Wi-Fi and want to see results before going back somewhere on Wi-Fi. But I’ll be shooting all my HDR shots using Adobe Lightroom, and after that I won’t even bother with the HDR setting of the built-in iOS Camera app.
