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Subscribers of Adobe Creative Cloud are getting a little something extra in their Easter basket this month with the long-awaited arrival of Lightroom mobile, which allows editing images while on the go and automatic sync back to the desktop.
Adobe today announced the release of Lightroom mobile, a free iPad-only companion app for the Mac or PC versions of Lightroom 5 that enables image sync between desktop and mobile.
Lightroom mobile works with Adobe’s Smart Preview technology to create high-quality proxies from full-resolution images stored on desktop versions of Lightroom 5, allowing photographers to perform non-destructive image editing, update metadata, or change collections from the iPad, then sync those changes back to the Mac or PC.
The iPad app features a full complement of Lightroom tools including editing of RAW images from DSLR cameras or those imported from the iPad, along with the most popular enhancements and presets from the desktop version. When finished, images can be shared straight to popular social networks in just a few taps.
Adobe is quick to note that this isn’t a full cloud storage solution similar to its unlimited Revel service — while Lightroom mobile is capable of syncing an unlimited number of images from the desktop, the full-resolution files always remain in Lightroom 5 and only the Smart Previews are stored in the cloud as needed.
In addition to Lightroom mobile for iPad, Adobe is also introducing a web-based component that allows synced photos to be viewed from any browser. The company plans to introduce an iPhone version of Lightroom mobile later this year.
Although Lightroom mobile is free, the app requires a current subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud to actually work, the cheapest of which is the company’s $9.99-per-month Photoshop Photography Program that bundles Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5. Lightroom mobile is now available from the App Store and requires iOS 7.0 or later.
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