You probably know I’ve been a big fan of Lightroom mobile lately. My phone has become a major part of my photography. I’m realizing where it’s place is, and that I don’t always have to pull out my “big-boy” camera. But managing those photos has been a problem – and Lightroom Mobile has helped me finally figure out how to integrate the phone photos, with my main photo library.
But, it’s pretty clear that Adobe has been trying to be more than just a way to manage and edit photos on the phone – they’re trying to be the camera you take those photos with as well. And they just stepped it up a notch on the capture/camera side in LR Mobile, by adding in-camera HDR merging (iOS and… yep… Android too). Now, in addition to the Auto and Professional modes, you’ll see there’s an HDR shooting mode as well.
How HDR in Lightroom Mobile Works?
The way it works is the camera in Lightroom Mobile looks at the scene and figures out a range in which it falls in to. Then it takes 3 full resolution DNG photos to capture that range. Finally, it aligns them, merges, deghosts, and tonemaps them right inside the app.
It’s all a pretty simple process and doesn’t interrupt your shooting. From what I’ve seen, it does take a minute for LR Mobile to merge/process the HDR file until you can edit it. But that’s about it.
As you can imagine, dynamic range has always been a problem on our mobile phones. I have times where I know I can get the same photo with my phone, and times where I know that I need my Sony camera. Whenever I’m shooting in to, or even close to, the sun is one of those times I usually pull out the big camera to get the shot.
The photo you saw above (and below) would have been really difficult to capture with my phone. But with HDR mode, I was able to get a lot of detail in the trees without totally blowing out the sky. Pretty cool stuff!
A Few More Updates
Adobe snuck in a few more updates to LR Mobile. Things like:
- Exporting originals from the app
- Speed review/rating gestures to speed up the review process
- And a new Force Touch widget to let you get to the LR Mobile camera faster.
And of course you can read more about it, and all of the supported cameras, and operating systems, from Josh Haftel, over on Adobe’s Lightroom Journal website.
Have a good one!
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Hi Matt,
I was searching info about the HDR option in Lightroom mobile because I’d found that when I download the DNG’s files to Windows or Mac the DNG’s taken without HDR option uses all the resolution from my iPhone but the HDR DNG’s has lower resolution.
4032×3024 normal DNG
2048×1536 HDR DNG
Did you notice that?
It is a usefull tool but, if in the end you have a lower resolution maybe it’s not a good deal 🙁
Hi. Sorry I’ve never compared the two so I don’t have any info on it. For my phone usually 2000 pixels is enough. I typically don’t print those photos.
For those who stumble upon this post (and particular question) in the future…
What David noticed is the size of the embedded JPG thumbnail in the HDR DNG file, which is 3.15MP in size, versus a full-size embedded JPG in a just a DNG file. Probably an attempt on Adobe’s part to moderate the size of HDR DNG files, which would of course be even larger if they included a full-size JPG.
So… Both DNG and HDR DNG raw files are indeed 12MP.
HDR DNG capture on my iPhone SE has given me the ability to produce large sensor (I might estimate a 1″ sensor) image quality. I’m typically very impressed with my results.
Learning how! Looking forward to more learning on my IPhone6
Thanks for the write up on the HDR mode. I just installed the update and ready to try it out soon!
Really looking forward to updating my phone, shall love this. As far as Lightroom Mobile is concerned is it possible to search for a photo on your iphone on LRM via a keyword? I know you can do this with Photovia and am hoping this is possible through lightroom mobile – still debating which App to go for.
Hey Catherine – No, I don’t believe you can search on keywords in it yet. Photovia is cool, but there’s no two way sync and it doesn’t have editing controls or a camera. So it’s definitely not apples to apples comparison. If you’re organizing your photos in LR then use LR Mobile. If you’re organizing in ON1, then use PhotoVia.
Matt – I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom mobile app on my iPhone 6 plus and I still don’t see the HDR shooting mode. What am I missing?
Not sure Doug. Are you using the latest iOS on your phone too?
Will the “Auto” setting be intelligent enough to do an HDR take when necessary? Or does the HDR take only happens when selected manually?
Nope. You have to turn it on manually.
The HDR tool seems to work really well. Pulls up shadows, even controls the noise. This is impressive. Using this on my 7+ really does make for a killer combo.
SUCCESS! I uninstalled and re-installed and it worked! At first I, too, couldn’t find my collections but soon figured it out. All is well with the world!
Thanks for help!
carol
Never mind. Figured it out.
Oh no. I unistalled and installed and lost all my collections? How do I get them back! And I also do not have the HDR!
Carol,
Have you tried uninstalling and re-installing the LR app? Some users have had the same problem and that has helped them.
I had to do that at one point too.
Debbie, my IOS phone IS a 6s…..still now HDR option???
I have my LR Mobile all up to date but still only get two modes: auto and professional, not HDR. Any suggestions?
carol
Carol – At this time, for iOS users, the HDR mode requires a device that can capture DNG files, such as an iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, iPhone SE, or iPad Pro 9.7″.
For Android users, at this time, only the Samsung S7, S7 Edge, Google Pixel, and Pixel XL are supported.