Wish your smartphone camera could do better and help you capture better pictures? You don’t need to get a brand new device because there’s an app for that. Adobe recently updated its Lightroom Mobile app for Android and iOS, allowing users to capture raw HDR images that was “previously only possible shooting with a DSLR or mirrorless camera”.
The update should be available right now in the respective app store – Lightroom Mobile version 2.7 for iOS and version 2.3 for Android. The new raw HDR capture mode works by automatically scanning the scene to find the correct exposure range. It will then capture three DNG files and align, merge, deghost, and tonemap these files in the app, resulting in “a 16-bit floating point DNG, with all of the benefits of both an HDR and a raw photo”. Adobe says its app uses the same algorithm as Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom.
Sadly, the feature isn’t available for all devices. HDR mode on Lightroom Mobile requires a device that can capture in DNG, which is available on iPhone 6s and above, iPhone SE, or iPad Pro 9.7”. As for Android devices, only the Samsung Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, Google Pixel and Pixel XL are supported. Adobe says that they are working on bringing this feature to more devices in the future, “Thanks to the processing and memory available on the Samsung S7 and Google Pixel devices, we were able to achieve the quality and capabilities required by these incredibly powerful algorithms. The team is working hard to support additional devices as quickly as possible.”
In addition to a new raw HDR capture mode, the update also brings several new features, bug fixes, and speed improvements. Some of the new features on iOS include the ability to Export Original, Force Touch support, Notification Center widget to make it easier to launch Lightroom’s camera, and more. For Android Creative Cloud members, you can now have the Radial and Linear Selection tools.
Check out Adobe now to find out more about its latest update.
