Lightroom Tips

Your First Tutorial/Look On Lightroom Mobile

Well, it’s here. There’s been a lot of talk over Lightroom Mobile since Photoshop World Vegas 2013 (when Adobe first gave everyone a sneak peak). Now it’s here and I wanted to put together a quick tutorial for you. Also, don’t forget that I did a full Learning Center with 8 videos over at KelbyOne and if you’re a subscriber, those videos are always in the subscriber area for you to check out.

1. Getting Lightroom Mobile Up and Running
First, you’ll need to download and install the app on your iPad. Here’s the link. Then you’ll need to update Lightroom as well (Lightroom version 5.4). It’s free for Lightroom 5 users on the Creative Cloud, and just go to the top menu to Help > Check for Updates to get it. Once you install the update, you’ll just need to sign in to your Adobe account at the top left corner.

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NOTE: Lightroom 5.4 is actually a free release for anyone using Lightroom. So even if you’re not going to use LR Mobile or on the Creative Cloud Subscription, there’s camera updates, like the Nikon D4s and Fuji X-T1, etc… so you should download it anyway.

2. Your First Sync To Lightroom Mobile
Okay, one key point to remember here is that Lightroom mobile isn’t really meant for you to start your photo process on the iPad. It’s meant to start on the desktop version of Lightroom via Collections. So the first thing you’ll do is create a Collection in the Collections panel, and then set it up to Sync to LR Mobile.

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Once the sync is done, you’ll see your Collection over on Lightroom Mobile on your iPad.

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3. Viewing and Sorting Your Photos
To me, this is one of the main places I’ll use LR Mobile. I can create a collection of a recent import, then forget the laptop once I sync the collection to LR Mobile. Now, I’ll have the photos on my iPad ready to sort through whenever I have time. LR Mobile supports flags so you can pick your favorites right on the iPad and that’ll transfer back to your desktop. Just swipe up to flag the photo as a “Pick” or swipe down to “Reject” it.

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4. Editing the Photos
LR Mobile also supports most of the Basic panel adjustments that LR does. And if you tap the screen with 3 fingers, you can see a Before/After comparison.

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TIP: Don’t forget, if you move to the next photo there’s a Previous button at the bottom so you can automatically apply the previous adjustments to the next photo.

5. Using Presets
LR Mobile comes with a batch of the default Lightroom presets. Yeah, I know… it’s kind of a bummer, but as of this first version you can’t use your own custom presets. Hopefully that’s coming 🙂

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6. Syncing Back to Your Laptop/Desktop
There’s really nothing you need to do to Sync back to your laptop/desktop. As soon as you move on to the next photo, LR Mobile will automatically sync for you. There is a manual Sync button too, so you can force a sync at any point if you need.

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7. Sharing Your Photos
As you’d expect, you can share your photos right from your iPad. You have the usual sharing options like email, Facebook, Twitter, etc… Just click the little icon in the top right corner with the up arrow on it (that’s the universal iOS “sharing” icon btw, so it’s not just in Lightroom).

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Well, that wraps up my first tutorial/look on Lightroom Mobile. If you want to learn more about LR Mobile I put together a full Learning Center/Class with 8 videos over at KelbyOne and if you’re a subscriber, those videos are always in the subscriber area for you to check out. Enjoy!

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