Adobe has announced the 2.5 update to their popular Lightroom Mobile app. The new update adds the ability to shoot directly to Adobe's open source raw file format, DNG, avoiding the compression and data loss inherent in standard JPEG files. To capture in DNG, users will need a device running iOS 10 that has a 12 MP sensor, such as the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, and iPad Pro 9.7. When available, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will also support capturing in DNG format. The latest update is available in the App Store at the time of this writing.
One of the major downsides of shooting photos on your iPhone is the limitations of JPEG files as far as editing flexibility. Apple announced the added capability of shooting raw images with the iPhone 7, and Adobe is the first company to implement that functionality in their app. Read part of Adobe's announcement below:
The DNG file format is an open source raw file format developed by Adobe that offers far more quality and control than either the JPEG or TIFF file formats. With the DNG format, you get:
- The highest possible image quality because DNG files contain all the data from the camera sensor without the compression artifacts that you find in JPEG-formatted photos.
- Freedom to experiment with the ability to change the white balance even after capturing, something that is not possible with a JPEG or TIFF formatted photo.
- More latitude when capturing difficult scenes thanks to a greatly expanded dynamic range within your image, which provides the ability to recover highlight information that would have otherwise been discarded if shooting in JPEG or TIFF formats.
- The ability to push your images further thanks to having access to all of the color and tonal information found in your camera’s sensor, which is thrown away when shooting in the JPEG file format.
In addition to DNG support, the Lightroom Mobile 2.5 update also adds support for the new wide gamut P3 color space available on the iPad Pro 9.7 and the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
This wide gamut color space provides 25% more color than the sRGB color space, ensuring that any edits you make in Lightroom accurately reflect any the colors in your photos.
Adobe also announced that they are working on building profiles for the new sensors and lenses in the updated iPhone 7 models and will release an additional update supporting those changes once they are complete. I've downloaded the 2.5 update and am rather impressed with some of the test shots I have taken so far. It remains to see whether I will be able to easily integrate this into my workflow, as iOS' default camera is just so fast and intuitive that I always find it difficult to make regular use of a third-party camera app.
Update: Apparently, updating to iOS 10 is bricking some devices. While many do not have issues, it is highly recommended to wait until Apple pulls the update and reintroduces it after a fix to update devices you rely upon for work, etc.
Update 2: Apparently the above issue has been resolved. It should now be safe for all users to install iOS 10, which was released this morning.
[via Adobe]
Pretty bummed it's not available for the iPhone 6. Upgrading soon anyway but would love to give this a shot.
Yeah, I'm not sure why LR Mobile requires a 12 MP camera; the iOS 10.0 Developer release notes states "RAW image file support is now available on iOS devices that use the A8 or A9 CPU." The iPhone 6 is A8.
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNe...
I was really looking forward to RAW capture support on the iPhone 6.
Android users, fret not! iPhone is catching up with Android, so we already had that feature for some time..
What's your point?
My point was just to inform Android users like myself that we already have that feature... What's yours?
That "iPhone is catching up to Android har-har-har" comments are just as pedantic and annoying as comments from Apple fanboys; they add nothing to any discussion and take away from any valid points the commenter is trying to make.
Believe it or not, I didn't mean anything with the "catching up" phrase. And I usually do not pay any attention to any Android or iPhone fanboy talk.
To give you some background, when I read your article, I was like "wow this sounds really cool, let's see if there are any plans for android". So I Googled it and saw that Android and LRM already had that support. So I wanted to inform other Android users about this who, like me, wondered the same.
If I had known this was such a sensitive topic, I would have rephrased my original comment.
Did you have this feature in LRM? Also, smug Android comments always give me a good chuckle.
Yes also in LRM for quite some time.