Lightroom Launches Mobile Improvements, Says Full Version Will Get Faster

Adobe’s Lightroom software has increased dramatically in popularity over the last few years due to a number of factors. Competition among RAW convertor software fell away when Apple pulled the plug on its Lightroom-competing software, Aperture. What’s more, the launch of Lightroom on Adobe’s cloud-sharing subscription service, Creative Cloud, made the program more affordable to amateur and professional photographers alike.
One bugbear that has often been raised about Lightroom though is it’s speed during operation, with many wishing the program could run faster. Well, photographers who love image-editing will be pleased to hear that Adobe are taking your concerns seriously. In fact, Adobe staffer Tom Hogarty used the Adobe blog to address the issue head on. Tom wrote; ‘I would like to address concerns recently voiced by our community of customers around Lightroom performance, as improving performance is our current top priority. We have a history, starting with our first public beta, of working with our customers to address workflow and feature needs, and we’d like to take that same approach regarding your performance concerns.’
Tom continued; ‘ We already understand many of the current pain points around GPU, import performance, certain editing tasks and review workflows and are investing heavily in improving those areas. Over the past year we’ve added numerous enhancements to address your performance concerns but we understand we will have a lot of work to do to meet your expectations.’
Firstly, isn’t it great to have an insider address the concerns of customers and secondly, it sounds like we could see improvements in Lightroom’s performance speed soon.
Hot on the heels of Tom’s blog comment, Adobe announced improvements to the mobile version of Lightroom, which can be used on iOS and Android devices. The biggest headline is that Adobe is introducing a Selective Brush feature, but this for the iOS version only. Additional, Adobe has also added in the ability to selectively erase both the linear and radial gradients for iOS users.

Adobe has also introduced a new interface for iPad users, stating; ‘we’ve worked hard to make a truly portable and yet powerful version of Lightroom that is designed for the larger touch-based interface of an iPad.’

However, Android users have not been ignored and will see a refreshed interface, too. Adobe says ‘every screen has been redesigned with the goal of ensuring a natural, native Android experience while providing the highest quality, professional-grade mobile photo editing app ever.’

@tushargoel