Adobe Shows Off Lightroom-Style Photo Editing for iPad

CNET reports on a sneak peek from Adobe product manager Tom Hogarty showing off the company's concept for Lightroom-style photo editing on the iPad. The app would rely on cloud-based connections to serve as a companion app to the full Lightroom software, but offer a number of higher-end features for on-the-go photo editing.

lightroom_ipad

He wouldn't promise when the app would ship or what exactly it would do, but he did demonstrate some features of the prototype software running on an iPad 2. He also offered several details about its features:

- The ability to edit photos taken in raw photo formats, including Lightroom develop-module parameters like exposure, clarity, shadows, highlights, and white balance.

- Cloud-synchronized editing so that changes made on a tablet arrive on the same photo on the PC.

- The ability to zoom all the way to 100 percent for checking photo focus and details.

Hogarty also noted that he would like to bring features such photo sorting and flagging to the app, although other features such as brushes for tweaking photos have not been included.


The app is clearly a work in progress, with the feature set still yet to be finalized and performance issues remaining, but Adobe has made clear that it wants to make some of the same powerful photo editing tools from Lightroom available to photographers on the go. For photographers who travel and spend significant amounts of time in the field, an iPad capable of performing some Lightroom-style editing on raw images could significantly improve their efficiency and workflows.

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
macbook pro blue

Apple's M5 MacBook Pro Imminent: What to Expect

Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac. M5 Chip The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip. The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...

Top Rated Comments

MattJessop Avatar
163 months ago
I hope this isn't what deforstallization looks like...

"Icons were too flashy, so we flattened them out and just put text.... pure text.."
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ThunderSkunk Avatar
163 months ago
Hm. Regarding doing our edits on calibrated monitors. If your images are destined for print, then of course it's necessary, but if your images will be viewed on screen, then 1, for desktop users, considering that most people don't have a calibrated desktop/laptop monitor, they'll be seeing your work off-kilter anyway, and 2, for the increasingly commonplace tablet viewers, at least they'll all be looking at consistent displays you can match.

It may make sense to just do start the workflow doing quick organization & edits on ipad for iPad, then, since those edits are automatically sync'd to your desktop anyway, continue those that warrant futher work on a calibrated display for print. Since you invariably wind up doing a separate edit for print anyway, it's not an increase of work overall, but a decrease on the front end.

Nice.

Now if only Apple would bump the connection to Thunderbolt, we'd be able to efficiently transfer the huge raw files from our Leica S2 to the iPad in the first place.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AQUADock Avatar
163 months ago
THAT is dedication. Thanks Adobe! If only more companies were like Adobe, maybe the Mac would sell in significant numbers!

Why do you always go on about mac sales, and what has that got to do with an iPad app?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DJsteveSD Avatar
163 months ago
without any proper file system, even "Load" and "Save" are complicated.
Thanks to Apple we'll be usuing iTunes to organize our images,
how convenient :(
iPad is capable of doing great things, the silly iOS is a limitation...

I still don't get why Apple makes it so difficult to deal with photos/folders.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Retrofire Avatar
163 months ago
What I like about seeing higher end apps becoming available on the iPad is the evidence of the industry moving into the post-PC era.
No. This is NOT the full application. Btw, Lightroom, PS or Aperture are impossible on non-calibrated displays.

Post-PC era is a marketing term. An iPad is a Personal Computer (PC).

The app would rely on cloud-based connections to serve as a companion app to the full Lightroom software, but offer a number of higher-end features for on-the-go photo editing.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Small White Car Avatar
163 months ago
While I'm glad that Adobe is doing this it is truly shameful that both Aperture and Final Cut Pro have not done anything at all like this yet. They're the 2 teams that should be leading the way with this kind of "companion app." And it's not because those programs need iPad integration so much as they're the teams that could have lead the way and show 3rd party developers what's possible. Even if few people used them just having them out there would put the iPad on a lot more developer's radars.

Adobe should be playing catch-up to Apple with stuff like this but instead they seem to be all alone.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)