Adobe Lightroom mobile is a companion app to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5. The app is FREE if you have one of the following plans:

  • Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan
  • Creative Cloud Photoshop Photography Program
  • Creative Cloud complete plan
  • Creative Cloud Student and Teacher Edition
  • Creative Cloud for teams complete plan

Or, you can download and sign up for a free 30-day trial of Lightroom mobile. Once the free 30-day trial expires, Lightroom mobile will require a Creative Cloud membership.

Extend Your Workflow Beyond the Desktop

By extending your existing workflow beyond the desktop, you can meet with your clients off site and utilize your Android phone to review and Flag images or rate them with stars. These changes are automatically synced to your desktop. This is a HUGE time saver in your workflow.

Great Editing Tools

Although Lightroom Mobile has great editing tools that will sync back to your Lightroom catalog at home, I would rather edit my professional images on a Wacom 22HD color calibrated Cintiq instead of a small phone screen, iPad or a tablet. For a quick cell phone image that will appear on Facebook or other social media sites, these tools will quickly give you the look youre after.

Nonetheless as screens get bigger and mobile devices improve, this flexibility will come in handy.

How Does Lightroom Mobile Fit Into My Workflow?

Let me walk you through my firsthand experiences of using Lightroom.

Client Review

After a photoshoot, I import the clients images into Lightroom, select my favorite images and place them in a Selects collection. I’ve set this collection to sync with Lightroom Mobile. The images appear on my Android phone plus my iPad and any device I’ve installed Lightroom Mobile on.

I have a meeting with the clients and hand them my iPad. They tag their favorite images from the Selects and I see them on my Android phone. Once we are done, I head home and the flagged images are sync to my desktop version of Lightroom.

Advance Sports Shoot

Imagine this. Im on set shooting 40 portraits for the Florida Tech Lacrosse team.

  1. My camera is tethered to my laptop. When I snap a shot, the image is imported into Lightroom adding a predefined preset called Florida Tech Grit
  2. The image is displayed on a second larger monitor for the guys to see while shooting.
  3. An assistant views the image on the laptop and adds the image to the Review Collection by pressing the letter B on the keyboard.
  4. I keep shooting.
  5. On the other side of the room, there are a couple of Android phones and iPads. The players can take turns viewing their image to make sure they like them. The Coach, Athletic Director or Art Director can review, discuss and Flag their favorite images at the same time.
  6. The Flagged or selected images are automatically synced with the desktop version of Lightroom.
  7. When the shoot is over, I can start my edits with the Flagged images.

Family Party

Last weekend I took trip to New York. My family threw a surprise birthday party for my dad, he turned 91. We had a great time with cousins I haven’t seen in years. My sister smiled at me and asked if I could snap a few photos. I snapped away. When I finished, I quickly imported the images into Lightroom, created a collection and synced it to Lightroom mobile. Within a few minutes, the images appeared on my Android phone and iPad. My cousins were able to select their favorite images and send themselves a copy. Little Robbie (yeah that’s me) was a hero.

Still Developing

At the current time, Lightroom Mobile for Android is aimed only at phones, unlike its iOS equivalent which launched first on the iPad tablet line, and came to iPhone users some two months later. That’s not to say that it won’t work on tablets — Android’s design means that many tablets will be able to use the app already, but it won’t be optimized for tablet display.

If you’re an android user, download Lightroom mobile for Android and give it a try, you’ll love it!

My Response to Comments from Users on Google Play

Andrey Moisseyev: Ran out of Space.
Why have over 1000 photos and growing on your phone? Use Lightroom Mobile as an extension of your desktop not as a replacement. I suggest remove or rotate your sync collections. It’s rare you would need to make selections or edits of over 1000 photos on your phone.

Jason Morton: works on 3yr old phone but not new HTC ONE or Note 3
I have an HTC ONE [M8] and it works perfect. Check for other issues on your phone or call tech support.

David Theiler: Why a subscription?
If you have Creative Cloud and use Lightroom, it’s free. If you don’t use Lightroom, you’re mission out on the benefits of Lightroom Mobile. There are plenty of free phone apps that maybe better for you or better yet, get Lightroom and Photoshop for about $10 bucks a month.

Mark Hennessey : No SD card support
I’m using an HTC ONE [M8] and have no problem accessing my images on a micro SD Card. Check to see the speed of your card. Class 10 is my choice.