The Complete Lightroom Mobile Tutorial for Photo Editing

Have you felt lost when it came to photo editing? Here is a complete Lightroom Mobile Tutorial. When it comes to editing photos on your phone, Lightroom Mobile is one of the most useful editing apps for photos today. It can be frustrating to take a photo and not have the tools or know-how to effectively edit your photo. If you tried using Lightroom Mobile it can be challenging. Here’s a guide to help you understand the basic tools in the app. We will go through each of the editing tools on the main menu and also provide some pro tips. Are you ready to get started?

Click Here to See Best Photo Editing Apps for iPhone and Android (2019)

General Editing Controls

The first step this tutorial for Lightroom Mobile is to understand the basic editing controls. These are the same throughout the app. This app is available for both Android and iPhone. There are sliding and tapping tools that provide useful ways to quickly edit a photo. You’ll learn them below so let’s get started.

Sliders

You can either move the slider to the right or left to increase or decrease the effect or you can tap to incrementally increase or decrease the effect.

Before View

To see the unedited original image of the photo, touch and hold on the center of the image. The screen will toggle back to the old image so you can see the edits.

Hidden Image Features

• A single tap on the photo takes you to a full view of the photo
• Tap again then you are back in editing options
• Zoom in and image by pulling and pinching
• Tap on the image with two fingers to see some info about the image
• Tap with two fingers again and you see the histogram

Redo Buttons

Tap the curved arrow to take you back one step. To redo the image hold your finger down on the back one button and slide down to the redo button.

Reset An Image

To reset the image, scroll right to the very end of the editing menu until you see the reset option. Tap on the reset and you will see that you can choose from the original edits or the last step.

Pro Tip: If you think you may over-edit the image while you adjust the slider with one hand, tap on the image with the other. This will show a black screen, then as you slide right highlights will gradually increase to show the overexposure or overediting.

Quick Editing Tools

Profiles

Profiles are used for quickly adding edits that adjust the visual style. They include premade features like monochrome or black and white. This is a great way to create a beginning look for your image. To adjust the profile by moving the slider to increase or decrease the strength.

Auto

Tap on the auto button to create auto edits, then the settings will change to improve the image. You can tell which settings are altered because there is a tiny dot below the menu options that have been changed. Tap on the changed settings to adjust the auto-corrected options. First set the auto option then edit the settings from there.

Copying Edits to New Photos

In this Lightroom Mobile tutorial, you can apply those old edits to a new image by uploading a new image and tapping on the “previous” button in the menu option. Then you can choose to add some or all of the adjustments. The “All” option includes the image adjustments and the crop. The other option is to add just the adjustments and not the crop. Try this by tapping on the “add adjustments” options.

To have even more control over copying edits in Lightroom Mobile you can choose which settings you would like to copy to a photo by tapping on the three-dot menu in the top right corner. Next, tap on copy settings to choose the specific changes that you would like to keep.

Lighting Panel Tips and Tricks

The light panel adjusts the color and tones in the image. Open it by tapping on the lightbulb. Then you’ll open the basic settings and see exposure, contrast, highlight, shadow, white and black slider. Lightroom Mobile has many sliders continue to read this tutorial to learn what each one specifically does.

• Exposure- Influences the middle range and brightness of the image. Tap on the 0 above the image, or slide right to increase the exposure.
• Contrast- Adjusts the bright white or dark blacks range in the photo.
• Highlight- Adjusts items that are in the middle range of brightness. Often images have overexposed portions and you’ll want to drag the slider to the left to decrease the highlights.
• Shadow- Adjusts dark areas in the image but not the black colors. The black tones have their slider.
• Whites or Blacks- Adjusts only the pure whites or blacks in the image.

Adjusting the Curve

Adjusting the curve may sound complicated, but this tutorial for Lightroom mobile we teach you some quick tips. Once you open the curve option on the app there is a diagonal line throughout the box. There are three terms on the bottom. On the left, it says shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. The bottom 1/3 represents the shadows, the middle area represents the mid-tones, and the top is the highlights. Easily adjust the curve for the whole shot or edit individually by the color. In the color setting, you can also edit the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks. Play around with these settings, and to reset the slider just double-tap.

Color Panel Tips and Tricks

The color panel is where you can play with the color in any image. The general color settings include adjusting the temperature, tint, vibrance, and saturation. Here is a complete tutorial on how to use the color panel in Lightroom Mobile.

Temp and Tint

Adjust the cool or warm temperatures in the image. Slide right for a warmer temp and left for a cooler temp. By doing this you’ll get a more bluish or yellow color to your image. Adjust the tint to change the shade of color in your image.

Adjusting Color Saturation

The vibrance slider adjusts the color more subtly. It increases the bright colors but has less of an effect in colors such as yellows and skin tones. The Saturation increases the intensity of all the colors in the image. I suggest using vibrance if you are editing photos of people.

White balance

An overly yellow shot is due to the color of the light when the picture was taken. You can adjust it by tapping on the menu option “as shot” to change the filter. You can choose from custom options underneath like auto or daylight. To adjust the white balance another way tap on the eyedropper tool and move the bullseye to a place on the image that is neutral gray to adjust the white balance.

Color Mixer

In the color mixer, you can change the hue saturation and lightness of a specific color. Often you don’t know exactly what color it is because often the color range crosses over to more than one color. Begin by tapping on the bullseye to adjust the color, hue, and saturation of the colors. Then tap on the specific area of the photo you would like to adjust. Next, two or more colors will light up in the bottom color menu. Lastly, move the slider left or right to increase or decrease the hue. Next, tap on the saturation, and luminance to adjust the colors.

Effects Panel in Lightroom Mobile

Texture

With the texture tool, you can now create a smooth look or defined texture. If you are editing a portrait it will look better if you decrease the texture tool. If you want to show detail in food or close up nature photos adding texture can improve the mobile photo.

Dehaze

Dehaze can be a great effect if you have a cloudy scene in the background. Sometimes the dehaze slider will increase the grain and saturation. So be aware of increasing the dehaze effect too high.

Clarity

Clarity can add depth and perspective to your image. It can be used to make the image more distinct. You don’t want to increase it too much or your image may have an unnatural or hdr look. Decrease the clarity to create a softer look. This feature can be used in portraits to create a lighter softer glow.

Vignette

The vignette feature adds a white or black look to the edge of the photo. This can be a good way to bring the attention of the viewer to the center to the image. Adjust the feather to add even more softness to the vignette.

Converting an Image to Split Tones

Tap on the box next to the words split toning in the “Effects Panel”. When you use this tool it works best with an image that is detailed and in black and white. You can choose to change the background hue that is different from the object. A close-up flower in black and white is a good example. You can adjust the color of the highlights to an orange color and the shadows to a blue. This will create a sepia or rustic film view.

Cropping and Image Sizing Panel

In this Lightroom Mobile tutorial, you will learn how to straighten a horizon.  Tap on the straighten tool to instantly create a straight horizon. Then tap the round slider in the image to rotate the image. Choose the aspect ratio of the image in the first menu option on the left. You can go and change the aspect ratio at any time. Tap the rotate buttons to rotate the image 90 degrees.

Perspective

If you have a photo of a building that has a strange perspective you can adjust it in the “geometry tool”. Tap on the guided option to see the perspective shift options. Auto usually does a great job but if you want to manually adjust it yourself tap on the guided option. Next, you will tap on the line that is not straight and slide to create a line on the bottom of the building. Then do the same for the top. After you are finished tap on the Done button to see the straight building.

Optics Panel

Have you ever zoomed into an image and seen that there was a magenta and green glow around an object. This coloring problem is called fringing because it looks like the image is slightly glowing. To fix that tap on optics and choose to remove chromatic aberration. This will remove the magenta and green glow from the image.

Sharpen the Detail

The first thing you’ll need to do before sharpening a photo is to zoom in to see the detail in the photo. Use the “detail panel” to adjust the sharpening slider. Start by adjusting the slider to the right. Once you adjust your sharpening tool additional sharpening panels will light up. Sharpening looks for edges between objects and creates a gray line between.

The best way to enhance the detail in Lightroom Mobile is to move the sharpening tool to the right. Then move the radius down to 1.0 or smaller so you can see the effect. The last step is to then decrease the sharpening slider to a reasonable level. The detail slider enhances the detail in the image. The masking tool creates a mask on places that may have the detail that is not needed in the photo This can be the added detail to a wall. If you tap on the image as you slide then you can see a black and white outline of the photo. If you see specs in the wall then you are sharpening in the photo. The purpose of sharpening is not to fix a blurry image.

How to Reduce Noise

If you notice specks of color or black and white specs on your image. That is called noise and often happens with photos taken at night. If you see some spots of black and white noise in an image. You can adjust the noise under the “detail options”. Use the noise reduction slider to adjust the black and white specs, and go deeper by adjusting the detail and contrast. To fix the color noise use the color noise reduction tool. You’ll want to adjust the noise before you fix the sharpening or you will increase the noise in the image.

Save Your Presets

Lightroom Mobile’s features in this tutorial are for improving your editing but also for saving time. It takes a long time to edit each image. Often we want images that look similar, with the same look and feel. Saving presets on Lightroom Mobile is simple. After you have edited your image go to the presets option on your phone. Tap on the three dots on the right-hand side and choose to create or manage presets. You can create a preset group and choose all the features you want to be included in your presets. Then, the next time you go to edit your picture you can add your presets and make a few minor changes instead of starting from the beginning.

Sharing and Saving Your Photos

In this Lightroom Mobile tutorial, you’ll have learned many new things. The last step is to save a photo tap on the upload arrow button on the top menu. Then a pop up of various options will appear. You can choose to share, save to camera roll, save to files, open in, edit in, and export original. I mostly use the share feature if I am sharing on social media or with a friend. Or you can save the image to the camera roll. After you tap the save option you will be able to choose the size. You can choose between small or maximum available. I usually do the maximum available and then crop the image when I am ready to use it. This makes it accessible for multiple uses.

Summary of The Complete Lightroom Tutorial

I hope you learned a lot about Lightroom Mobile. In this tutorial, you learned of all the features in this powerful app. It may still be confusing to you so here is a recap of what we learned. First, we discussed the general editing controls that will be throughout the app. This includes the sliders, tapping to see hidden image features, and how to reset and image. Then we learned how to quickly edit and set up your Lightroom Mobile setup.

Next, we went into detail about all the menu options. These included learning about color and how to adjust the white balance, and color saturation. We were able to add clarity to an image with effects by increasing the texture, clarity and a vignette for an added effect. Lastly, we discussed how to share and save your Lightroom mobile photos with everyone. Please share questions or comments you have in the comments section below.