9to5mac spotted that Adobe Lightroom mobile version on Adobe’s website. The reference has now been now by Adobe but the screenshots proves that it was there. Well, I guess the future of photo editing is on tablets rather than on “classic” computers/laptops…
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Photo editing on a tablet? No way
Photo editing using tablets is great ! Easy, flexible, great.
Lightroom ? Same cluttered user interface on a tablet ?
But Adobe greed…. again ! Drop Adobe, use alternatives wherever possible.
If its a full version of Lightroom, then it’s possible. Of course. But then you have other bottlenecks you need to mind: storage, speed of workflow. These are dependant on processors, and the available SSD capacity.
Now. A 1,000usd surface pro 2 is far more capable than any ipad since it can already run a full version of LR (like on any computer) and you only pay 150 for it FOR LIFE!
The subscription based usage is well cheeky and a hindrance to get LR to be a tablet dominant photo editing tool. I am betting maybe Capture One could launch its own editing tool and go for the usual “you buy, you own” approach and be more successful.
I don’t care much for tablets, in general, since I don’t see them as very useful tools for content creation when an ultrabook is more full featured with minimal size and weight gains. On the other hand, since a surface pro is a computer, why not just get that if this is what a tablet LR version gets you…one year rent only.
LR5 runs surprisingly well on a $300 Dell venue 8 pro.
It’s definitely coming. The new iPad’s A7 chip matches up pretty well to the Intel low voltage CPU in the Surface Pro. Another generation or two and they will be comparable to Intel mobile CPUs. The same goes for chips in Android. Within 2 years, all the Android CPUs will migrate to faster 64-bit ARM. I’ve been getting ready for this. I will likely keep one low mp camera for use with my tablet.
Would that be counting with a complete stop of advancements happening in the intel side of things?
As far as I can tell, unless intel does a Canon, Qualcomm, ARM or Nvidia couldn’t pull a Sony on them.
Think about your question for a moment. You assume people need ever faster Intel chips. The truth is that outside of image and video processing, today’s CPU are overkill for what most of our applications. In image and video processing, the trend is to push the computation to the GPU, which tends to be 1000 x faster for math. Everyone in computing is now focused on increasing GPU performance and use. Adobe doesn’t use the GPU in lightroom yet. If they did, we wouldn’t need as fast a CPU.
The same thing happen to Pc gaming years ago. Intel wanted everyone to use the CPU more, but the game companies saw the value in the GPU and pushed most of the heavy lifting to the GPU. The CPU Was left to housekeeping chores. From a system engineering standpoint, it’s smarter to focus on the GPU, which Apple is doing. The Android guys are also focusing more on the GPU.
Well its like the chicken and the egg.. when the hardware is out there in the hands of the majority, only then software optimization will be alot better.
This year intel will start releasing non-Xeon 8-core CPU’s…. 4-cores have been the thing to get for what the last 7 years or so. But now 6-more and 8-core will hopefully start to enter the market at better price points later this year. And eventually it will be common practice to optimize for multiple-cores. Im sure even games will be optimized for 8-cores eventually.
I’d like to see something to support that the ipads chip comes close to matching the core i5 in the surface pro 2. I don’t think it’s even close.
If it can handle RAW files, and it’s not slow as a dog, why not?
I would try it before though.
I’m sure it will handle RAW. The issue is storage and processing power to make the LR experience similar to that of a full featured computer.
It’s likely, Adobe is counting on it being the full computer experience with the first 2 or so versions. The way lightroom does non-destructive editing is actually perfectly suited for GPU handling. So far, they haven’t moved completely to GPU processing, but if they did, I’m pretty sure the new tablets coming this year can handle it. These tablets do seem to be moving towards more GPU power and 64-bit CPU. I can easily see using LR mobile on 16mp images. Maybe in 2 years, the CPU/GPU will be powerful enough to handle 36mp images.
Subscription = NO.
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+5 (Really it should be +6 though…)
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US$100 to use the product for 1 year! NO THANKS! you can keep it Adobe!
+10 Hell no.
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Never ever gonna use that
$99 per YEAR? What the heck are they smoking
Surely storage would be an issue……? Seems a little pointless.
If Apple releases an ipad with a microsd or sd slot (like Vaio duo 11 or ms surface pro have) then storage will be an affair or another card inside which are not very expensive.
Unless it accesses an existing lightroom catalogue and does a cleaver smart preview thing.
Yeah, I suppose it could be a quite nice addition to having the desktop program if that was the concept. Expensive for that though.
I’ll stay on linux – and i’ll stay on a desktop – for this kind of work there’s nothing that can be done on a tablet. And i’m not moving my intellectual property into the cloud?
Ever heard about a certain mr. Snowden?
Sony Vegas also goes touchable…
NO WAY! Besides the fact that I don’t like Lightroom ( hate its file “import/export” thing and intruding data management ), I’d need an at least 17″ screen ( a 24″ is better… ) and fast CPU ( at least equiv to an AMD PhenonII 4core 2.8MHz!
I think you meant 2.8 GHz. The original IBM PC was 4.7 MHz.
My mistake!
Tablets go fly a kite. I want store my imagine, but not on a cloud.
Im guessing it will work with smart previews, so it does previews of the changes on a low res stand-in. So when you synch your tablet with the camera, it takes previews not the full images (so storage is not a problem) then you upload your camera images to desktop when you get back to base, then synch the changes you did in the field from the tablet to the desktop.
The smart preview feature is actually available in current desktop LR, and works very well with everything except perhaps NR and sharpening (the only two features you need per pixel preview). Important to realize that this WILL NOT replace desktop LR – its an addition that allows you to make changes in the field with a tablet, which would be pretty useful.
Kind of explains some of the odd decisions made with current desktop LR (why can’t you treat the catalog as remote to increase performance even when it is available? – because they were saving that feature for tablet).
So yeah, not the future of photo editing: it will probably be a mobile extension of the desktop application.
A very astute thing for Adobe to do, as they are adding a must have extension rather than competing with themselves.
I guess you can use it on location if you have done a shoot and the client wants maybe 2 or 3 pics or even one for a magazine etc. I would use it for something like that. I really think I would just rather get a tablet/laptop hybrid and use I full program I just buy once.
Therein lies the reason they don’t allow you to have smart previews on a laptop that actually has the full size RAWs available: they want you to use the tablet application because it will actually work out faster unless you have a top of the range laptop.
Personally I wouldn’t use tablet simply because I pass all my RAWs through DxO prime for NR before edit (I export from DxO to LR as DNG so its still effectively RAW).
Certainly not my future.
Not at subscription level, for me. But a full feature, you buy-you own, type of thing, then I can consider it.
I am close to decide between a surface or an ips laptop like a Sony pro 13. Light and full featured. That’s what I see as the future.
Yes, I meant the subscription part. Looking at tablets, it is pretty amazing how quickly they advance in performance, so I’d certainly be interested in such a solution, at least for some part of the workflow. However, given how small an light some laptops are….
Yeah. That’s the same thought I have. Some small laptops (Asus zenbook and Sony pro 13) have ips screens so you get good angles and good-ish contrast ratios. I don’t know about the colour gamut coverage (srgb or adobergb) but better than most tn panels (except thinkpad w520/530 that have 95% adobergb coverage)
The sizes are pretty thin so… not much lost there for the full features.
I was looking at the 13″ Retina Macbook and at 1.5kg it certainly fits my needs. And I hope Apple will finally put a good screen in the Macbook Air.
I fail to see how Apple couldn’t place a decent panel on the macbook air. If it can go on a pc…
uh..no
Could be a good supplement to traditional lightroom editing. I’d love it if a user could use the tablet to control the sliders while simultaneously working on a desktop/laptop. If it is an annual subscription, it periods uses Adobe cloud for keeping work files. It would be hot if adobe handled processing on their end with the tablet merely being an interface.
TAKE MY MONEY NOW!
Let me think – 27″ ips colour calibrated monitor with a 4.4ghz 4770k or my 7″ Tegra 4 tablet with a yellow colour cast… I use the tablet for reviewing raw files when I’m travelling and can always do a quick and dirty edit in photomate, but I wouldn’t dream of doing any serious editing on it. Tablets have their place but the iPad is not the solution to everything!
there’s a big difference between ZOMG THIS WILL NEVER REPLACE MY RIG, IT SUX – to seeing the value of quick on-location edits, applications for vacations, hiking. I volunteer, for example, doing studio-quality pet portraits on location for charity. How great to be able to develop RAW files on-site (forget a laptop, I don’t own one)and send the images immediately. Think of the possible applications for wedding photographers – to tweak images, change presets, etc. huddled with clients as they review proofs at a Starbucks.
It might not be right for you, but it’s not an inherently stupid idea. And the price will change.
$99.00 per year for an iPad app?
Thanks for the laugh, Adobe.
Well, they pulled it, but I’d guess they meant 9.99 a year. That’s more in line with normal ‘app’ pricing. Either way, screw ’em.
I am on LR 5, and CS6 Creative Suite, and I will stay there until Adobe loses their Greed-Induced subscription model. Or other alternatives fill the void. Been using Adobe products since ’99, but at this point they’ve lost my support and loyalty as customer.
One of the unspoken reasons for the subscription model is to prevent software piracy. $10 a month is not unreasonable for Photoshop and Lightroom. Its certainly about equal to the old upgrade costs, plus your software stays updated. FYI, Adobe had over 1.4 million subscriptions as of Dec.
That price will jump the second year and it suddenly won’t look that great.
I doubt that is the reason. In just about a day or so the adobe CC was cracked. People that make software also crack software so there will always be a workaround. Adobe knows this so in the end its all about the money.
It has nothing to do with being cracked. Most of it is desktop software anyway, just downloaded anew when updated. The main reason for the subscription model is revenue. Adobe must calculate that revenue goes up with this model. Also, probably more importantly, the revenue is “smoothed”. When you’re a public company, it’s important to have confidence that you can meet your next quarterly forecast, and that’s MUCH easier with a subscription model, rather than guessing whether the next upgrade will make it out on time, and how many users will buy it. It helps the CEO, CFO, and VP Sales to sleep better.
Well, it doesn’t help me to sleep better. If I loose interest in a hobby, and want to get back to my pictures after two years, I want to be able to do so, and not shelf over a few hundred extra bugs.
I must be from the future. I’ve been using LR on tablets for over a year.
The adobe “photographer” subscription is not a bad deal. $100 / year for LR and PS. Since I paid to update LR every year or two anyway, it’s not much of an up-charge to have the most recent version of PS always available. As for the tablet version, if it’s not an additional, separate subscription, it sounds great! I wouldn’t want full editing, since the iPad isn’t color managed anyway, but if I could catalog, keyword, rate, back up (onto a usb drive, or maybe cloud), and do some light editing that would be great! I rarely carry my laptop anymore when I travel, except when I need it for photog.
That would be 120US, actually. And while Adobe is extending the offer, it is a limited one. And what happens the second year?
True that. Once you sign up to the service, there is nothing stopping Adobe changing it’s pricing policy.
Is that one of these “futures” like “mirrorless will overtake photography world” ?
Yep… seems so.
I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. I’m under a NDA with Adobe.
$100/year for another blasted subscription? Forget it. I don’t need any more mandatory expenses and subscriptions in my life, regardless of how great the service purports to be. And what happens when someone hacks Adobe’s customer database again?
Personally, I can’t see myself editing on a tablet.
However, for photojournalist, etc. I guess it means they can carry a tablet instead of a laptop, upload their images to the tablet, make some quick adjustments, and make their submissions.
A tablet would be both lighter and faster for ‘people on the move’ like that.
I am a photojournalist and while I don’t shoot daily news, I can appreciate the weight reduction but not the lack of features. When on assignment (which often lasts days if not a couple of weeks) I prefer to have a workstation if the delivery is soon after shooting. This is because the workstation allows me to work fast.
However, for work that doesn’t have a tight deadline and doesn’t need me to be away for much time, a tablet is good. But, I would prefer a full featured tablet with a full program (surface pro or Vaio duo 11/13) than a tablet with a half-featured program. Especially so if the program is on lease!
So…I can see the average amateur using this, because it’s nice and convenient. A professional? I’m not sure. I shoot a lot and storage and processing power are paramount to get your work done in a timely manner.
As a PJ, do you really do anything more than adjust contrast, saturation, and maybe a crop? Possibly some shadow recovery. What other features do you need/use Hendrick?
Yeah. I do use more than that. Many of my colleagues too. Although we are in the field of photojournalism, we work in reportage/documentary photography. So, we are allowed more than the basic changes but no overcooking. So, I could dial down the intensity of some reds, for example, if it bothered me, or I can sometimes use the curves to have a particular tonality for the photos.
What is def not allowed is adding grain, cropping way beyond the original frame, cloning or healing, or anything that would be considered a change so drastic that it can alter the original sense of what is depicted (making something yellow into orange, for example, not cool- but making something less intense yellow is ok)
LR pretty much offers me everything I need since cataloguing, metadating, rating and filtering are essential when you have 5k photos from a 2 week assignment.
Hmmm… I get the sense we might know each other.
Are you initials A.P.?? 🙂
Haha! no!
Sorry.
If you meant Associated Press…then I never contributed to them.
I can’t tell you who I contribute to, though…sorry.
Funny, because other pro photojournalists already use tablets for editing, metadata, rating and filtering, upload and many more things.
http://youtu.be/yk5JiVby7eQ?t=36m40s
Check this video if you want to see a bit more about LR on an iPad.
$100 a year for an iPad app seems ridiculous to me. The only benefit I could see from this is being able to get better edits for your Instagram pictures. If its something serious I’d much rather edit the photo on a laptop/desktop with a calibrated screen, anyway that’s just me.
You think $99 per year is high, take a look at the “Adobe Certification” class, and test programs. Many are $1,000 per day. (I have heard of one being $17K for the week)
Now they charge you to learn programs they are going to rent you for the rest of you working life (provided competition does not knock the program you learned off the shelf).
Tablet editing is needed for on the road work, but I am not sure Lightroom is the only answer tho the need
As I said before. There are a few laptops and convertible tablets that run full OS versions to run full editing program versions on them so…I don’t think a “tablet is needed for on the road editing work” since many laptops fit the bill perfectly for the size and/or touch capabilities.
Arguably. But isn’t the real question “do I need Lightroom for on the go editing”? For a fraction of the cost, you can have a reasonably capable raw editor that doesn’t rely on cloud storage (which is obviously going to be limited by your data speed and plan). Also remember that this is brought to you by the same people who gave us the legendary Photoshop Touch…
I have a laptop, therefore I need lightroom on the go.
The question here is:
1) Do I need A version of LR that is not full featured?
2) Do I use a tablet OS with it that has ARM or Qualcomm processor?
3) Do I just go for the tablet form factor but with a full on OS and a full on LR install?
I choose 3
Why would anyone buy it?
I can use my current copy on both the Mac Book Air, and Mac Pro.
I already hate using my tablet for email, and most office work in general. I would really detest using it for photography.
It should be free for Adobe LR4/ LR5 users.
Why should it be free? It isn’t free for adobe to write the program from scratch for iOS or android and to completely re- think how editing can be done via touchscreen versus a mouse / keyboard / monitor or to host your files on their cloud servers.
It is better that they charge separately versus charging everyone even though some users will never use it.
Maybe $39.99 – $49.99 would be reasonable. Tablet programs are generally cheaper.
I agree 100 bucks for an annual subscription to the tablet version only is high (vs $150 for a non-subscription lr5 desktop version) but we don’t have any details from Adobe yet. I’m skeptical of this pricing scheme for a tablet edition unless it is tying a user into a broader cloud service (perhaps storage plus processing on their end with sync back to one’s desktop).
LR 5 is sometimes sluggish on my Macbook Pro Retina 2.6GHz i7 16GB Ram… HOW would it perform on a tablet???? I doubt that Adobe will manage to give LR a code that uses the power of a device efficiently. Generally editing on a tablet isn’t that bad, I sometimes use Snapseed (NIK) – its HID is great..
Bottom line, Adobe stock has gone from about 30 to 60 per share in 2 years (up 100%). (this is not a defense for corporate gouging, just a foot note)
I thought that had to do with Adobe’s buy back. EPS is pretty low and shrinking
the pricing might be a place holder. $99.99 seems excessive for a tablet app on an annual basis.
Lots of haters for this here and on other forums. I think its tremendous value add. would love to sort, catalog, etc in a lean back position. can’t wait.
Why do journalists always have crazy attention grabbing headlines that make no sense? I really doubt the industry is going to be ditching workstations with 30″ monitors for 10″ tablets in the future.
I wish SAR would STOP using photobucket for images because 90% of the time I can’t see images from that site. Photobucket has a harsh cache that favours only USA & Europe.
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can’t see them in malaysia sometimes
In December Adobe was offering LR5 with Photoshop for $10.00 per month for a year, so I jumped on it! Since I hadn’t upgraded from LR4 and I always wanted Photoshop so it seemed like a great deal. However, I do believe that when the subscription is up the price will go up substantially. I think the days of standalone Adobe products is just about over, and we’ll all have to pay for a subscription or do without.
or we look for alternatives and force Adobe to overthink their sales model!
But now Sony’s A7r jpegs are so good, I hardly need RAW editing anymore. I prefer the in camera correction and noise reduction and some slight post production can even be done on the iPad in iPhoto. Really, I don’t miss anything. RAW is dead for me, too impractical for the last 2% of picture quality over a well exposed jpeg shot.
Just my 2 cents