Lightroom mobile 2.1 for iPhone and iPad users is now available. Here’s are the major features included in the update:

• The point curve has been added to the Adjust section, for precise control over brightness, darkness, and color cast of ranges of tones in your photos.
• Split toning has been added to the Adjust section, to add color casts to your black and white and color photos.
• A set of five live presets have been added to the camera.  They are non-destructive, so you can adjust or remove them after shooting, if you wish. Available for iPhone 5s and later, and iPad Air and later.
• iPad Pro support: native resolution
• iOS9 iPad multitasking features: slide over and split view enabled
• 3D Touch support (iPhone 6s/6s Plus only): 3D touch from the home screen to select the camera, 3D touch in Grid view to see a preview of an image
• Improved ability to add the same photo to multiple collections easier (no more warning at import that a photo is already in a collection)
• The camera can now be added to the iPad or iPhone Notification Center, so that you can access it a little bit more quickly.

The most powerful feature of Lightroom mobile, available to Creative Cloud subscribers, is the ability to sync collections of photos and editing work to and from your mobile device and Lightroom on your Desktop. However, anyone with an iPhone or iPad can use the free Lightroom mobile app to capture, edit and share photos, so anyone (with iOS 8.1 or later) can take advantage of these updates.

To update to Lightroom mobile 2.1, on the Updates tab in the iOS App Store, find Lightroom mobile and tap on Update. To download this free app for the first time, search for Lightroom mobile in the App Store.

Accessing the Point Curve

On the Adjust tab, tap on the lens icon, then on Tone Curve, then on Mode. Choose Point-RGB to affect brightness and darkness. Choose Point-Blue, -Green or -Red to affect color cast. Tap on the curve to add a point, and drag up or down. Here’s an article that explains what the tone curve is.

Accessing Split Toning

On the Adjust tab, tap on the lens icon and choose Split Toning. Highlights Hue and Shadows Hue set the color cast for highlights and shadows, Saturation sets how intense those colors are. With Balance=0, the brightest 50% of tones are considered highlights, and the darkest 50% are considered shadows. Adjust Balance to shift what portion are considered highlights or shadows.

Lightroom Camera Live Presets

With live presets in the Lightroom camera, you can see them applied before you capture your image, and you can undo them afterwards if you change your mind. The Lightroom team has started with five presets: High Contrast, Flat, Warm Shadows, High Contrast B&W, Flat B&W. This functionality is available for iPhone 5s and later, and iPad Air and later.

To apply one, with the Lightroom camera open, tap on the three-circle icon, then tap on a preset. With one selected, take your photo.

To undo the preset after capture, in the Adjust tab, scroll to the right and tap on Reset. If you are a Creative Cloud subscriber and you sync your photos to Lightroom on your desktop, you can also reset it there – hit the Reset button in the Develop module.

Adding the Lightroom Camera to the Notification Center

If you need quick access to the Lightroom camera, it will probably take too long to turn on your phone or iPad, unlock it, find the Lightroom mobile app, open it, and then open the camera. Adding it to your Notification Center can speed this up a little bit. Once it’s there, after turning on your device, swipe down on the top to open the Notification Center, go to the Today tab, and tap on the Lightroom mobile Take Photo icon.

To add the Lightroom camera to your Notification Center:

• Swipe down from the top of the screen to open the Notification Center.
• On the Today tab, tap Edit.
• Find Lightroom mobile and tap on the green circle with the plus in it. Tap Done.
• Now when you open the Notification Center you can tap on the Take Photo icon to open the Lightroom mobile camera.

I still find it quicker to open the Apple camera (turn on your device, swipe up on the camera icon in the bottom right), and the Apple camera shoots video as well as stills, but when I’m not in a hurry and only want to shoot stills, shooting with the Lightroom camera does get photos into Lightroom mobile more quickly. (Even if you shoot with the Apple camera, or another camera such as Camera +, you can set Lightroom mobile to automatically import new Camera Roll photos, though this process does take longer.)

Lightroom Mobile Camera Cool Tip

If you zoom in before shooting to compose your image more tightly, Lightroom will just crop the image, rather than just capturing the smaller area. You can undo this crop by going into the Crop tool and double-tapping on your photo to reset it. This is one advantage this camera does have over the Apple camera and others.