Author: Amy Horn
In my opinion, mobile editing is not a laptop but it is using an iPad to edit photos. So, on all of my travels I only take my iPad and recently I discovered a great application to editing on the run, Adobe Photoshop Mix. Not only is Photoshop Mix easy to use, it is a free download for Adobe Creative Cloud users. So, let’s take a look at my workflow. A few weeks back, I photographed ice on a frozen pond. When I returned home, I downloaded my images to Lightroom on my PC and created a collection of these images to synchronize with Lightroom Mobile. Now, my ice images were available anywhere I carried my iPad. A few hours later, our family took off on a weekend road trip which gave me time in the car editing my photos.
So, I opened Lightroom Mobile and selected a photo to edit. The image I am showing here is an image I thought I would throw away. When I first captured the image, I neglected to notice the branch in the frame. Once I studied my composition, I captured several more images without the branch. But instead of throwing this image away, I realized I really liked the curve at the bottom of the ice and decided it was worth editing. This particular edit is more than what Lightroom can do, so I chose the export feature of Lightroom Mobile and selected “Copy to Photoshop Mix.” Just like that, Photoshop Mix opened with my image ready to edit. That was pretty cool.
The app has a simple overview screen with icons and descriptions to make it user friendly. I chose the healing button and then the clone stamp tool. With a quick tap on the screen where I wanted to steal from and then another tap on the screen over the branch, instantly part of the branch was gone. I continued to apply the clone stamp tool until I had removed the branch from the photo. In a matter of one minute or less, I had a “cleaned up” version of my image to evaluate. If I decided this image is a keeper, I will probably complete a final edit using Photoshop on my home computer, but since I was in a car and didn’t have my computer with me, this was a great solution. The best part of using Photoshop Mix is the seamless transition back to Lightroom. In my editing screen I chose the exporting icon and selected my favorite option, “Save to Lightroom.” Of course, I could have saved to my camera roll or many other options, but, just like that, my edited image was returned to Lightroom Mobile. Saving to Lightroom Mobile is synonymous to saving on my home computer since all of these photos synchronize instantly. Mobile editing doesn’t get much better than this! If you are a mobile device user, Photoshop Mix might be a great solution to your editing needs. Now I can edit on the go and know the image is safe on my home computer.
Amy Horn is a professor of photography at Northern Arizona University and an instructor for Arizona Highways Photo Workshops. To see her current schedule view ahpw.org or horndesigns.com.