LR Mobile camera overexposing photos

[Liam Coleman]

Hello,

I have been observing for some time that the LR mobile in-app camera seems to consistently overexpose photos. It is most obvious when shooting DNGs (either on automatic or HDR modes) before making any adjustments in post. See attached photos for examples right out of the LR app camera with no adjustments made; these strike me as quite bright and look more properly exposed to me if I dial back the exposure slider in LR by about 0.50. I have been sure to confirm that I have not altered any other settings that might cause this and I have been using the most recent app versions over the past several updates. I am using an iPhone 14 Pro and an iPad Air (it happens on both devices) on consisterntly the most recent OS software. Can someone from Adobe please look into this and confirm whether there might be a bug here? Thanks very much.

[Charlie.D]

Hello @Liam Coleman 

Apologies for the slow response.  We've been busy getting the June app updates ready and released.

In short, what you describe is expected behavior per our LR developer team.  JPGs (even ones LR Camera captures) are heavily processed by the iOS platform, whereas LR camera DNGs and HDRs and other raw images you may import into Lightroom may require significant processing to reach a similar look. With the newer, larger sensors in the recent iPhone models, the apparent over-exposure you're talking about may seem more pronounced than old iPhone models.  A developer told me the LR Camera is simply recording the raw image data the iOS platform provides.  When you compare to Apple ProRaw images in the Photos app, what's not obvious is that Apple does apply a fair amount of processing.  Lightroom applies less processing upon capture/import.  The LR Mobile app's camera profiles are ment to help one get to a good starting point for editing, but some work is required to get the image to a desirable appearance.  A couple Presets I use often serve to decrease exposure after raw capture.

I find Lightroom's HDR capture mode more often provides me a good starting point for editing.  In the LR in-camera options that are opened by 'gear' button, I sometimes toggle on Save Unprocessed Original -- this saves the middle DNG image of the 3 bracket images that are merged for the HDR capture.  Sometimes that middle bracket image ends up being the one I keep, though I usually purge them as unwanted duplicates.

I do also use exposure compensation at times, especially in outdoor or very bright environments, to under-expose the image a notch or two.  I often snap a couple photos at different exposures if I'm worried about uneditable overexposure.

Posts like yours are appreciated, as it reminds the team to keep discussion going on how to improve this.

Kind regards,

Charlie

P.S.  Lightroom recently updated the help article on the LR Camera.  Maybe there's something in it that's useful to you: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/using/capture-photos-mobile-ios.html 

[Liam Coleman]

Hi Charlie. Thank you very much for that explanation. That makes perfect sense to me. I appreciate the response.

[Ineedafingscreenname]

Hi Charlie,

I've experienced the same problem on my iPhone 14 for some time now. Typically, I try to remember to underexpose the raw image by -.7, which tends to yield good results. However, sometimes I forget, which can caude problems with lost details in the highlights. Is there a way to create a preset so that all camera exposures are initially set at -.7 as a default (and that I can modify only if needed for a given photo)?

Thanks,

Scott

[JohanElzenga]

Select the 'Professional' setting in the camera app. Then set the exposure compensation to -0.7 and finally tap on the lock icon.

[Ineedafingscreenname]

Thanks Johan! That'll work perfectly.

[Ineedafingscreenname]

Hi Johan,

Actually, it looks like the lock gets cleared out when I close Lightroom. Reopening it, the default exposure is back to 0. Do you know if there is a way to permanently keep it at -.7?

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, I see the same. I would consider this a bug, because what is the usefulness of the lock if it unlocks itself?