Lightroom ios direct import photos ipad camera roll – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Lightroom finally adds direct photo import on iOS

After years of waiting

After years of waiting

Adobe announced its December updates to its photography apps today, and among the most significant is the ability to direct import photos on Lightroom for iOS and iPadOS. iOS and iPadOS 13.2 now allows raw files to be directly imported into Lightroom from cameras and memory cards. Previously, importing photos to Lightroom required transferring photos to the iPad camera roll first, then Lightroom, and then deleting the photos from the camera roll after to save space. Now, users will be able to bypass the iOS camera roll entirely, and imports can happen in a single step.

It’s a long-awaited feature users have asked for since Lightroom for iOS was released, but delayed until the iPad could support external storage connectivity. Earlier this year, Apple introduced a workaround via a Siri Shortcut that could import photos from the camera roll and then delete them from the camera roll, but today’s update finally makes the feature official.

iOS and iPadOS devices will also get an advanced export feature that Android and ChromeOS devices got in November. It give users the ability to export multiple photos as original, DNG, JPEG, and TIF files, in addition to more options to customize metadata, watermarks, file names, output sharpening, and color space.

As part of today’s update, users will also be able to add photos to shared Lightroom albums via web, desktop, and mobile. You can read about the full list of improvements to Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, and Camera Raw on Adobe’s blog here.

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