Software

Can a Mobile App Outdo Its Lightroom Plug-In Cousin?

Chris Gampat
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08/15/2012
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Perfectly Clear on my phone (1 of 1)ISO 400

Last Updated on 08/15/2012 by Gevon Servo

The other day, we gave our first impressions of Perfectly Clear for Android. As a user of the Lightroom Plugin, I was simply very curious about how the two stacked up against one another when editing the same photo. With the leaps and bounds that mobile photography has taken, would it at all be possible for a mobile app to outdo a desktop plugin? Here’s a quick overview.

The Test

I took two different raw images and exported them both at 72 DPI, 500k max, and 2000 pixels on the long side in Lightroom. I took those exported images and ran them through the Perfectly Clear plugin for Lightroom. I used the Portrait preset.

Then I took the original export, sent it to my HTC One S, and ran them through the Perfectly Clear app for Android. I let Perfectly Clear work its own voodoo magic for this one.

The Results

Example 1

Original
Edited in Lightroom
Edited in the Mobile App

Example 2

Original photo exported
From the Lightroom Plugin
From the Mobile App

Thoughts

I was actually rooting for the mobile app in this case, but the Perfectly Clear plug-in for Lightroom absolutely blew me away in terms of how well it softened the skin and adjusted the colors. Sure, it blew me away before, but when it comes to large batches of photos (like a portrait session or a wedding) you’ll begin to see that it can really work wonders.

It may be the mobile app misbehaving and we will see this once and for all in our final review of the app. However, at the moment it seems like the app wants us to mess with the files instead of just letting it do all the work for us.

 

app lightroom mobile photography Perfectly Clear photos plugin
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.