Scene Enhance Might Be Lightroom Mobile's Most Useful Tool Yet

Lightroom Mobile for iOS just got an update to v10.4, and it brings some helpful new features to make your editing process faster and more precise, whether you’re a casual mobile shooter or someone who’s more hands-on with masking and refinement.

Scene Enhance in Quick Actions: A Smarter Way to Apply Edits

Quick Actions was first introduced with Lightroom Mobile at Adobe MAX 2024, and is now getting even more powerful with Scene Enhance. If you’re using Lightroom Mobile v10.4 on your iPhone, you can access this feature by tapping the Actions icon and selecting the new Scene option.

Scene Enhance gives you a starting point by offering a few one-tap presets, such as:

• Futuristic

• Black & White

• Vintage

• Travel

• Lifestyle

Each preset has an Amount slider, so if the effect feels too strong initially, you can dial it back to get something more subtle.

But the real power of Scene Enhance comes from the adaptive sliders below the preset options. These control specific parts of the photo, such as the subject, sky, vegetation, and even architectural or natural elements like mountains and man-made ground.

Here’s how they work:

• Drag right to emphasize (make it brighter, more detailed, or more prominent)

• Drag left to de-emphasize (reduce brightness, contrast, or visual weight)

For example:

• Subject: Brightens the main person or object Lightroom detects in the photo.

• Sky: Enhances clouds, contrast, or color depending on conditions.

• Mountains and Vegetation: Now detected as individual elements, allowing precise control over their impact in the composition.

Once you commit the changes, Lightroom creates a full set of adaptive masks for each element. You can open the masking panel and fine-tune things further—adjust clarity, color temperature, dehaze, and more.

This approach works for both beginners and experienced editors: you can stick with the preset and a few slider tweaks, or go deeper with full control over the masks.

People Removal with Generative AI

Also new in this update is People Removal, which builds on Lightroom’s generative AI tools. If you’ve ever taken a great photo only to find a bunch of strangers in the background, this tool can help.

To use it:

1. Tap the Remove tool.

2. Tap the round button that looks like multiple people.

3. Lightroom will automatically detect background figures.

4. Tap any person you want to keep—they’ll be excluded from removal.

5. Tap the blue Remove button.

Lightroom then removes the selected people and fills in the background using AI-based generative fill. You can refine individual areas and choose between multiple variations for each region, giving you more control over the final look.

There's also a new setting that lets you choose between working with higher-resolution or reduced-resolution images when using these generative tools. Reduced resolution may help if you're concerned about processing speed or bandwidth. Otherwise, for the best quality, stick with high resolution.

Smart Album Support Comes to Lightroom Web

One more improvement—this time for Lightroom Web—is support for Smart Albums. While this feature was added to Lightroom Desktop during Adobe Max 2024, Lightroom Web can now read and display the Smart Albums you create on the desktop.

It's Time to Learn How To Use Lightroom Everywhere!

If you enjoyed this topic and want to learn how to get the most out of Lightroom's cloud-based ecosystem on the desktop, smartphone, and tablet, then you should check out my Lightroom Everywhere course! It has over nine hours of easy-paced lessons that'll teach you how to make the most out of Lightroom Desktop, Mobile, and Web.