Raw SmithBlog
Lightroom without the subscription: RAW editing on iPhone, iPad and Mac
Yes, you can edit RAW photos on iPad, iPhone and Mac without a Lightroom subscription. Darkroom, Photomator and Raw Smith each offer a one-time purchase across all three, and Apple Photos is free. What you give up depends on the app: usually Windows, Adobe's own camera support, generative tools, and the ability to bring your Lightroom edits with you.
What changed with Lightroom's price
From 20 March 2026 Adobe raised the price of the Lightroom plan with 1TB, for new subscribers at once and for existing ones at their next renewal. In the US, the annual plan paid upfront went from $119.88 to $149.99 a year, and the annual plan paid monthly from $11.99 to $14.99 a month (Adobe: Lightroom plan (1TB) pricing change). Adobe applied the change worldwide, so other currencies rose too.
For a lot of people that's still fair value: Lightroom is very good, and the plan includes cloud storage. But it's a recurring cost, and if you edit mainly on an iPad or iPhone and don't need the cloud, it's worth knowing what else there is. Every current version of Lightroom, including Lightroom Classic, comes with an Adobe plan; the mobile app has a free tier, but most of the advanced tools need one.
RAW editors you can buy outright
| iPad and iPhone | Mac | One-time purchase | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darkroom | Yes | Yes | Yes, "Forever", or monthly or yearly (Darkroom) |
| Photomator | Yes | Yes | Yes, lifetime, or monthly or yearly (App Store) |
| Capture One | Subscription only | Yes | Desktop Pro only (Capture One) |
| Apple Photos | Yes | Yes | Free, built in |
| Raw Smith | Yes | Yes | Yes, Pro one-time, or a yearly plan |
A few things to weigh beyond the price:
- Where the photos live. Darkroom and Photomator work on your Apple Photos library. Raw Smith keeps its own library. Lightroom keeps originals in Adobe's cloud, or on your disk with Classic.
- Camera support. Lightroom has Adobe's own RAW decoder and often supports new cameras first. The others use Apple's, which gains cameras in OS updates. Check yours on our supported cameras page.
- Photomator's future. Apple hasn't said what's next for it; see Photomator alternatives in 2026.
- Storage. No subscription for the editor doesn't mean no storage cost. Syncing RAWs through iCloud uses your iCloud storage, and beyond the free 5 GB that's an iCloud+ plan.
Raw Smith for Lightroom users
Raw Smith was designed so a Lightroom user can sit down and work. The Edit panels run in Lightroom's order: Profile, white balance, Light, tone curve, Color (with an 8-band Color Mixer, Point Color and 3-way grading), Effects, Detail and Optics. Masks include AI subject, sky, background, people and objects, computed on the device, plus brush, linear and radial gradients and colour and luminance ranges.
On the Mac, and on iPad with a keyboard, the keys are the ones you already know:
| Key | In Raw Smith |
|---|---|
| P / X / U | Pick, reject, unflag |
| 0–5 | Star rating |
| 6–9 | Red, yellow, green, blue label |
| \ and Y | Before / after, and split before and after |
| R, Q, ⇧W | Crop, Remove, Masks |
| J | Shadow and highlight clipping |
| ⌘' / ⇧⌘C / ⇧⌘V | Virtual copy, Copy Settings…, Paste Settings |
It borrows one thing from Capture One: Speed Edit. Hold E, C, H, S, W, B, T, V or A and scroll or drag to change Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Temperature, Vibrance or Saturation without touching the panel. The keyboard shortcuts guide has the full list.
The library will feel familiar too: flags, stars, colour labels, keywords, captions, albums and smart albums, Compare and Survey, History, Snapshots and virtual copies. Edits, ratings, albums and presets sync between iPhone, iPad and Mac through your own iCloud, with no account.
What you give up
Here's what Raw Smith doesn't do that Lightroom does, so you can decide before you switch:
- No Windows, Android or web. Raw Smith is iPhone, iPad and Mac only.
- No generative remove. Remove has circular Heal and Clone spots made from the photo's own pixels.
- No tethered shooting and no face recognition for naming people.
- No panorama or HDR merge, and no print, book or web gallery modules.
- Lens corrections come from the RAW. Lens Corrections uses the profile your RAW carries; there's no separate database of lens profiles.
- Apple's camera list. A camera Adobe supports but Apple doesn't yet won't open until Apple adds it.
- RAW only. Raw Smith doesn't import JPEG or HEIC files.
- Nothing comes across from Lightroom but the files. It can't import a Lightroom catalogue, develop settings, presets or collections, and it doesn't read ratings or keywords from Lightroom's XMP sidecars. Leaving Lightroom: what you can bring with you goes through what to do instead.
Can you keep Lightroom Classic for old photos?
Partly. Adobe says that when the membership ends, Lightroom Classic still opens with the Library, Import and Export modules working, but the Develop and Map modules and Edit In stop (Adobe: Develop module, Map module, and Edit In stop working). So you can still find old photos and export the versions you edited, but not change those edits. Many people do exactly that: keep Classic as an archive and edit new shoots elsewhere.
Lightroom (the cloud version) is different, because the originals live in Adobe's cloud. Download them before you cancel; Leaving Lightroom explains how.
How Raw Smith fits
If you edit on an iPad or iPhone as much as on a Mac, want Lightroom's layout and keys, and would rather pay once, Raw Smith is built for you. It renders every edit from the RAW with Apple's decoder, including Enhanced, Apple's machine-learning decoder, on supported cameras with iOS or macOS 27. If you need Windows, tethering or generative remove, it isn't, and Lightroom or Capture One will serve you better.
Raw Smith is a free download with a free tier and a 14-day trial; Pro is a one-time purchase or a yearly plan. It's in public beta on TestFlight for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Questions
Is there a Lightroom alternative for iPad without a subscription?
Yes. Darkroom, Photomator and Raw Smith all offer a one-time purchase on iPad, iPhone and Mac, and Apple Photos is free. Capture One sells a one-time licence only for the desktop; on iPad it's a subscription.
How much does Lightroom cost in 2026?
From 20 March 2026 Adobe's Lightroom plan with 1TB went from $119.88 to $149.99 a year paid upfront in the US, or from $11.99 to $14.99 a month on an annual plan paid monthly.
Can I still use Lightroom Classic after cancelling?
Partly. Adobe says that when the membership ends, Lightroom Classic keeps the Library, Import and Export modules working, but the Develop and Map modules stop. Your catalogue and files stay on your disk.
Does Raw Smith work like Lightroom?
In many ways. Its Edit panels follow Lightroom's order, and on Mac and iPad it uses Lightroom's keys: P, X and U to flag, 0 to 5 to rate, 6 to 9 for labels, R for crop, Q for remove, Shift-W for masks and backslash for before and after.
What does Raw Smith not do that Lightroom does?
There's no Windows, Android or web version, no generative remove, no tethering, no face recognition, no panorama or HDR merge, and it can't import Lightroom catalogues, develop settings or presets.