Two part question here, i’ve been on and off photography for about 8-10 years and while i don’t know everything and anything about my camera, everything about composition and editing, I feel i know enough to edit photos the way i like and making them decent compositions. at this point, should i start thinking about investing into a laptop/iPad and lightroom rather than relying on the free portions of editing apps to create better edits?
The problem i have is with your choice of the word “should”. Should implies there’s a right way to do something. There is no right way to do photography. It’s an art. You’re free to do it any way you like. No one will say using Lightroom is the best or only way to edit photos.
Now do I recommend Lightroom? Yeah I do, and I’d recommend it to anyone getting started in photography. It’s a great tool that allows for lots of creative editing and produces high quality results. Most other editing software can do the same job.
Lightroom runs best on a full fledged computer. Can you use an iPad? Yeah but the mobile version of the app isn’t the same as on a PC/Mac. I’m not sure if there are any limitations or disadvantages since I don’t own an iPad.