2021 iPad Pro for travel photo work?

[alee]

I use the iPad with Lightroom and a Gnarbox. I've developed a fairly sophisticated workflow that leverages Adobe Cloud to make sure copies of things go where they need to automatically. I use the iPad/Gnarbox combo to cull, and then do first round edits.

In a nutshell:
* Throughout the day, I backup as needed to the Gnarbox
* At the end of every day, I use the Gnarbox app on the iPad to star photos (my convention is 5 stars for full critical edits, 3 stars for anything I might want just for social media).
* I use the Gnarbox app to copy all the 3 and 5 star images into a new folder
* In the hotel room, I tell Lightroom to import all the images from the Gnarbox in the 3/5 star folder, and let it sync overnight (all the images then end up in Adobe Cloud).

Those images are now available and synced back to my machine at home, available on my phone and iPad for edit, etc.

I do quick edits for the 3 stars, and deeper edits on the 5 stars as time permits. Usually by the time I get home, I just need critical edits done on the 5 stars, but I've taken care of most of the time consuming parts of my workflow in the field.

I've traveled without a laptop for a year doing this - it does require adapting, but I couldn't be happier to travel light.

 

[kallisti]

I hesitate to comment as I’m not in your position. But I will say that the screen on the new iPad 12.9 inch is a significant upgrade over previous iPads. That alone might be a reason to go for the 12.9 inch instead of the 11 inch. Take this with a grain of salt as there are other variables at play, but it should at least be a consideration in your decision between the two sizes, everything else being equal.

 

[tlnargi]

I use the iPad with Lightroom and a Gnarbox. I've developed a fairly sophisticated workflow that leverages Adobe Cloud to make sure copies of things go where they need to automatically. I use the iPad/Gnarbox combo to cull, and then do first round edits.

In a nutshell:
* Throughout the day, I backup as needed to the Gnarbox
* At the end of every day, I use the Gnarbox app on the iPad to star photos (my convention is 5 stars for full critical edits, 3 stars for anything I might want just for social media).
* I use the Gnarbox app to copy all the 3 and 5 star images into a new folder
* In the hotel room, I tell Lightroom to import all the images from the Gnarbox in the 3/5 star folder, and let it sync overnight (all the images then end up in Adobe Cloud).

Those images are now available and synced back to my machine at home, available on my phone and iPad for edit, etc.

I do quick edits for the 3 stars, and deeper edits on the 5 stars as time permits. Usually by the time I get home, I just need critical edits done on the 5 stars, but I've taken care of most of the time consuming parts of my workflow in the field.

I've traveled without a laptop for a year doing this - it does require adapting, but I couldn't be happier to travel light.

Why use the Gnarbox at all? Is it just another backup for you?

 

[mrklaw]

I use the iPad with Lightroom and a Gnarbox. I've developed a fairly sophisticated workflow that leverages Adobe Cloud to make sure copies of things go where they need to automatically. I use the iPad/Gnarbox combo to cull, and then do first round edits.

In a nutshell:
* Throughout the day, I backup as needed to the Gnarbox
* At the end of every day, I use the Gnarbox app on the iPad to star photos (my convention is 5 stars for full critical edits, 3 stars for anything I might want just for social media).
* I use the Gnarbox app to copy all the 3 and 5 star images into a new folder
* In the hotel room, I tell Lightroom to import all the images from the Gnarbox in the 3/5 star folder, and let it sync overnight (all the images then end up in Adobe Cloud).

Those images are now available and synced back to my machine at home, available on my phone and iPad for edit, etc.

I do quick edits for the 3 stars, and deeper edits on the 5 stars as time permits. Usually by the time I get home, I just need critical edits done on the 5 stars, but I've taken care of most of the time consuming parts of my workflow in the field.

I've traveled without a laptop for a year doing this - it does require adapting, but I couldn't be happier to travel light.

any reason you don’t back up recent projects to NAS? is that illustrating you move older ones to NAS and remove from local storage? Do you have that automated or you just try and remember?

I have my lightroom folder in my onedrive so it automatically backs up to onedrive storage, but I manually copy to NAS

 

[alee]

any reason you don’t back up recent projects to NAS? is that illustrating you move older ones to NAS and remove from local storage? Do you have that automated or you just try and remember?

I have my lightroom folder in my onedrive so it automatically backs up to onedrive storage, but I manually copy to NAS

The most recent projects are already backed up to Adobe Cloud and changes are all synced up there.

I don't move it to NAS until I consider the project closed and ready for archive. The nice part of this is that while the working projects sit in Adobe Cloud, I can do edits from iPhone, iPad or Macbook at any time.

 

[alee]

Why use the Gnarbox at all? Is it just another backup for you?

Think of the Gnarbox as both a backup, and a scratch disk/file system.

I go out, shoot 1000 frames on 2 cameras. Cards are just dumped to the Gnarbox.

I connect to the Gnarbox to do a non-critical review and flag what's worthwhile, and put all those images in a folder for import. I'm getting down from 1000 photos to maybe 200-300 on the external storage device.

From there, I can then choose to just connect that to a computer for import, or I can import into the iPad.

The Gnarbox is just a nice virtual cutting room. The goal for me is to throw out duplicates, poor composition and poorly shot photos as early in the process, so what ends up on the tablet and in Adobe Cloud is worth my attention. On a desktop-bound workflow, you'd just import and use the flagging system in Lightroom - that's much preferred, but if you're doing it all on iPad, it's a waste of tablet storage for throwaways.

Worst off, I come home, find that I want to take another look at a burst sequence and see if there's a better frame I should have picked, and the full shoot is still available.

 

[mackmgg]

Think of the Gnarbox as both a backup, and a scratch disk/file system.

I go out, shoot 1000 frames on 2 cameras. Cards are just dumped to the Gnarbox.

I connect to the Gnarbox to do a non-critical review and flag what's worthwhile, and put all those images in a folder for import. I'm getting down from 1000 photos to maybe 200-300 on the external storage device.

From there, I can then choose to just connect that to a computer for import, or I can import into the iPad.

The Gnarbox is just a nice virtual cutting room. The goal for me is to throw out duplicates, poor composition and poorly shot photos as early in the process, so what ends up on the tablet and in Adobe Cloud is worth my attention. On a desktop-bound workflow, you'd just import and use the flagging system in Lightroom - that's much preferred, but if you're doing it all on iPad, it's a waste of tablet storage for throwaways.

Worst off, I come home, find that I want to take another look at a burst sequence and see if there's a better frame I should have picked, and the full shoot is still available.

I used to do the same (though using a WD My Passport Wireless), but I think I like the straight to Lightroom workflow better if you've got the storage space for the import. Then you just use the normal Lightroom keyboard shortcuts ('x' to reject, 1-5 to star, etc) and then delete rejected afterwards. I've only got the 256GB iPad, so if I ever get a new one I'll probably get a larger size. The new screen on the 12.9" iPad is definitely tempting, but unless iPadOS changes much next week to actually take advantages of the M1 I really don't have any limitations with the 2018 iPad Pro. Plus I prefer the 11" iPad for its portability.

 

[alee]

I used to do the same (though using a WD My Passport Wireless), but I think I like the straight to Lightroom workflow better if you've got the storage space for the import. Then you just use the normal Lightroom keyboard shortcuts ('x' to reject, 1-5 to star, etc) and then delete rejected afterwards. I've only got the 256GB iPad, so if I ever get a new one I'll probably get a larger size. The new screen on the 12.9" iPad is definitely tempting, but unless iPadOS changes much next week to actually take advantages of the M1 I really don't have any limitations with the 2018 iPad Pro. Plus I prefer the 11" iPad for its portability.

Storage and data redundancy are really the big reasons to keep it external esp. for projects. The most fragile piece of tech for photography is the phone/tablet/computer. Even with external media, I usually also keep all the images on the card, not formatting between, and carry a bunch of cards.

For smaller one-offs, under 100 frames, going straight to iPad is what I do as well, although this is where the iOS "file system" is a handicap. Best of all worlds, if LR Mobile could work off an external drive over USB-C, I think a lot of people would be happy.

 

[mackmgg]

Storage and data redundancy are really the big reasons to keep it external esp. for projects. The most fragile piece of tech for photography is the phone/tablet/computer. Even with external media, I usually also keep all the images on the card, not formatting between, and carry a bunch of cards.

For smaller one-offs, under 100 frames, going straight to iPad is what I do as well, although this is where the iOS "file system" is a handicap. Best of all worlds, if LR Mobile could work off an external drive over USB-C, I think a lot of people would be happy.

I've got a USB-C dock that I use with my laptop that has an SD card reader and a bunch of USB ports. It would be great to be able to plug that into the iPad, and then copy from the SD card onto an external drive directly from Lightroom (way nicer to import via Lightroom than directly copying, since it doesn't copy the same photos twice).

As far as backups go, I already have the WD drive, so I'll definitely keep backing up my SD cards to that when I travel. But it will probably be an end of the day just throw the card in thing, rather than part of the shoot/import/edit/share workflow.

 

[mollyc]

Can I ask a question here that is related to ipad editing? I don't have an iPad, otherwise I'd just try to figure this out on my own.

I am helping a friend with a portfolio and she only uses an iPad, no computer. She is having difficulty with editing color and exposure consistency and in her version of LR she can't see RGB numbers or other advanced editing tools that would be available on the computer versions.

How do you deal with that?

 

[alee]

Can I ask a question here that is related to ipad editing? I don't have an iPad, otherwise I'd just try to figure this out on my own.

I am helping a friend with a portfolio and she only uses an iPad, no computer. She is having difficulty with editing color and exposure consistency and in her version of LR she can't see RGB numbers or other advanced editing tools that would be available on the computer versions.

How do you deal with that?

You can't really do everything on the iPad. Even the histogram view on the iPad is limited. Lightroom Mobile is great for most editing needs, but for absolute precision and advanced features, you have to use the desktop version. This may change in future iPadOS versions, with Apple using the M1 chip - in theory, we will begin to see fewer differences between apps. But for now, it's very 80% can be done on the iPad. The remaining 20% you need a desktop.

 

[mrklaw]

Does RAW shooting affect the flow?

 

[mollyc]

You can't really do everything on the iPad. Even the histogram view on the iPad is limited. Lightroom Mobile is great for most editing needs, but for absolute precision and advanced features, you have to use the desktop version. This may change in future iPadOS versions, with Apple using the M1 chip - in theory, we will begin to see fewer differences between apps. But for now, it's very 80% can be done on the iPad. The remaining 20% you need a desktop.

Yes I know. Unfortunately my friend only has an iPad.

 

[alee]

Does RAW shooting affect the flow?

Yes, you definitely can’t rely on the previews for color and detail. For my workflow with the Gnarbox, the review/cull process uses the embedded JPG in the RAW.

 

[mackmgg]

Can I ask a question here that is related to ipad editing? I don't have an iPad, otherwise I'd just try to figure this out on my own.

I am helping a friend with a portfolio and she only uses an iPad, no computer. She is having difficulty with editing color and exposure consistency and in her version of LR she can't see RGB numbers or other advanced editing tools that would be available on the computer versions.

How do you deal with that?

Can it be done in Lightroom CC? If so, it can be done on Lightroom for iPad. There are definitely features in Lightroom Classic that I'd want on the iPad, but until they make their way to Lightroom CC they won't be on the iPad either. And unfortunately there are features Adobe has decided just aren't necessary anymore, so I don't expect to see them any time soon on any new platforms (web, mobile or CC).

 

[Macshroomer]

I have my 11” Cellular iPad Pro now but I went all in and got it in the 2TB version so a lot of the commentary is very timely.

I am still getting it set up but thus far it is very fast and I *LOVE* the smaller form factor, 100% happy I did not go with the 12.9”

I will get it dialed in and report back…