iPad photo culling

[cupcakes2000]

Hello!

Anyone got any suggestions on a culling app for iPad?

I need it to be able to read raws (preferably fast) from a usb reader and to be able to simply tag a photo or not. Preferably with a swipe and preferably with a keyboard shortcut.

Have tried many apps but weird limitations mean they don’t work for me.

FileBrowser pro allows you to start them with xml sidecars, but then you can’t sort the photos to show only those.

Files allows you to tag, and it’s fast for raws, but you can’t seem to tag in full screen. Or even make the thumbs extra large and tag from a keyboard shortcut.

Cascable allows a star rating to be added and you to sort to only show the starred photos, and it’s fast! Ideal, except you have to import the photos before you can star them.

I just want a simple fast app that can full screen tag a photo and then sort them by tags for further export/import work.

 

[mackmgg]

Depending on what camera you have, you can probably star them on-camera and then use that whenever you import it. What I usually do is import every photo onto my WD Password Wireless, and then as I scroll through that selectively chose which ones to actually import to Lightroom. Works reasonably well to have only the keepers in Lightroom, but of course nothing gets saved back to the drive about which ones I've actually imported.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Depending on what camera you have, you can probably star them on-camera and then use that whenever you import it. What I usually do is import every photo onto my WD Password Wireless, and then as I scroll through that selectively chose which ones to actually import to Lightroom. Works reasonably well to have only the keepers in Lightroom, but of course nothing gets saved back to the drive about which ones I've actually imported.

I shoot canon stuff - mainly 5d IV’s. Don’t want to cull or star in camera, not good enough screen for me to find the best photos!
Had the same suggestion regarding the WD passport that you’re using, but didn’t really want extra kit. And I really want the tags to exist after the import so I know what I’m doing at each stage if I need to go back and re assess. Thanks for the reply!

 

[mackmgg]

I shoot canon stuff - mainly 5d IV’s. Don’t want to cull or star in camera, not good enough screen for me to find the best photos!
Had the same suggestion regarding the WD passport that you’re using, but didn’t really want extra kit. And I really want the tags to exist after the import so I know what I’m doing at each stage if I need to go back and re assess. Thanks for the reply!

Yeah the 5D4 screen is probably a bit small for that. Mirrorless (at least R5/R6) works well for that because you can use the EVF to review images. There's also the Canon Camera Connect app for pulling over WiFi which may work OK for this, but it's not great either.

Really when I need to do <100 images and I'm not in a huge rush the Passport works fine. Any more than that or any rush, and I'm still going to pull out my laptop and bang through them much faster. I'd really love an iPad workflow that works just as well though. It's purely a software limitation not hardware, so it would be much nicer to carry a smaller device out and still have a usable workflow.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Yeah the 5D4 screen is probably a bit small for that. Mirrorless (at least R5/R6) works well for that because you can use the EVF to review images. There's also the Canon Camera Connect app for pulling over WiFi which may work OK for this, but it's not great either.

Really when I need to do <100 images and I'm not in a huge rush the Passport works fine. Any more than that or any rush, and I'm still going to pull out my laptop and bang through them much faster. I'd really love an iPad workflow that works just as well though. It's purely a software limitation not hardware, so it would be much nicer to carry a smaller device out and still have a usable workflow.

Yeah wifi is a little slow compared to usb. Not that slow, actually - but it’s a pita, losing net connection on the iPad, faffing around with the camera and the networks etc. Rather just plug in usb.
My iPad workflow is literally only missing a decent way of culling on the media the photos are on. It limited to 64gb so it’s the only option for me right now.

It’s convoluted compared to the mac, a little. But as you say this is mainly down to software.

Lightroom remains the best editing programme, I use it with classic. When I’m away from home and iPad only I still use it, but I turn off sync, export to externals when edited, and delete. Syncing 100’s of raws to the cloud is an absurd idea in the field.
iPad Photoshop is still not good enough, which makes things a little more annoying as round tripping is not possible with any other app. That said, it still all uses the cloud to sync and so I think even when it’s up to scratch it will be rubbish. It’s too cloud reliant.
So I use affinity. Again, this isn’t ideal either. When sharing between lightroom and classic, you can only have access to smart previews for affinity. No good.
When editing full raws with syncing disabled as I mentioned above- the inability to round trip means I need to save after editing and import In To affinity. That’s ok- except that in order to save the lightroom edits for future tweaking, you need to save as a dng. That’s ok, and it works for re-edits in classic too. But affinity can’t see the edits in this way. So I have to export the ones I want to edit further in affinity as tifs instead. I would just do them all as tifs, but then lightroom can’t see the edits after the tor has saved, so it’s no good for tweaking.

Little things that are annoying!

 

[Slartibart]

RAWPower to rescue.

 

[cupcakes2000]

RAWPower to rescue.

Doesn’t have selective adjustments as far as I can gather…

I’m happy with lightroom generally, I’m not looking to replace it, just a way to cull before import.

 

[robgendreau]

I use Lr on the iPad for this. Swipe up to tag (IIRC, not on the iPad right now). I still prefer a laptop overall for a bunch of reasons.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I use Lr on the iPad for this. Swipe up to tag (IIRC, not on the iPad right now). I still prefer a laptop overall for a bunch of reasons.

Thanks! Looking for a solution whereby I can avoid importing the photos first. Think you need to import into lightroom first to do it there.

This entire issue could be solved if I hadn’t skimped on a 64gb iPad version!

 

[kenoh]

Doesn’t have selective adjustments as far as I can gather…

I’m happy with lightroom generally, I’m not looking to replace it, just a way to cull before import.

On the iPad, I attach the card, then go to the import from camera device option, then select all, then go through them on the screen and deselect the ones I dont want to import - or if I have had a crap day of shooting, leave them all deselected and then go select the ones I want.

A 2 finger pinch outwards gesture on the image gives you a larger preview. Also, once they are in, if you have a keyboard, you can use the same LR keys to star and select i.e. 1-5 for stars, x to reject arrows to navigate.

 

[cupcakes2000]

On the iPad, I attach the card, then go to the import from camera device option, then select all, then go through them on the screen and deselect the ones I dont want to import - or if I have had a crap day of shooting, leave them all deselected and then go select the ones I want.

A 2 finger pinch outwards gesture on the image gives you a larger preview. Also, once they are in, if you have a keyboard, you can use the same LR keys to star and select i.e. 1-5 for stars, x to reject arrows to navigate.

Ah yes, I do this also! I was looking got a way to tag the photos externally though so I can keep track of what’s what. I Emmery rarely primarily select then delete all the rest so need a way to look back at the original folder.