I don't believe that there is a batch capability, nor the application of custom presets. If I'm traveling and planning on processing possibly a couple of hundred RAW images at the end of each day, I take my laptop.
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I don't believe that there is a batch capability, nor the application of custom presets. If I'm traveling and planning on processing possibly a couple of hundred RAW images at the end of each day, I take my laptop.
You can select all and save. There is no interface for editing at the same time. For me, I would want to review and tweak each image anyway.
How I work with Lightroom iPad
- import raws in Lightroom
- quickly review each image for focus and composition. Swipe up to accept and swipe down to reject. This would usually cull more than half of the images
- apply filter to only show accepted images
- adjust one image to liking and copy the adjustments
- go to next image and then paste adjustment (you can use a kB shortcut) and then do further adjustments as necessary
- do this until I’ve gone through every image
- export all images to destination.
What I find is reviewing is much faster on my iPad and for me that is a real time saver. If using one desktop or laptop I could more easily copy all setting to all images, but then I would also need to go through each image anyway to check so it doesn’t save much time.
I have never ever found one set of adjustment can be applied to all photos and in some cases it makes the job of adjusting photos even slower. Having said that, if they add this feature into Lightroom iOS I wouldn’t mind.
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And that was my point. Without batch-edit capability, the usefulness of a RAW editing program on the iPad Pro is very limited to me.
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Let's say that I have 300 24MP images to go through from a sports shoot. That's probably about 20-30 discreet "moments" that I've tried to capture, with 5-10 shots each. Even for posed group shots, I'll take 3-5 pictures to ensure that an eye blink, or something else doesn't spoil the moment.
Stage 1: Gross Cull
I load the whole shebang into Camera RAW. Press Del to mark an image for deletion, and down-arrow if I want to keep it. After eliminating obvious out-of-focus shots, or serious composition problems, I'm left with 120-150 images. Exit and reload to get rid of the images marked for deletion.
Stage 2: Gross Color Correction
Select all images and apply a standard white balance. Then select all of the pics in each "moment" and color-correct them to the first image in that sequence.
Stage 3: Fine Cull
Go through each image individually and either mark them for deletion, or give them a star rating if there is more than one good shot per moment. Crop where I think it's needed. Exit and reload.
Stage 4: Final Corrections/Selections
This is where I do my final per-image color corrections, and they're typically small things like a lightening the shadows a tiny bit, or pulling down a blown highlight. I'll also play more with cropping.
Stage 5: Save Out
Select each star-rated image and save them all together with a job-specific, or moment-specific filename.
Now, for a 300-image shoot, this might take 1.5-2 hours. But if I can't do a simultaneous batch-correction for steps 1-2 (or especially step 5), then it would easily take 3-4 hours (with longer sanity breaks in-between). So it doesn't matter if my iPad is a bit faster at loading and showing changes to single images, because it's the batch-edit capability of Camera RAW (or any other program capable of this) that allows me to complete 4-5 such processing runs in a day instead of just two.
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You can do a batch save out for step 5.
Also It will not take double the time to copy and paste setting from one image to another.
For example, say you have 10 images that need the same white balance. Adjust white balance on first image and then copy settings and go through next 10 images and paste. Takes less than 10 seconds to do the paste on all images. The difference in time selecting 10 at a time on desktop not huge.
Even if I had to do a standard colour correction for 100 images which I would never do, it would take less than 5 mins.
At the end of the day, choose whichever is right for you. I spend more time reviewing and doing fine adjustments than doing global adjustment so I found the iPad Pro faster to use than my MacBook Pro.
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Copy-Paste for the number of images I’m talking about simply is not a time-effective (or mentally sustainable) solution. Yeah, it’s fine for snapshots, but I don’t shoot RAW on my SLR for snapshots.
You said 120-150 images. That’s would take less than 5 min to color correct. I would never blanket coloring correct all images (and imo it is very bad practice to do anyway) in a shoot so would never do it.
Also you Mentioned double the time difference Ie 1.5-2hrs vs 3-4 hrs. It is 5 min difference to do that step.(or maybe a bit more since your iPad is slower)
You're either delusional, trolling, or you have zero clue as to how a professional photography workflow works. Possibly all three. Just because you can do something a certain way, doesn't mean that it's either time or quality efficient.
Consider not just the theoretical time it takes to copy/paste 149 times, but how likely you are to do it without long mental breaks after doing it 50 or so times. Now repeat that for 20 photography shoots, and maybe you'll grok my point. Professionals work from the general to the specific because it saves time and increases quality.
Stop the over generalisations. Do you represent photographers now? It works for me and I find it faster than using the Mac version. And judging by the many blogs and videos out there it works for a lot of other photographers as well.
I would never set a standard white balance for all my photos - it just doesn't work for me as the lighting changes all the time. If it works for you, then fine. The iPad Lightroom is not the right tool for you until they add that feature.
I represent myself as a professional photographer of over 20 years who shoots nature, wedding, sports, and 3D photogrammetry subjects. I hold an art degree, and have taught photography at the college level.
What kind of "professional" work do you do? How often? How many images per shoot? RAW or JPEG format?
Yes, lighting can change. That's why you make your gross adjustments, and then make any necessary smaller tweaks later. So instead of spending 1-2 minutes per image (or having to copy-paste), you adjust everything for 1-2 minutes, and then make 10-15 second corrections to maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your images instead of ALL of them.
Result: The processing takes 1/3 to 1/2 the time, and your final images are much more consistent when compared to each other. That consistency (or a lack of it) is the most important thing that a customer will notice. You do work with customers, right?
I respect it will not work for you and I’ve already said it.
But your assertion of 2 minute per image or double the time is rubbish. It takes 2 sec per image to paste from base settings you have already copied. I’ll leave it at that.
In the end, it appears that Lightroom or other processing solutions on the iPP works well for some and can be used extensively or even exclusively, works OK for others and might be used sparingly (me), and really not at all for others. No surprise as this kind of processing depends heavily on personal preferences and desired/needed workflow.
Get back to me after you've done the copy-paste thing 1000 times in a day. Being theoretically able to do something is not the same as getting bored, wandering off on a break, getting distracted, etc. When the program can update any number of images at once, you'll have my interest.
Now you’ve gone from 149 to 1000? Why the heck would I need to do it 1000 times if I’ve only got 150 images to go through?
At worst case, I would do the copy about 15-20 times. I would never do it all at once, as I’ve said I go through my selected images one by one.
Eg. take first image, adjust all settings as necessary, copy the settings go to next paste and adjust if required. If there is a major change in lighting that necessitate a change, then I take a copy of new base setting.
Anyway, it works for me and is blazing fast to do on my iPad.
Because as a working photographer, you wouldn't have just one job to complete the processing on. Think on that a bit.
Look, your iPad workflow is fine for your website snapshots and whatnot. But stop imagining that it's a professional tool that can compete when it counts with a MBP or iMac.
Why such the superiority complex? If it doesn't work for you then fine. But stop putting down anyone who uses it as "webshot snaphots and whatnot".
I work with it and process hundreds of photos a day. Many others pro photographers make it work as well. For my workflow and how I work - it is much faster than my macbook pro.
Just one of the many reviews of photographers using ipads.
https://fstoppers.com/gear/using-ipad-pro-part-photography-workflow-188975
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There's not a thing wrong with working on "website snapshots and whatnot". And from the video you posted, I can completely understand the appeal of loading up a few images at a time, being able to work on them while on the road, and having them synch to your desktop machine. That's really nice. I've even done it myself for one of my blogs.
But you're either ignorant of, or ignoring how that nice leisurely park-bench workflow will break down when the number of RAW images that you need to work on for a particular job increases by a factor of 100, and you have to get through at least 2-3 such jobs at a single sitting.
You say that you work with hundreds of photos a day on your iPad, but as someone with years of experience, and the technical expertise to understand what the hardware is doing, I don't believe that for a single second. You may have hundreds of images accumulated on your iPad that you can scroll through, but you're not working with more than half a dozen of them at the same time. Or you're shooting JPEG instead of RAW, and this entire conversation is moot.
But you're either ignorant of, or ignoring how that nice leisurely park-bench workflow will break down when the number of RAW images that you need to work on for a particular job increases by a factor of 100, and you have to get through at least 2-3 such jobs at a single sitting.
You say that you work with hundreds of photos a day on your iPad, but as someone with years of experience, and the technical expertise to understand what the hardware is doing, I don't believe that for a single second. You may have hundreds of images accumulated on your iPad that you can scroll through, but you're not working with more than half a dozen of them at the same time. Or you're shooting JPEG instead of RAW, and this entire conversation is moot.
On a recent 3-week trip to the Galapagos, I was shooting around 400 RAW images a day (not to mention DSLR & GoPro video); I couldn't imagine (or want) working with that on my iPad Pro. I needed my laptop and attached USB 3.0 storage. For anything serious on the road (the majority of the time), I use the laptop as the iPad is just too inefficient.
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This is exactly the type of pro workload that I'm talking about.
The photos that I saved (JPEGs & Lossless 45MB 16-bit TIFFs) from my own trip to Hawaii a decade ago total 4.5GB. Which was maybe 10% of the shots I actually took using an old 6MP Nikon D50. Today I'd be using my 24MP Nikon D750, where each RAW file is 27MB, and the final TIFFs are 145MB each.
There's no way that an iPad can import, copy, process, and wirelessly export that much data in a reasonable amount of time. Even shooting a 3-day sporting event can easily result in 200+GB of RAW photos, and half a terabyte of HD video that takes 2-3 full working days, at minimum, to process on a fast desktop system.
I agreed if you have thousands of photos to go through in one day it will be too much especially with the space limitations. The import process would be a pain and the max size iPad is only 512gb, not to mention working with external devices is a pain. I never have that many photos to process (max 300-400) and after review only about 150 or so to edit. And don’t do sport photography.
But half a dozen. That’s just ridiculous. I can do that only my iPad in matter of minutes. It is all raw as well on my d810 and d7200. Did you even view the video? Review and marking of photo is much faster than a MacBook Pro or any laptop or even a high end desktop. Lightroom on Mac and windows is a dog. I can attest it is much faster than my MacBook Pro and also surface Pro 4 when I dabble with it a while ago. The fans would be go full blast and processing ground to a halt at times. Not tested a high end desktop so cannot comment on that. I’ll leave it there.
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Lightroom on my 10.5 is in no way faster than on my XPS laptop and certainly not my desktop.
I compared against my 13” mbp 2017 and surface pro 4. Well not side by side with surface pro 4 since I got rid of that ages ago.
There is the possiblility of the 10.5 being slower than the 12.9 as the enclosure is much smaller and cannot get rid of heat as well.
And lastly what capacity to you have? The 64gb models are hobbled with slower drives (more than 2x slower than 512). Note sure about 256gb models.
256GB. At any rate, working with a lot of images on an iPad is simply too inefficient for me overall - I want a larger screen, a mouse, full-up Lightroom with my custom presets, spot removal, full DAM, etc., and I may need to everything without an Internet connection available for weeks (e.g., Galapagos, Northern Alaska). It certainly works for a lot of people such as yourself but for me it doesn't.
Yeah that is reasonable.
I still use my mbp especially when I need big monitor support for detailed editing in photoshop. Affinity is not there just yet even desktop and iPad cannot connect to a big monitor. And backups to external disks as you mentioned.
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Agree on Affinity.
Lightroom on the iPad has made some good strides and though I feel my laptop is faster, LR on the 10.5 is no slouch. Where I don't plan to do any processing, just review, the 10.5" works extremely well as a portable device. I've been experimenting with using a uSD in an SD adapter in my camera - I have a Lightning-based uSD card reader that I put the camera card in and review the RAW shots on the iPad without downloading them to iPad itself. It actually works quite well and the 10.5" is portable enough for my camera backpack. I can put the card and adapter in a wireless RAVPower FileHub and copy the RAW images directly from the card inserted in the hub to a portable HDD also attached to the hub. This gives me reviewing and backup capabilities such that I could leave the laptop at home if I plan on processing just a few shots while on the road.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I do miss a few features from desktop lightroom mostly custom presets. There is a workaround to get custom presets into Lightroom ipad but it is a bit of a hack. Hope it is added in a future update.