iPad Pro Photographers: iPad Pro as only device

[sparksd]

I’ve decided to give the iPad Pro a shot as my photo processing platform on an upcoming trip in May, leaving the laptop at home. I’ll use a wireless RAVPower FileHub as my access to offline storage. The apps I’ll use are the RAVPower interface app, FileBrowser, Photos, and Lightroom (I have a subscription). This is the workflow I’ve sketched out (and tried) -

• Using the RAVPower FileHub and associated app, I copy the RAW images files from the camera’s 256GB SD card to a SSD (Samsung 500GB). Transfer speed is approx.. 1GB/minute.
• Using FileBrowser to access the FileHub via SMB, I rename the DCIM directory on the SD card to the date of the shooting – this will be a backup to the SSD copy. When reinserted into the camera, a new DCIM directory is created and the other remains as is. A formatted 256GB card can hold almost 9000 of my RAW images (25MB each). I have lots of cards.
• I use the Apple SD card reader to copy the RAW images to the Photos app on the iPad.
• I copy those RAW images to Lightroom, then delete them from the Photos app.
• I process in Lightroom, exporting processed JPEGs directly to a FileBrowser folder in the Files app. I create a new FileBrowser folder for each day of shooting.
• When processed, I delete the RAW images from Lightroom.
• When I get home, I can transfer the RAW images and processed JPEGs to drives on my network.

Is this as efficient as using my laptop? No, but I anticipate having enough free time on the trip to be able to work this on a daily basis. I will not have access to the Cloud so everything needs to be stored on what I have with me. We shall see.

 

[brofkand]

I’ve decided to give the iPad Pro a shot as my photo processing platform on an upcoming trip in May, leaving the laptop at home. I’ll use a wireless RAVPower FileHub as my access to offline storage. The apps I’ll use are the RAVPower interface app, FileBrowser, Photos, and Lightroom (I have a subscription). This is the workflow I’ve sketched out (and tried) -

• Using the RAVPower FileHub and associated app, I copy the RAW images files from the camera’s 256GB SD card to a SSD (Samsung 500GB). Transfer speed is approx.. 1GB/minute.
• Using FileBrowser to access the FileHub via SMB, I rename the DCIM directory on the SD card to the date of the shooting – this will be a backup to the SSD copy. When reinserted into the camera, a new DCIM directory is created and the other remains as is. A formatted 256GB card can hold almost 9000 of my RAW images (25MB each). I have lots of cards.
• I use the Apple SD card reader to copy the RAW images to the Photos app on the iPad.
• I copy those RAW images to Lightroom, then delete them from the Photos app.
• I process in Lightroom, exporting processed JPEGs directly to a FileBrowser folder in the Files app. I create a new FileBrowser folder for each day of shooting.
• When processed, I delete the RAW images from Lightroom.
• When I get home, I can transfer the RAW images and processed JPEGs to drives on my network.

Is this as efficient as using my laptop? No, but I anticipate having enough free time on the trip to be able to work this on a daily basis. I will not have access to the Cloud so everything needs to be stored on what I have with me. We shall see.

Talk about a horribly convoluted workflow just to use a toy. More power to you!

 

[sparksd]

Talk about a horribly convoluted workflow just to use a toy. More power to you!

Not to just use a toy (though that is a part of it!) - it's an international trip and I don't want to take the laptop along but I do want to do some processing while out there (I don't have to, just want to). I found that once I got going, it wasn't so bad. I had originally planned to take the laptop but I figured what the heck, give it a shot. But it does show what I view to be shortcomings in iOS. I didn't mention that I also find mouse-based processing to be much more efficient for me than finger-based. hmmm, maybe I am using a toy ...

 

[brofkand]

Not to just use a toy (though that is a part of it!) - it's an international trip and I don't want to take the laptop along but I do want to do some processing while out there (I don't have to, just want to). I found that once I got going, it wasn't so bad. I had originally planned to take the laptop but I figured what the heck, give it a shot. But it does show what I view to be shortcomings in iOS. I didn't mention that I also find mouse-based processing to be much more efficient for me than finger-based. hmmm, maybe I am using a toy ...

I found the workflow so cumbersome as to be unusable for any more than say 50 photos, and that was without the added complexity of the WiFi drive/SMB share. I just kept the originals on my SD cards as a backup to the iPad's local storage. Still, I would rather deal with an underpowered device like the Surface Go (with full keyboard/mouse input) that can run full Lightroom than a fast iPad with a hobbled workflow. Whatever works well for you!

 

[sparksd]

I found the workflow so cumbersome as to be unusable for any more than say 50 photos, and that was without the added complexity of the WiFi drive/SMB share. I just kept the originals on my SD cards as a backup to the iPad's local storage. Still, I would rather deal with an underpowered device like the Surface Go (with full keyboard/mouse input) that can run full Lightroom than a fast iPad with a hobbled workflow. Whatever works well for you!

I'm a retired engineer - I can afford to screw around and be inefficient. And I do have a nice lightweight laptop - a Dell XPS 13 with QHD+ display (it even has a touchscreen!). I can't really defend this other than to say I can do it and what the heck.

 

[brofkand]

I'm a retired engineer - I can afford to screw around and be inefficient. And I do have a nice lightweight laptop - a Dell XPS 13 with QHD+ display (it even has a touchscreen!). I can't really defend this other than to say I can do it and what the heck.

Yeah, there's not a thing wrong with that.

 

[Reality4711]

I am looking to do a similar thing and I looked up the Lacie Hard Drive linked in this thread, it seems apple stores stock in stores. Maybe one of us should buy one to test it out and then return it.

On ya go"comptr"!

Don't run any cards and cash don't live in my world.

I'll let you be the hero - look froward to your report

 

[sparksd]

I found the workflow so cumbersome as to be unusable for any more than say 50 photos, and that was without the added complexity of the WiFi drive/SMB share. I just kept the originals on my SD cards as a backup to the iPad's local storage. Still, I would rather deal with an underpowered device like the Surface Go (with full keyboard/mouse input) that can run full Lightroom than a fast iPad with a hobbled workflow. Whatever works well for you!

I did find one simplification - a Siri shortcut that --

"This iOS Shortcut opens all photos from your last import in Adobe Lightroom CC. Once completed, it will delete the originally imported photos from your Photos app to help you save storage space. You should use this Shortcut if you prefer to store your imported photos in Lightroom instead of in your Photos app."

https://photography.verneho.com/col.../products/move-raws-to-lightroom-ios-shortcut

I tried it and it works great.

 

[DragonX]

I tried many times to use iPad Pro 12.9 for photo editing/storing/organizing photos and always failed due to the following problems:

- you can’t simply use iPad on the go and transfer all your RAW photos onto it from SD card. All iPad card readers are extremely slow, it takes like 30 seconds to transfer one 30mb photo and if you say have 100 of them it’s one hour of transfer that always fails in the middle due to a random error! Also all SD photo card readers for iPad are very difficult to use.
So you have to have a real computer, transfer photos say, to Lightroom and then using a fast WiFi connection upload them to the iPad.

- while editing photos with Apple Pencil you never see the size of the brush before you apply it. It makes precise editing impossible

So I’m still using good old MacBook Pro with a Wacom. iPad Pro is still a toy.

 

[sparksd]

I tried many times to use iPad Pro 12.9 for photo editing/storing/organizing photos and always failed due to the following problems:

- you can’t simply use iPad on the go and transfer all your RAW photos onto it from SD card. All iPad card readers are extremely slow, it takes like 30 seconds to transfer one 30mb photo and if you say have 100 of them it’s one hour of transfer that always fails in the middle due to a random error! Also all SD photo card readers for iPad are very difficult to use.
So you have to have a real computer, transfer photos say, to Lightroom and then using a fast WiFi connection upload them to the iPad.

- while editing photos with Apple Pencil you never see the size of the brush before you apply it. It makes precise editing impossible

So I’m still using good old MacBook Pro with a Wacom. iPad Pro is still a toy.

Are you using the old card reader? The new one is extremely fast - I just transferred 4GB of 25MB RAW images to my 10.5 in some 10's of seconds. The old reader is slow but speed is no longer much of an issue.

 

[PBz]

I don’t do a lot of photo ‘volume’ but I do 95% of my edits on my IPP 10.5 or iPhone. I use the (new) Lightning/SD card reader to import RAW/JPEG. I limit imports to no more than 100 at a time to prevent crashes.

I have folders in iClould for pre/post edits.
I backup everything to Google Photos as well as Apple cloud.
LR and VSCO good at recognizing RAW images... IOS not so much.. but will import them.

I shoot Fuji so can’t go 100% iOS due to LR (occasional) issues with sharpening RAW files. I use a free version of Capture One for any ‘serious’ image that needs real sharpening. Rare but happens.

 

[DragonX]

Are you using the old card reader? The new one is extremely fast - I just transferred 4GB of 25MB RAW images to my 10.5 in some 10's of seconds. The old reader is slow but speed is no longer much of an issue.

I'm using iPad Pro 12.9" 2nd gen. What is the new reader, where can I try it out? Does the new reader work with the 2nd gen/lightning port?

 

[sparksd]

I'm using iPad Pro 12.9" 2nd gen. What is the new reader, where can I try it out? Does the new reader work with the 2nd gen/lightning port?

It does work with the 12.9 2nd gen and is available anywhere Apple accessories are sold. It looks like the older version (slightly different size?) and it replaced the old version a couple of years ago. I had the old one too and the difference in speed is huge.

 

[jwar1976]

I am looking to do a similar thing and I looked up the Lacie Hard Drive linked in this thread, it seems apple stores stock in stores. Maybe one of us should buy one to test it out and then return it.

On Monday I was able to search through almost 2500 CR2 files on my iPad Pro via Creative Cloud (around 80gb worth) for which I have the 1tb plan, then cull the images and then doing the needed edits on my favourites. On a laptop or desktop computer, this process would have taken me a couple of days to get through, but LR mobile not only gave me the same results as a fully fledged PC, but it was all done in the same day.

I absolutely love how smooth the 2018 iPad Pro 12.9 is for editing things like wildlife & sports which don’t require numerous layers in Photoshop and can be edited on Lightroom CC with ease. It is just slightly disheartening that for the time being, I will need to take my MacBook Pro around with me for uploading images to creative cloud, so then I can edit photos on either device when away from home & once Adobe release Photoshop for the iPad, then I will be using the iPad for editing, even more.

It is just a shame that external drives are currently not compatible with the iPad Pro, with exception of the LaCie, WD my passport Pro, and the combination of the bridging nav device & usb hdd. But there still looks to be the annoying thing of having to copy to the iPad first, so bang goes my idea of getting a usb-c to CF reader, to upload files straight to the Creative Cloud and bypassing the iphotos app.

The only other thing that i have found on Creative Cloud on the iPad, is that when you choose to add files to be edited, it comes up with the following locations.

iCloud
Dropbox
DS File - which connects to my Synology Nas.

In all honesty the last time I owned an Apple product was when I had an iPhone 4 for a few months, so things like iCloud are completely new to me. I don’t know perhaps you might be able to copy from A SD Card / CF card straight to iCloud without saving to the iPad internal storage, but then I could be completely wrong. Like many others here, I would love to be able to be able to bypass using the internal storage and upload straight to Creative Cloud, but at this present time, it doesn’t look like it is possible for the time being.

I think tomorrow, I am going to pop into my local Apple store and ask them if there is a way that it can be done, without selling any of my organs on the black market.

 

[sparksd]

On Monday I was able to search through almost 2500 CR2 files on my iPad Pro via Creative Cloud (around 80gb worth) for which I have the 1tb plan, then cull the images and then doing the needed edits on my favourites. On a laptop or desktop computer, this process would have taken me a couple of days to get through, but LR mobile not only gave me the same results as a fully fledged PC, but it was all done in the same day.

I absolutely love how smooth the 2018 iPad Pro 12.9 is for editing things like wildlife & sports which don’t require numerous layers in Photoshop and can be edited on Lightroom CC with ease. It is just slightly disheartening that for the time being, I will need to take my MacBook Pro around with me for uploading images to creative cloud, so then I can edit photos on either device when away from home & once Adobe release Photoshop for the iPad, then I will be using the iPad for editing, even more.

It is just a shame that external drives are currently not compatible with the iPad Pro, with exception of the LaCie, WD my passport Pro, and the combination of the bridging nav device & usb hdd. But there still looks to be the annoying thing of having to copy to the iPad first, so bang goes my idea of getting a usb-c to CF reader, to upload files straight to the Creative Cloud and bypassing the iphotos app.

The only other thing that i have found on Creative Cloud on the iPad, is that when you choose to add files to be edited, it comes up with the following locations.

iCloud
Dropbox
DS File - which connects to my Synology Nas.

In all honesty the last time I owned an Apple product was when I had an iPhone 4 for a few months, so things like iCloud are completely new to me. I don’t know perhaps you might be able to copy from A SD Card / CF card straight to iCloud without saving to the iPad internal storage, but then I could be completely wrong. Like many others here, I would love to be able to be able to bypass using the internal storage and upload straight to Creative Cloud, but at this present time, it doesn’t look like it is possible for the time being.

I think tomorrow, I am going to pop into my local Apple store and ask them if there is a way that it can be done, without selling any of my organs on the black market.

The difficulty I run into is travel - Internet access is dicey or totally non-existent for possibly weeks at a time (e.g., Northern Alaska, Ecuador, Galapagos, farther reaches of British Columbia, Yellowstone) so I have to have a workflow that does not include the Cloud. Even good hotels in the States can have lousy Internet access and I'm not at all interested in tracking down access somewhere in town at night or early morning - this happened on recent trips to Philadelphia and Washington, DC. iOS's poor compatibility with offline storage combined with Apple's absurd pricing on iPad storage (essentially $200 for 256GB which has to be repurchased on every update) is really frustrating.

 

[jwar1976]

The difficulty I run into is travel - Internet access is dicey or totally non-existent for possibly weeks at a time (e.g., Northern Alaska, Ecuador, Galapagos, farther reaches of British Columbia, Yellowstone) so I have to have a workflow that does not include the Cloud. Even good hotels in the States can have lousy Internet access and I'm not at all interested in tracking down access somewhere in town at night or early morning - this happened on recent trips to Philadelphia and Washington, DC. iOS's poor compatibility with offline storage combined with Apple's absurd pricing on iPad storage (essentially $200 for 256GB which has to be repurchased on every update) is really frustrating.

Yes I know what you mean with various areas / places having lousy internet. I had no idea that you had to repurchase the cloud storage after an update, that is really bad practice by Apple. In the UK the pricing for iCloud is.

50gb £0.79 per month
200gb £2.49 per month
2tb £6.99 per month

For the 2tb it works out around $9.25 per month.

I will see what Apple say when I pop in there today & will report back.

 

[The_Interloper]

This is from last year but shows a really good example of a Lightroom CC workflow on the iPad Pro. He uses the old-fashioned SD card adapter to get images in, but once they are there it’s a breeze. As everything is saved to the creative cloud, they are automatically being backed up (including his edits) on his desktop PC back at the studio as well.

 

[jwar1976]

This is from last year but shows a really good example of a Lightroom CC workflow on the iPad Pro. He uses the old-fashioned SD card adapter to get images in, but once they are there it’s a breeze. As everything is saved to the creative cloud, they are automatically being backed up (including his edits) on his desktop PC back at the studio as well.

Thanks for that, after taking a glimpse at the start of the video, it looks like the images are still copied to the camera roll first & then onto creative cloud, or am I mistaken and it is straight from the SD card to creative cloud, without using any of the internal storage ?

 

[The_Interloper]

Thanks for that, after taking a glimpse at the start of the video, it looks like the images are still copied to the camera roll first & then onto creative cloud, or am I mistaken and it is straight from the SD card to creative cloud, without using any of the internal storage ?

They have to go into the camera roll first to the best of my knowledge; this is the iOS way of doing things and I just don’t think there’s any way around it (other than the Siri shortcut mentioned above to get rid of them after the CC copy).

 

[sparksd]

Yes I know what you mean with various areas / places having lousy internet. I had no idea that you had to repurchase the cloud storage after an update, that is really bad practice by Apple. In the UK the pricing for iCloud is.

50gb £0.79 per month
200gb £2.49 per month
2tb £6.99 per month

For the 2tb it works out around $9.25 per month.

I will see what Apple say when I pop in there today & will report back.

I was referring to repurchasing on-board memory, e.g. if I bought the larger iPad with 1TB, when upgrading I'd have to pay the outrageous cost for that additional memory again, which works out to $200 for 256GB - I can buy a 4TB HDD for $110, a one-time cost that carries over from device to device. External storage can be had for far cheaper than internal storage which is why I wish the iPad supported it.

 

[jwar1976]

They have to go into the camera roll first to the best of my knowledge; this is the iOS way of doing things and I just don’t think there’s any way around it (other than the Siri shortcut mentioned above to get rid of them after the CC copy).

That is a right shame in that case then, don’t get me wrong the MBP is light enough to go into my rucksack which has a padded laptop compartment, but it would had been nice to just have my iPad with me, due to the amount of Camera gear I carry with me, when I am away from home. I will still pop into the Apple Store later and ask them if there is any method of avoiding using the internal storage, even if it means you can do it by say linking iCloud to the camera roll, so that anything copied to the camera roll is sent to the iCloud.

I will see what the people say in the Apple store, who knows I may have some luck.

 

[sparksd]

They have to go into the camera roll first to the best of my knowledge; this is the iOS way of doing things and I just don’t think there’s any way around it (other than the Siri shortcut mentioned above to get rid of them after the CC copy).

They do have to be copied. I've been trying that shortcut and have found that the process stops working after some small number of images (RAW in my case) have been imported into Lightroom - sometimes as few as 10.

 

[jwar1976]

Just got back from the local Apple shop, and the only thing that the shop assistant was able to offer me was the extremely expensive LaCie drive. He did mention that other wireless drives may work, but they wouldn’t be Apple approved, unless there was an official app for them.

He said the only other method would be importing a few images at a time to the camera roll and then syncing to your choice of cloud service.

So now it is a case of doing research on wireless hdd’s which can backup from a memory card.

 

[sparksd]

So now it is a case of doing research on wireless hdd’s which can backup from a memory card.

One of my main uses for the the FileHub when travelling. I have a 500GB external SSD (Samsung) that works nicely as it is so small (no real speed advantage though because the USB interface on the FileHub is USB 2).

 

[Stephen13]

Wel I took the plunge. Found a deal on a brand new space gray iPad Pro 12.9” 1TB WiFi on Amazon ($1,450). Must have been a great deal because the price jumped up $100 overnight.

The pencil is fantastic. So is the design of the iPad Pro. Currently syncing everything on my iMac using LR CC.