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iPad Pro Using iPad Pro and photography
- Thread starter Retroglide08
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You can edit RAW quite effectively in Lr Mobile today - I do this on vacation using a 9.7" IPP with ORF files from an Olympus OMD (~14MB per RAW). It is very responsive on my iPP, so even more so on the newer units. The difficulty is getting the files onto the IPP in the first place - iOS tries to render each RAW using the camera connection kit prior to displaying them to you and over the USB 2 speed of the 9.7" IPP it is painful (presumably faster via USB 3 support of all new IPPs). The best way (I've found) is to transfer over wifi from the camera or a device like a Kingston MobileLite (wih an SD card reader). Hopefully this will become a little easier with the new Files app (in the meantime the FileBrowser app is great). Note that the editing options of Lr Mobile are slightly different from the desktop version of Lr (particularly sharpening and noise reduction, which are a little less sophisticated) and you cannot keyword images.
You can certainly export images to an external source - and again this should be easier with the 'Files' app (at the moment the easiest way for me is over wifi using an appropriate app). However, I do not think you can use an external drive for managing photos via Lr Mobile apart from syncing with the desktop version (and it needs a CC Photography subscription). Will be interesting to see if iOS 11 brings this kind of capability (i.e. image previews of externally stored images that are not in the cloud).
You can certainly export images to an external source - and again this should be easier with the 'Files' app (at the moment the easiest way for me is over wifi using an appropriate app). However, I do not think you can use an external drive for managing photos via Lr Mobile apart from syncing with the desktop version (and it needs a CC Photography subscription). Will be interesting to see if iOS 11 brings this kind of capability (i.e. image previews of externally stored images that are not in the cloud).
It´s true, but for my needs, if i can´t stop paying for creative cloud and go only iOS Photos for the little RAW work that i need, it would be perfect.
In the MacOS Photos app, the options are enough for me, i would like iOS let you this level of RAW editing in iOS 11.
At the moment there is no way to edit raw photos in IOS I currently transfer my photos from my camera, import to Apple Photos, export originals to my mac finder using my mbp. Drag them into iCloud Drive. They can then be opened/edited in Affinity Photo for iPad. But there is no way around using a mac/pc in the process at this time. I sure hooe that improves/changes with IOS 11 since I would like to go iPad only.
LR Mobile, Polarr, as well as the new Affinity Photo app are capable of editing RAW photos.
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My understanding is if the image originated from the iPad as a huge file there should be no problem editing it. The transferring and getting it onto your iPad is the trick due to current iOS. I don't know how or if RAW files from a camera can be transferred to iPad, but if you are able get them there somehow... again, it is should have no issue at all.
Kallum.
Kallum.
Looking forward to the new File System, it could help here.
In the past, I have always thought that the image I upload from the SD card, that came out of the camera, is "optimized" and of a lower resolution. I do my photo editing on the computer but would love to be able to do some small stuff in the field.
Adobe's been great at this imo.
I transfer all raw-files from my dslr to my MBP using Lightroom which then automatically syncs via Creative Cloud so I can edit the RAW files in the Lightroom Mobile-app, even on my iPhone.
I transfer all raw-files from my dslr to my MBP using Lightroom which then automatically syncs via Creative Cloud so I can edit the RAW files in the Lightroom Mobile-app, even on my iPhone.
This is incorrect. If you import a RAW image via the camera connection kit, you get a RAW image. It's been this way for a while, and iOS 10 brought a bunch of improvements to the system's RAW pipeline.
Additionally, you can use the app Cascable to copy RAW images to your iOS device for basic editing in the app, or export them to Lightroom Mobile, Photos or elsewhere for more powerful editing.
(Disclaimer: I work on Cascable).
Guess I fell a little behind in the technology.
Makes me glad I got the 512gb cellular 10.5 coming.
I will give it a shot for minors stuff in the field.
Thanks for the information.
Some brilliant and informative replies. Thank you. I've decided to "borrow" the wife's MacBook just to store unedited copies onto a hard drive just for peace of mind. I have iCloud, Flickr and google drive offering plenty of cloud storage to keep edits and for sharing. Now's the tricky part of deciding which size iPad Pro to get
Any chance that you guys will have support for Panasonic m4/3 cameras on the roadmap in the near future...?
Nope.
Has anyone tested if you can plug in a powered external drive or USB drive using the adapter and access the files in the new Files app?
I have a love/hate relationship with Lightroom Mobile. When it works, it works really well. When it doesn't, it craps the bed and seems unfixable. I happily used it for years and then something went wrong and now nothing syncs between the two. I had done a big portrait shoot in my small, in-home studio for Christmas cards with my kids. I took a bunch because we had our second last summer and the two of them were being really cute together. I even offloaded them to my Mac to sync over CC to the iPad. I flagged and then starred and then edited them 95% of the way there using LR Mobile. Spent many hours doing this as it's a lot faster and more relaxing to kick back with the iPad. Then I tried to open them on my Mac to do the test strip prints and color correction, but they wouldn't sync no matter what I did. I've tried uninstalling the apps and everything. I don't know what to do any more. I still use it for editing photos I take with my iPhone, as the HDR mode is pretty sweet and gives surprising results. I haven't tried it in a few months, so maybe it was patched. I was so frustrated with it that I just couldn't deal any more. I wasted a whole Saturday messing with that crap. But otherwise it's fantastic software when it comes to editing on the go.
Guess I fell a little behind in the technology.
Makes me glad I got the 512gb cellular 10.5 coming.
I will give it a shot for minors stuff in the field.
Thanks for the information.
Guess it depends how much you're dumping at a time. If you plan on storing them indefinitely on the iPad, then that's one thing. But otherwise Lightroom Mobile, if syncing from the desktop, will just stream in lower resolution previews that you can fully edit in RAW and see the changes. There is an option to store them locally, but it only stores the smaller preview files so you don't have to stream them in, and if you go to export those, it only exports the smaller resolution. If you import to the iPad, then it can edit and export the full size (up to a certain extent). What I'm not sure about is if it keeps the full size on the iPad indefinitely, or if it optimizes it and sends it back to the cloud to keep the original on your Mac. I haven't used the syncing much since it broke for me, as I mentioned above, so I haven't done a lot with opening full size RAWs.
I am not a Cloud user except for backups. I use Dropbox.
The new file system could really change things. I still can hardly believe it as I and many others have been wishing for this for a LONG time!
The new file system could really change things. I still can hardly believe it as I and many others have been wishing for this for a LONG time!
I hope Files app will be able to work with SD card readers! it is what I think the last step for an extremely mobile travel photography setup!
Files does not support external drives. There is currently no way to save anything to an sd card or usb drive
The must for using the icloud drive with the ipad combined with the mac is how Affinity Photo explained to me as the only way to open raw photos in Affinity Photo for iPad. AP for ipad will open jpegs from the Photos App for editing on the ipad with no need to also use the Mac. I also know that you can get a camera adapter for the ipad to transfer your photos from camera to ipad but if they are raw files I know no way to develop them on the ipad alone. I dont have, nor will never have Photoshop CC for its mobile lightroom.
My hope is that when iOS 11 is released, I can use the Files app to import photos to my iCloud using the SD Card reader for iPad. Then it truely wouldn't need a Mac. I will see how it works when the public beta comes out soon.
The limitation is on Affinity. With several programs you can easily develop raw files saved in the photo library, imported with the USB adapter:
Lightroom mobile (if you don't want to pay for it, fine, but it works and it's free for raws in the DNG format), Snapseed, Photoshop express (there you go, these ones are free), polarr (for DNGs).
I'm sure Affinity will figure it out, like everybody else. They are very smart people.
I'll tell you more; for the time being, I've found a workaround for affinity, if you are a user of the workflow app (you should, it's free now):
1) Create a workflow with just the "open in" action.
2) Open the raw file in the photo app, tap on share → workflow
→ open in → affinity. Done, your raw file is in Affinity photo for iPad.
EDIT 2017/06/07:
Affinity has been updated with better raw support. Imported Raw files now work out of the box, workaround not needed anymore.
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I wish Adobe would come out with an iOS specific Lightroom package. Would love to run only an iPad for my photography with Lightroom, but would prefer to pay less since I won't be using the desktop features.
So you can import RAW files to the photo library on the iPad? Or is it a seperate photo library in the Lightroom mobile app? If it was the regular photo library then I am unsure why Affinity couldn't read the RAW file from there. Hmmm, I need to get my hands on an SD card reader for the iPad.
The first you said. And you cannot import files from external drives to any other location. You have to pass from the Apple photo library first.
Note that:
1) the photo App will not allow you to edit the raw file, only the jpeg preview. To edit the raw, you need a compatible app. For some crazy reason, Apple photos can edit Raw files on the Mac, but not on iOS.
2) One word of advice: everything I said works if you shoot only raw files. If you shoot RAW+JPEG, the camera adapter will only see and import the jpegs...go figure
3)...the UI to import photos from the adapter is super bad: untouched since since iOS7 and conceptually identical to how it was in iOS3.