Ideal (or least bad...) workflow while on the go ?

[Narracia]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic 9.3

Operating System

1. Windows 10
2. iOS

Hi there !
I have just sold my Windows Surface, and replaced it with an iPad Pro 11" 2020 512Gb. Now I'm struggeling with it, trying to find an "acceptable" workflow on the go.
I have some special needs, as I often work abroad, shooting MANY photos every day. I think I found a good worflow for backing up my files, using the iPad + 2To Dji Copilot + a Samsung T5 SSD. That's great, I have 2 copies of the photos, it's quick and reliable.

But I also need to start working on my photos before coming back home : 1-culling, 2-editing and 3-sharing a 30-40 photos selection every day. Most of time I have bad WIFI connections, I understood that could be a limitation... And #4, last step of my workflow, I come back home and I obviously need to finish editing on my deskstop.

1- Culling : no better solution than importing in LrM 2-3k photos every day (clound sync disabled), start flagging or staring, and deleting everything but my 30-40 photos selection. That would be great to achieve that without importing, but I thing it's not possible without a Gnarbox SSD + Gnarbox "Selects" app (expensive + out of stock...).
2- Editing : no issues with LRM editing tools, I'm fine with it !
3- Sharing : cannot export photos without connection... "Unable to export while offline". Is that an issue or a limitation ??? If it's a limitation, that's a real shame...
4- I still don't know how to finish my work properly. I need to copy all my files on my desktop, and sync the work already done with LrC : starred/flagged photos + editing.

iPad is designed for mobility, same for Lightroom "mobile"... but maybe I was mistaken
Please spam me with your ideas and thoughts ! Thanks !

 

[Jimmsp]

All I can tell you is what I do. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I take a really good, fast (i7 & large SSD), small (14 in) & light laptop with me when I travel. The laptop contains my LR Classic. I then put everything into a stand alone "Travel Catalog". I also bring a small (2TB) portable HD for backup. Even 4TB are available and not that expensive today.
My philosophy - if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right.
1. I then import everything into the pc, cull, rate, and tag in the normal way. BTW, the portable HD is large enough to even hold the "maybe I should keep them photos".
2. The laptop is fast enough for pretty decent editing wherever I am. I back up every night.
3. Sharing - it really doesn't matter what you use - you do need an internet connection. I generally produce a set of "photos to post", all jpeg, and about 800 px wide. These can be quickly uploaded to a site like Flickr or emailed, even with a slow wifi connection.
4. When I get home, I just import my travel catalog into my main desktop from the backup HD and off I go to finish them up.


Jim

 

[Paul McFarlane]

3- Sharing : cannot export photos without connection... "Unable to export while offline". Is that an issue or a limitation ???

You should still be able to export, but of course it won't go anywhere until you're connected again. I just checked in two scenarios:

- Share to > email
- Share to > Camera Roll

In both cases the export worked (having received the message you did) and once I was online again my email client sent the email that had sat in the Outbox.

I tested by going into Airplane mode (so nothing would be able to connect in the test)

 

[Narracia]

You should still be able to export, but of course it won't go anywhere until you're connected again. I just checked in two scenarios:

- Share to > email
- Share to > Camera Roll

In both cases the export worked (having received the message you did) and once I was online again my email client sent the email that had sat in the Outbox.

I tested by going into Airplane mode (so nothing would be able to connect in the test)

Thank you Paul. Some users experimented the same issue, it should be solved by reinstalling the app, I will try tomorrow !

 

[Narracia]

All I can tell you is what I do. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I take a really good, fast (i7 & large SSD), small (14 in) & light laptop with me when I travel.

Thanks Jim ! I would like to try to travel without my laptop, just with my iPad... But maybe I'm a light dreamer

 

[Tim Ryland]

I don’t do anywhere near the volume of photos you do, but here my workflow.

I use an app called FileBrowserGo. I create a new folder and import all photos (.nef files) directly from my DSLR’s SD card. I then go through twice. 1st pass to get rid of the rubbish. 2nd pass I go through and select the ones for editing. Once selected, I use the ‘Share’ option to send the selected files to Lightroom Mobile.

Hope this helps.

 

[clee01l]

Hi there !
I have just sold my Windows Surface, and replaced it with an iPad Pro 11" 2020 512Gb. Now I'm struggeling with it, trying to find an "acceptable" workflow on the go.
I have some special needs, as I often work abroad, shooting MANY photos every day. I think I found a good worflow for backing up my files, using the iPad + 2To Dji Copilot + a Samsung T5 SSD. That's great, I have 2 copies of the photos, it's quick and reliable.

But I also need to start working on my photos before coming back home : 1-culling, 2-editing and 3-sharing a 30-40 photos selection every day. Most of time I have bad WIFI connections, I understood that could be a limitation... And #4, last step of my workflow, I come back home and I obviously need to finish editing on my deskstop.

1- Culling : no better solution than importing in LrM 2-3k photos every day (clound sync disabled), start flagging or staring, and deleting everything but my 30-40 photos selection. That would be great to achieve that without importing, but I thing it's not possible without a Gnarbox SSD + Gnarbox "Selects" app (expensive + out of stock...).
2- Editing : no issues with LRM editing tools, I'm fine with it !
3- Sharing : cannot export photos without connection... "Unable to export while offline". Is that an issue or a limitation ??? If it's a limitation, that's a real shame...
4- I still don't know how to finish my work properly. I need to copy all my files on my desktop, and sync the work already done with LrC : starred/flagged photos + editing.

iPad is designed for mobility, same for Lightroom "mobile"... but maybe I was mistaken
Please spam me with your ideas and thoughts ! Thanks !

I replaced my aging MBP with a 12.9" iPadPro that has 512GB of storage . I use a 1TB iDiskk to make a back up of the photos that I shoot on the road.
I import everything shot into Lr on the iPadPro. When I sync, everything in Lr on the iPadPro gets sync'd to my LrC on my desktop Mac including any edits done on the iPadPro. I don't generally delete images shot in the field until I get them to LrC on the desktop. So far this has worked well for me as I don't usually shoot more 48mp NEFs than will fit on my iPadPro before sync'ing to the cloud. My Adobe cloud account is for 1TB although I have never used more than 100GB.

 

[RobOK]

There is a recent video by a guy using a special hard drive (gnarbox ?) where you load the SD card onto the drive and use a program called Select to cull first as a pre-step to iPad ingest. I guess it saves time on the iPad/LR load and he says the Select app is faster for culling than LR on iPad. He is a wedding photog, so has a lot of photos per session. I have not tried it, just sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Wh59LJlek

 

[Narracia]

There is a recent video by a guy using a special hard drive (gnarbox ?) where you load the SD card onto the drive and use a program called Select to cull first as a pre-step to iPad ingest. I guess it saves time on the iPad/LR load and he says the Select app is faster for culling than LR on iPad. He is a wedding photog, so has a lot of photos per session. I have not tried it, just sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Wh59LJlek

Yes, using Gnarbox is the only good solution I found so far. Very expensive, but that's the only way to cull/rate directly on the external drive (via wifi), before importing selected photos on the ipad.

 

[Larry Fasncht]

I'm in the exact same situation. Here is my best method so far, admitting that it is far from perfect.
Equipment; digital camera, iPad Pro 12.9", 1TB, iPhone, lots of SD card space. Creative Cloud subscription.

1. At the beginning of the trip, turn sync off on the iPad in Lightroom Mobile, and never turn it back on.
2. Shoot photos RAW+JPG
3. End of Day, import photos to Lightroom Mobile on iPad into album named for day and location.
4. Select and edit photos on iPad.
5. Pick the ones I'd like to share for that day to go out in an email
6. Export the picks as JPG and Airdrop them to iPhone
7. Add those photos to Lightroom mobile on iPhone in an album
8. Allow the (small JPG) picks to upload over iPhone
9. Set that album to shared
10. Send out daily email on travels with a link to that album

11. When I get home, the shared album from the iPhone will be synced with my Lightroom Classic desktop. Delete it. All of it. This is to avoid sync conflicts with the next step.
12. Now I can turn on sync on the iPad.
13. WAIT....wait....wait. It took three days for 10,500 photos to sync over a fast Wi-Fi/internet connection, but it did eventually bring in all my files.

I don't delete anything when I'm on the road.

I wish for two things. One I could selectively sync from the iPad Lightroom Mobile app (like I can in Classic). Two that I could perform a fast wired transfer of the full set of albums (too bad I don't have a catalog) from the iPad to the PC when I got home.

Next time I am probably going to take a laptop, as much as I'd rather use the iPad. With the Laptop I can sync selectively using Lightroom Classic, and I can easily import the entire "trip" catalogue and merge it with my main catalogue, or copy it, to my PC when I get home. The problem is that the laptop isn't as nice for editing, and other things that the iPad is ideal for. So there are trade offs.

One side benefit of this work flow is that I have the photos on the SD cards, which I don't delete till I get home, and a copy of the photos, plus edits, on the iPad. But also a copy of the very best of the photos on my phone and Cloud. So worst case scenario is I could be left with nothing but the few dozen that I uploaded while travelling, which would be bad but not near as bad as having nothing.

Still I'd really love to have a selective sync feature on Lightroom Mobile, and the ability to export from the iPad a group of albums as a catalogue over a wired connection.

 

[clee01l]

I'm in the exact same situation. Here is my best method so far, admitting that it is far from perfect.
Equipment; digital camera, iPad Pro 12.9", 1TB, iPhone, lots of SD card space. Creative Cloud subscription.

13. WAIT....wait....wait. It took three days for 10,500 photos to sync over a fast Wi-Fi/internet connection, but it did eventually bring in all my files.

A “fast” WiFi is 300 Mbits. You probably are not coming anywhere close to 300 Mbits on transfer.

I now use my iPad Pro exclusively to import and sync to my C Classic Catalog.
I don’t turn off my iPadPro WiFi even for glacial hotel room internets. Some images will be syncing to the Adobe Cloud. While I am away, my iMac is connected through a 1 Gigabit wired internet and the through put there is very close to 1 Gigabit speeds. Usually by the time I get home or shortly after my iPadPro connects to my home network, my cloud library is up to date and synced completely to my master Classic catalog. I’ve never tried to sync 10,000 images to the Adobe cloud from my iPadPro (I’m not sure my 1TB iPadPro can even hold 1TB of Nikon RAW image files (~45mb each). So my image files sync up from the iPadPro at ~150mbits or less and down at 950+ mBits

I run Lightroom Classic 7X24 on my iMac especially when traveling. I don’t have any significant bottlenecks, especially when my iPadPro has a good WiFi connection. My images are usually home before I am.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Larry Fasncht]

A “fast” WiFi is 300 Mbits. You probably are not coming anywhere close to 300 Mbits on transfer.

I now use my iPad Pro exclusively to import and sync to my C Classic Catalog.
I don’t turn off my iPadPro WiFi even for glacial hotel room internets. Some images will be syncing to the Adobe Cloud. While I am away, my iMac is connected through a 1 Gigabit wired internet and the through put there is very close to 1 Gigabit speeds. Usually by the time I get home or shortly after my iPadPro connects to my home network, my cloud library is up to date and synced completely to my master Classic catalog. I’ve never tried to sync 10,000 images to the Adobe cloud from my iPadPro (I’m not sure my 1TB iPadPro can even hold 1TB of Nikon RAW image files (~45mb each). So my image files sync up from the iPadPro at ~150mbits or less and down at 950+ mBits

I run Lightroom Classic 7X24 on my iMac especially when traveling. I don’t have any significant bottlenecks, especially when my iPadPro has a good WiFi connection. My images are usually home before I am.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I’d love to be able to do that, but here’s my problem, if I take 1,000 images in a day, and I only want to share 10, I have to wait until all 1,000 images upload before I can set the album to shared. That means that it totally defeats the purpose of uploading any photos. Plus, I often have not just a crummy connection but none at all.

When I’m in Europe, I can use my phone as a hotspot, but am limited to 2G speeds unless I buy a local SIM card. So again, way to slow to be useful.

When I’m at home on a fast Wi-Fi I do as you do, but it just doesn’t work when I’m traveling or on a cruise ship.