iPad/Lightroom workflow while traveling thoughts.

[reidthaler]

Lightroom Version Number

Classic

Operating System

1. Windows 11
2. iOS

I'm taking a trip in a few months out of the USA and looking at option to have access to Lightroom without dragging around a laptop. I'm shooting with a dual card Nikon D810 which is set to duplicate but know that it's important to have a back up outside of the camera, that I always keep with me, which I can do with my Rav Power File Hub Plus backed up to a Sandisk Extreme USB drive, but would also like to work on them in Lightroom on an iPad Mini 4.

Reading this thread, it sounds like the images need to be on the iPad to edit them. Given that it has 128 GB of storage with 70 GB free, I could fee up some more space and that may be enough for my trip. But if I run out of iPad space, it looks like I'd have to let the images sync to the cloud, then delete them from the iPad, but they'd still sync with my Lightroom Classic catalog. I was thinking of this adapter for reading an SD card to iPad/iPhone.

I have to say that it's annoying that the iPad Mini 4 can run the last iPad OS, but I can't get the Select Subject/Sky masks. Kinda screws the idea of editing while I'm traveling. Maybe I have to shift the strategy and download to my iPhone 11 where I do have AI masks.

Just confirming all of this and open to suggestions.

Thanks,

Reid

 

[Conrad Chavez]

But if I run out of iPad space, it looks like I'd have to let the images sync to the cloud, then delete them from the iPad, but they'd still sync with my Lightroom Classic catalog.

Be sure to test this. The way I think it works is that if you delete images in Lightroom on iOS (or Android or web), those images will then be deleted as soon as possible from Lightroom Photos in Creative Cloud, because the cloud is considered primary storage* and the iPad is just one of the network clients using the original photos in the cloud. The consequence is that if you delete photos from the iPad before Lightroom Classic can download them (because Lightroom Classic is on a computer back home that is shut down), the images may not be there in the cloud to be downloaded when you get home and start up Lightroom Classic.**

So when you test this for a travel scenario, if you do not plan to leave Lightroom Classic running at home during your entire trip, you’d test it this way:

1. On your computer, exit Lightroom Classic and shut down the computer, just as you might be planning to do for your entire trip.
2. Import images into Lightroom on iPad with sync enabled.
3. With sync enabled, imported images automatically sync up to the cloud along with any edits you make.
4. Delete the images from Lightroom on iPad to make room for more images.
5. Wait at least a few hours to simulate the minimum amount of time it will take for you to return home and start up your computer.
6. Start up your computer and Lightroom Classic, and see if anything syncs down.

If the iPad deletions sync up to the cloud well before you return home, my guess is there will be no images for Lightroom Classic to sync down. But I wouldn’t mind being wrong about that.

*Until Lightroom Classic downloads the originals and syncs Smart Previews back up.
** Maybe a workaround would be to un-delete them in the cloud after getting home, because the Deleted collection holds deleted photos for a while, which might restore them for Lightroom Classic to download. But I have never tried this.

 

[reidthaler]

Conrad,

Thanks for your well thought out message. Yes, I'll try it. I think the operative sentence is, "if you delete photos from the iPad before Lightroom Classic can download them (because Lightroom Classic is on a computer back home that is shut down" however, I think it may actually be before the photos are uploaded. I think while they are in the cloud, they are safe, but will test.

I know when you delete images from the iPhone, they still sync to the Lightroom Classic catalog. That's why I tell students to reject on the phone, delete from your catalog.

But will test with your great guidance.

Reid

 

[clee01l]

I always use my iPadPro as a front end import to Lightroom Classic. When in the field I don’t do full finished edits or keywords. Things like sky replacement can wait until I get home. If I I want something quick to show I will create a Lightroom (mobile) album.

I import 48mp RAW NEFs from my Z7 into my iPad. I also bring along a separate backup disk for field copies/backup so I can reuse my camera cards.

If iPadPro storage becomes an issue I can clear the Lightroom app Cache It is important to have sufficient Adobe Cloud storage since a 32GB camera card won’t fit into a 20GB Storage plan.


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[reidthaler]

Cleo,

Thanks for the info. Looks like I may be using iPhone since I don't have AI mask on the iPad.

If your Nikon Z9 is like my D810, I changed the bit depth from 14 to 12 to make smaller files. Here is a good article that shows it only makes a small difference in image quality if you underexpose 5 stops. If I underexpose by 5 stops, I figure someone should just take my camera away.

 

[hmpost]

Great info. Like Reid I plan to travel for 3 months and do not want to take my MacBook Pro with me. This seems to be a great solution is to use Lightroom Mobile to upload my images to the Adobe Cloud storage as a safe guard. from what Cletus suggests I will have to increase the Adobe Cloud storage. I will still keep the SD card just as a back up, but I will feel safer knowing the files are on the Cloud.
Any other suggestions are welcomed.

 

[clee01l]

Great info. Like Reid I plan to travel for 3 months and do not want to take my MacBook Pro with me. This seems to be a great solution is to use Lightroom Mobile to upload my images to the Adobe Cloud storage as a safe guard. from what Cletus suggests I will have to increase the Adobe Cloud storage. I will still keep the SD card just as a back up, but I will feel safer knowing the files are on the Cloud.
Any other suggestions are welcomed.

When I travel for extended periods. I carry along a 1TB combo disk and battery pack. I import to Lightroom, sync to the cloud when I have a decent internet connection. I also copy a set of originals from the camera card to the 1TB EHD.
the Adobe cloud syncs full-size originals to my iMac at home while it is running 7X24. I then have a local copy at home which is backed up via TimeMachine, A copy on the Adobe Cloud, A copy on my iPad and a Copy on the portable EHD. The camera card is free to erase, reuse of lose.


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[tspear]

I found additional cards are cheaper and easier to manage then additional EHD.
I have eight cards (four sets of two). Four are 128GB, four are older 32Gb from my previous camera. So far, I have not gone beyond the larger 128GB ones.
Note: my longest trips are still around 3 weeks, since I am still working and I basically do never do video and very limited use of high speed action shots.

Tim

 

[hmpost]

Great and thanks for the follow up I hadn't thought about taking a external drive, but that would be a good extra back up. I was planning to purchase a couple of newer cards as I have lots of 32 GB cards
Again thanks

 

[dxu471x4]

When I travel for extended periods. I carry along a 1TB combo disk and battery pack. I import to Lightroom, sync to the cloud when I have a decent internet connection. I also copy a set of originals from the camera card to the 1TB EHD.
the Adobe cloud syncs full-size originals to my iMac at home while it is running 7X24. I then have a local copy at home which is backed up via TimeMachine, A copy on the Adobe Cloud, A copy on my iPad and a Copy on the portable EHD. The camera card is free to erase, reuse of lose.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

My issue is now with culling and deleting unnecessary photos from my hard drive. If anyone had some tips I would greatly appreciate it.

I am currently using Lightroom classic on my desktop as my main editor but want to switch over to using my iPad. As a less accomplished photographer I take a lot of bad/unnecessary photos. I need a method where I can import photos directly from my sd card into the my Lightroom Mobile iPad. Then I want to cull and edit on my iPad. Then I only want to save the edited raws/dng files of my good photos to a physical drive.

Here is my proposed method if anyone has any notes to make here.

1. Transfer photos from SD card into Lightroom iPad into an album.
2. Cull and edit in Lightroom iPad.
3. Export remaining photos from album as DNG files with edits baked in to my travel SSD.

Thank you to anyone who takes a look at this.

 

[clee01l]

I see a few problems with this workflow.
When you import into Lightroom on the iPad, your images will sync to the Adobe Cloud. If you have a 1TB Lightroom plan or a Photography plan with increased cloud storage, I don't see a problem . However, with the basic 20GB photography plan, a 32GB camera card will fill all of your 20GB storage and then some. You will constantly need to manage the images that are synced to the cloud to stay inside your plan limits.

The other problem is "I only want to save the edited raws/dng files of my good photos to a physical drive." This is akin to the film practice of making paper prints and throwing away the negatives. With the finished images exported, you have baked in any adjustments and can't re edit and this becomes worse it you export a cropped image.

The other issue is backups. You are most vulnerable to lose image data when you travel. That travel SSD can become lost or stolen easily and even damaged during transit, leaving you with no images from your once in a lifetime trip..

 

[hmpost]

I did check with Adobe and they can bump up the storage to 1TB for the duration of our trip for $9 more per month. When I get home from our travels, I can sync with Lightroom Classic and reduce the storage plan.

 

[reidthaler]

The other problem is "I only want to save the edited raws/dng files of my good photos to a physical drive." This is akin to the film practice of making paper prints and throwing away the negatives. With the finished images exported, you have baked in any adjustments and can't re edit and this becomes worse it you export a cropped image.

Cletus,

Would this be the case if you exporting as DNG. It's my understanding that since DNG is a RAW file, your edits would not be baked in. While I've always been dubious about DNG files, it seems that this would be a way of backing up your edits while traveling, if you didn't have a reliable internet connection.

 

[reidthaler]

I did check with Adobe and they can bump up the storage to 1TB for the duration of our trip for $9 more per month. When I get home from our travels, I can sync with Lightroom Classic and reduce the storage plan.

Do you have a link that I could refer to my clients to bump up storage to 1 TB while traveling? $9 seems reasonable to have cloud storage while traveling.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

1. Transfer photos from SD card into Lightroom iPad into an album.
2. Cull and edit in Lightroom iPad.
3. Export remaining photos from album as DNG files with edits baked in to my travel SSD.
Thank you to anyone who takes a look at this.

When I tried that a while ago, it worked fine. Others are posting concerns about exporting as DNG, but the last time I tried it, DNG was really the only way to go if you wanted to preserve raw editing capability for Classic without using the cloud. Because in the export options for the cloud/mobile versions of Lightroom:

• Raw gives you the absolutely original raw file, with no edits of any kind, so although you keep the raw file, you lose the work you did on iPad..
• DNG means convert the raw to DNG. It can continue to be edited using raw level controls, with the edit metadata attached (not really baked in, but embedded alongside the raw like an XMP file) so you don’t lose the raw editing work you did on iPad — obviously the best choice if you don’t mind the DNG conversion. Not much different than converting to DNG in Lightroom Classic itself and then choosing Save Metadata to File.
• And of course JPEG, TIFF, etc. meant not preserving any raw attributes, so they’re not good options.

So exporting from Lightroom mobile/cloud to DNG is the only non-cloud option that preserves both raw data and nondestructive Lightroom edit settings, if you aren’t using cloud sync. What you do lose with any non-cloud export is data beyond the file level, such as membership in albums/collections.

 

[reidthaler]

I thought of revving this thread instead of creating a new one.

I was thinking the other day that my experiment using an iPad for travel and then having the images download to my catalog worked so well, that I thought what if someone still needed to bring a laptop, the they could use Lightroom Cloudy the same way I used Lightroom on the iPad and all there images would automatically download to their computer. Any thoughts on this?

My only question is (and just thought I'd save some testing time) what happens it you don't have any internet connection? Can you still work on your images in Lightroom Cloudy if they haven't uploaded yet, or must they be uploaded first?

Thanks,

Reid

 

[tspear]

Some functions are disabled when working locally. Such as the AI search engine. Otherwise, thee is really no difference.

Tim

 

[reidthaler]

Where does Lightroom Cloudy store images locally on the computer?

 

[johnbeardy]

It's your choice in Preferences, Local Storage.

 

[clee01l]

I thought of revving this thread instead of creating a new one.

I was thinking the other day that my experiment using an iPad for travel and then having the images download to my catalog worked so well, that I thought what if someone still needed to bring a laptop, the they could use Lightroom Cloudy the same way I used Lightroom on the iPad and all there images would automatically download to their computer. Any thoughts on this?

My only question is (and just thought I'd save some testing time) what happens it you don't have any internet connection? Can you still work on your images in Lightroom Cloudy if they haven't uploaded yet, or must they be uploaded first?

Thanks,

Reid

Other that the functional difference between the Lightoom mobile app and the Lightroom for Computer app, there would be no differences or problems. When I was testing the idea that I could replace my 13” MBP with a 12.9” iPadPro, I used Lightroom on the MBP and determined that having more than 20GB of Adobe Cloud Storage was more practical. My test run worked so well that I purchased a 12.9” iPadPro and used it for my next trip.


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