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Looking for advise on mobile workflow with LR Classic

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jemostrom

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Jul 8, 2015
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67
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8.3.1
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
  2. iOS
I hope this is the right forum for this question

I'm looking for some sensible way of handling my photos when traveling. I better start with some background info

I'm using LR Classic (I'm not interested in LR CC but have looked at other alternatives for use on my Mac). Since I want to travel as lightly as possible I've been experimenting trying to figure out a way to do my editing on my iPad. And I've found a way that works for me ... when I only take < 200 photos or so. I simply import the photos to LR Mobile, make edits on the iPad and then add keywords etc on my desktop when I get home.

However, I just came home from 10-day work trip with 45GB of photos ... which made my workflow completely fall apart. So I'm looking for some advice on how handle this in the future. Here is what I ideally would like to do

- Backup my SD cards
- Edit my photos using my iPad ... and have those edits available on my desktop when I import them.
- Tag my photos in way that carry over to LR Classic when I get home

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to do this? Is there some alternative to LR Mobile that works with LR Classic?
 
Answering the last question first: no, I doubt there is any alternative to using LrMobile....and even using that app won't carry the tags down to Classic, as Classic does not sync keyword tags with the cloud.

I assume your workflow fell apart because of the 20GB initial cloud space allocation, in which case there are only two options:

1. Upgrade your cloud allowance to 1TB.
2. Stay with the 20GB allowance and use the "20GB at a time" method.....there are some users on this forum who have recently reported on this method (with varying degrees of success), so hopefully they'll comment here.
 
The wife and I each have an iPad Pro 1TB and a WD My Passport Pro. When in the field we each shoot with 2 camera bodies. In the evening we put one card in the the Passport which does an incremental backup in a time stamped folder. The other card goes into a SD card reader connected to the iPad. When both devices have downloaded the cards, we swap the cards to the other device. So the images on both cards are then inside the iPad and inside the Passport. We put the cards back into the cameras and reformat them for another day of shooting. The Passports with traditional HDs are the best value. But for protection in the field, you can get a Passport that has an SSD instead of a HD.

In the evenings and on the way back home, we can use the iPad screen to cull images. We only edit if we need to share an image or two while in the field. When we get home we use Image Capture on our iMacs to download the images into a temp folder. Then we have Lr Classic import images into our default folder tree based on capture date. We also have Lr rename the images. After Lr has imported all the images, we exit Lr and have Lr do a catalog backup. Then we disconnect the iPads, have Finder delete the temp folder, and have Time Machine do a full system backup.

With iPadOS we have more options in doing backups in the field. You can download images from cards into specific folders using the new capabilities of the Files Manage app. I can already do that in the iPadOS 13 beta I am running. Then you can connect something like a Samsung T5 SSD and copy all the images from the iPad to the T5. So you can then have two copies in the field. I am sure there many other ways to do this that I have not tried.

If we do have to edit in the field we have Lr CC (Lr lite), Photos, Raw Power, and Affinity Photo to use. Hopefully soon after iPadOS 13 is released in September Adobe will release Photoshop and ACR for iPadOS. So by the end of the year we should have lots more options for moving images around, storing them, and editing them on an iPad.
 
Thanks for your answer. One question:
The other card goes into a SD card reader connected to the iPad. When both devices have downloaded the cards, we swap the cards to the other device. So the images on both cards are then inside the iPad and inside the Passport.

Where to you store the images on the iPad? In Photos? LR CC? Something else

And yes, iPadOS looks interesting.
 
Thanks for your answer. One question:


Where to you store the images on the iPad? In Photos? LR CC? Something else

And yes, iPadOS looks interesting.

I have been letting Camera Roll import the images from the SD cards. No problem import from there into the iMac. Once the dust settles on iPadOS, I will make some tests and see if I want Camera Roll involved or just copy over the folders from the WD Passport which can happen via wifi or a cable that would be USB-C on the iPad end and USB-B micro on the Passport end.

In the field you could easily have the image copies on: the original SD cards if they are not reused during trip, on the WD Passport, on the iPad, and on another drive such as Samsung T5. So there is plenty of possibilities for duplicate images...even for the most cautious photographer.
 
BTW, since we can attach an external drive such as a SSD, that can reduce the need to have so much internal storage in iPad. We got 1T storage last year and that is enough to store around 30,000 raw images from our cameras. But after a photo trip of a couple of weeks the most I have had is around 12,000-15,000 raw images to cull. And the reason for some many is that they are wildlife action sequences. If the shoots were all landscape and architecture, I would not have nearly so many.
 
[QUOTE="Jim Wilde, post: 1250632, member]
I assume your workflow fell apart because of the 20GB initial cloud space allocation, in which case there are only two options:[/QUOTE]

Yes, this is what I was afraid of. Thanks for the answer
 
BTW, since we can attach an external drive such as a SSD, that can reduce the need to have so much internal storage in iPad. We got 1T storage last year and that is enough to store around 30,000 raw images from our cameras. But after a photo trip of a couple of weeks the most I have had is around 12,000-15,000 raw images to cull. And the reason for some many is that they are wildlife action sequences. If the shoots were all landscape and architecture, I would not have nearly so many.

I sometimes travel and shoot sports so that means that I sometimes have 2000-3000 images in 2-3 hours, on the other hand I had a similar number for a 10 day work day trip so the number varies a lot for me. But that WD disk seem interesting ... the backup process seem really easy.
 
The WD Passport backup could not be easier. Put in the SD card and the machine automatically does either a full or incremental backup (your choice) of the images on the card. Each backup goes into a timestamped subfolder on the Passport's internal drive. The 4 LEDs on top give you feedback about what percentage of the backup has been completed. The HD versions are much cheaper but of course susceptible to HD crash. The SSD versions would be more durable but more expensive. I will stick with our HD versions for now because another copy will be inside the iPad and/or inside a T5.
 
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