Import Sync Iphone Camera & LR Camera to LRC: How do I tell which camera app was used?

[bill.fischer5]

Lightroom Version Number

LRC 10.3. LR 4.3. Mobile 6.3.0

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

I take a lot of photos with my iPhone 11. I have been syncing my camera role with Lightroom then to Lightroom classic. I have discovered that the camera info only tells me that the picture was taken with the iPhone. It does not let me know which camera app was used. I would like to keep these photos separated. So now I have 2 issues.

the first is: how to tell which photos that have already been imported into Lightroom came from each camera app.

The second issue is to set up a workflow that will make this process easer from this point forward.

My first question is: For photos already imported how can I determine which camera app photos were taken on?

My question for imports from my IPhon going forward is: Can anyone suggest a better workaround or haver any comments on my present strategy?

So far I have come up with a rather arduous workaround. My plan is to turn off syncing with the camera roll to stop auto import. I will periodically manually import iPhone camera role shots directly into LRC (Lightroom Classic) with the KW "FROM_IPhone_Camera". These will go directly into my date sorted folders. (to do this import and retain as much of you metadata and adjustments as possible takes a bit of finessing which I will not go into on this post). If anyone has questions on that I will try to help.

The photos taken on the LR camera automatically go into LR. I will set imported LR photos to sync with LRC into a folder called "Imports from LR". Periodicly I will apply 2 KW's "FROM_LR" & "LR_Camera_App".

Two questions about this part of the workflow:
1. Is there a way to have LRC apply a keyword when these are imported? (I know that LR keywords do not transfer).
2. Is there a way to move photos from a folder to date sorted folders like we can do when Importing into LRC?

 

[Jim Wilde]

My first question is: For photos already imported how can I determine which camera app photos were taken on?

Two questions about this part of the workflow:
1. Is there a way to have LRC apply a keyword when these are imported? (I know that LR keywords do not transfer).
2. Is there a way to move photos from a folder to date sorted folders like we can do when Importing into LRC?

Although it wouldn't be a concern to me, I could easily differentiate between the native iPhone camera, and the LrMobile camera app, based on their filenames. They are different....iPhone camera names begin with "IMG", whereas the LrMobile camera filenames begin with "APC". Filetypes, in my case, are also different, I get HEIC files from the iPhone camera and DNG files from the LrMobile camera. So if I wanted to keep them separate in Classic it would be simple to construct a couple of smart collections to do just that based on those differences.

Regarding your other questions:

1. No, none that I can think of....but if the need for that keyword is to identify the camera used, then it's all rather moot as a keyword shouldn't be needed.
2. It's certainly possible to have all the iPhone pictures stored automatically in date-based folders (see the Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab), but that would apply to ALL images imported into any of the Lightroom apps, regardless of which app was used. Also, of course, it still couldn't store them in separate date-based folders, so photos taken with both camera apps on the same day would end up in the same date-based folder in LrC (though the smart collections would gather them into their own separate groups).