• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Are you using the cloud-based Lightroom apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Web? Then you'll love my book, Adobe Lightroom - Edit on the Go!

    You'll learn how to use the Lightroom cloud ecosystem to organize, edit and share your photos. You'll also come to understand the thought processes used by professional photographers when they're editing their own photos, so you can transform your photos quickly and easily. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.
  • 14 October 2024 It's Lightroom update time again! See What’s New in Lightroom Classic 14.0, Mobile & Desktop (October 2024)? (includes fixes in 14.0.1) for Feature updates, new cameras and lenses, Tethering changes, and bug fixes.

Using IPad Pro m4 as traveling LR laptop replacement

Status
Not open for further replies.

billyobong

New Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2019
Messages
4
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom
Operating System
  1. iOS
Hello. I have a new IPad Pro, 1TB storage. I’d like to use this for traveling without a laptop. Is it possible to use LR mobile LOCALLY only, as a workflow/storage solution while traveling-WITHOUT GIVING ADOBE MORE $$ FOR INCREASED STORAGE? I am invested in LR classic at home and have a solid workflow there. On photo shoots, etc, I take my laptop. But vacation is a different matter and would prefer to travel without a laptop. I know that the Mac OS version of LR cloud lets you store locally. What about LR mobile?
 
I know that the Mac OS version of LR cloud lets you store locally. What about LR mobile?

The Local option of desktop Lightroom isn’t currently available for the mobile versions. (The Device tab doesn’t work the same way.) Right now, the only way I can think of to achieve your goal is:
1. Before the trip, install the Lightroom app for iPad.
2. In the Lightroom app, pause syncing, and never enable syncing during the trip.
3. Import and edit as needed.
4. When you get home, do not enable syncing in the Lightroom iPad app if uploading all images will exceed your cloud storage limit. Instead, either re-import directly to Lightroom Classic from the camera cards, or export everything out of the Lightroom app and re-import into Lightroom Classic. If you choose to export from the iPad app, you must specifically use the Export As option, and:
  • If you want to include edits done on the iPad that you can continue to adjust in Lightroom Classic, for File Type select DNG.
  • If you want to export the unedited originals, for File Type select Original.
5. After exporting all images from the iPad app, delete all images from the iPad app. This means delete them and then (very important) go into the Deleted album and then manually permanently delete those. If you do not do this, deleted images will sync when you re-enable sync! (This is to allow recovery of deleted images, but you don’t want them all to sync if that will exceed your cloud storage limit.)
6. After all images are deleted, now it is finally safe to re-enable sync without blowing out your limit.

There must be enough unused internal storage for all of the images you anticipate importing during the trip, because there is no way to avoid using internal iPad storage with this workflow.

If you want a more Lightroom Classic-like workflow on the iPad without depending on the cloud, you might look into the new Nitro app (not related to Adobe). It can be handy for no-cloud import, view, cull, compare, edit, and export on the road, and the big deal is that the originals can be stored normally out in any folder in the iPad OS Files app for easy local transfer to a computer later (using iOS standard methods such as SMB or an external USB volume). But the Nitro image editing tools are not quite as nice as in Lightroom, and any image edits you do in Nitro won’t transfer to Lightroom Classic.
 
Hello. I have a new IPad Pro, 1TB storage. I’d like to use this for traveling without a laptop. Is it possible to use LR mobile LOCALLY only, as a workflow/storage solution while traveling-WITHOUT GIVING ADOBE MORE $$ FOR INCREASED STORAGE? I am invested in LR classic at home and have a solid workflow there. On photo shoots, etc, I take my laptop. But vacation is a different matter and would prefer to travel without a laptop. I know that the Mac OS version of LR cloud lets you store locally. What about LR mobile?

All versions of Lightroom have the local option. I’ve been using Lightroom mobile for a few years now as a front end to LrC. I was willing to give Adobes another $10USD/month for 1TB of storage. It works great.

This was before the Local option was included in Lightroom mobile.

I can see where the local option might have an advantage if you were traveling without an internet or wanted to keep your images local while traveling. However, I see one problem with your proposal. To get your images on the iPadPro to sync with LrC, you need your sync the local images to the cloud to sync with LrC. Doing so will blow your plan storage limits unless you tediously sync and remove 20GBs of images at a time.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Hey Cletus-thx for the response. How do I utilize the local storage option in mobile? Does it go thru the cache? I was thinking that if I didn’t let LR mobile SYNC it would keep everything local. I agree that it would be a pain the delete 20g at a time.

And last time I tried using a mobile to classic sync on a vacation it was a disaster. I tried getting everything into classic when I got home.
 
The Local option of desktop Lightroom isn’t currently available for the mobile versions. Right now, the only way I can think of to achieve your goal is:
1. Before the trip, install the Lightroom app for iPad.
2. In the Lightroom app, pause syncing, and never enable syncing during the trip.
3. Import and edit as needed.
4. When you get home, do not enable syncing in the Lightroom iPad app if uploading all images will exceed your cloud storage limit. Instead, either re-import directly to Lightroom Classic from the camera cards, or export everything out of the Lightroom app and re-import into Lightroom Classic. If you choose to export from the iPad app:
  • If you want to include edits done on the iPad that you can continue to adjust in Lightroom Classic, for File Type select DNG.
  • If you want to export the unedited originals, for File Type select Original.
5. After exporting all images from the iPad app, delete all images from the iPad app. This means delete them and then (very important) go into the Deleted album and then manually permanently delete those. If you do not do this, deleted images will sync when you re-enable sync! (This is to allow recovery of deleted images, but you don’t want them all to sync if that will exceed your cloud storage limit.)
6. After all images are deleted, now it is finally safe to re-enable sync without blowing out your limit.

There must be enough unused internal storage for all of the images you anticipate importing during the trip, because there is no way to avoid using internal iPad storage with this workflow.

If you want a more Lightroom Classic-like workflow on the iPad without depending on the cloud, you might look into the new Nitro app (not connected to Adobe). You can import, view, and cull images in it on the road, and the big deal is that the originals can be stored normally out in the iPad OS Files app for easy transfer to Lightroom Classic later. But any image edits you do there won’t transfer to Lightroom Classic.
Thanks. I’ll give this a look.
 
All versions of Lightroom have the local option. I’ve been using Lightroom mobile for a few years now as a front end to LrC. I was willing to give Adobes another $10USD/month for 1TB of storage. It works great.

This was before the Local option was included in Lightroom mobile.

Can you clarify how the “Local option” works to avoid uploads? The iPad Lightroom app doesn't have a Local tab, but it does have a Device tab. The difference between the Device tab on mobile and the Local tab on Mac/Windows is that the Local tab does not automatically upload to the cloud after an image edit, it stores edits locally (in an XMP sidecar file). But on iOS, the only way to avoid Device tab sync is to never ever change the photo in any way, only view it. I just did a test where I imported a raw image from a camera into Photos on iPad, then viewed it in the Device tab in Lightroom on iPad. This is what happened:
  • If I simply view the photo in the Device tab, Lightroom doesn't sync it.
  • If I apply any image editing tools, Lightroom syncs it (it shows up on other devices).
  • If I edit the metadata, Lightroom syncs it.
So if the goal is to avoid sync uploads, the Device tab can be used if you only use it as a viewer, or if you are OK with it uploading just the few images you edited.

But there is one more workflow difference between the mobile Device tab and the desktop Local tab. The Local tab lets you browse photos in any normally visible folder in the Mac or Windows desktop, but the Device tab doesn’t let you do that because it cannot browse the Files app folder hierarchies on iPad. If you copy images from a camera card to a folder in the Files app on iOS, the Lightroom Device tab cannot see them. That is because the Device tab only sees what’s in the Apple Photos app. Which means…

If you do want to use the iPad Lightroom Device tab as a viewer only (to avoid cloud sync), then you must import from camera card to Apple Photos, not Files. But that means when you get home, you can’t simply copy the original photos from the iPad (Files) desktop to the Mac/Windows desktop to get them to Lightroom Classic; first you have to export all of the trip photos from Apple Photos.
 
Hey Cletus-thx for the response. How do I utilize the local storage option in mobile? Does it go thru the cache? I was thinking that if I didn’t let LR mobile SYNC it would keep everything local. I agree that it would be a pain the delete 20g at a time.

And last time I tried using a mobile to classic sync on a vacation it was a disaster. I tried getting everything into classic when I got home.

Along the bottom are icons for Local “Device” and Lightroom. You do not sync from a mobile Lightroom to the LrC. LrC Mioble synced first to the Adobe Cloud. LrC syncs FROM the Adobe Cloud. This is why you need more than 20GB of storage in the Adobe Cloud to accommodate more than 20GB of imported images. (A typical camera card might be 32GB or more.)
a7e19273d516b639ce746f108a8a0e82.jpg



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I am sure you will get good responses from those using the iPad regularly for travel.

I would point out the following.

Lr Mobile will only work with images stored on the iPad. Despite the USB c connection and ability to copy back and forth to an external drive, Lr will not deal with images on say an external SSD.

You can use an attached SSD for backup.

Having 1TB is a huge advantage for travel. I bought an iPad Pro specifically for travel, to discover that my 256GB model would not have enough local storage for certain trips. I mistakenly thought I could use the USB connection to make use of my Samsung T7 drives. Silly me.
 
Syncing 20GB chunks to LrC might not be so bad. On iPad, one might organise their travel photos in different “albums” (each not exceeding 20GB and named in alphabetical order) , then after getting home, enable syncing. With any luck, syncing will start with the first album, then the next and so on until 20GB storage is full. Albums in Lr mobile sync to collections in LrC. All you’d need to do from there is go to LrC synced collections and uncheck the ~ (sync) from each completely synced collection until you get everything transferred.

Would this work? I haven’t tested in which order Lr would start syncing and if it would be so kind to complete an entire album worth of photos before proceeding to the next album.

if you intend to bring home extremely large sets of travel images (hundreds of GB’s) this might still get tedious. But if it’s just a couple of sync rounds, I don’t see a big problem.
 
All you’d need to do from there is go to LrC synced collections and uncheck the ~ (sync) from each completely synced collection until you get everything transferred.

Would this work? I haven’t tested in which order Lr would start syncing and if it would be so kind to complete an entire album worth of photos before proceeding to the next album.
No, that won't work. When you unsync a synced collection, the images that it contains are NOT automatically unsynced, so aren't removed from the cloud. So, after unsyncing the collection, the "usual" procedure would be to then select all the images in that collection, then go to All Synced Photographs and remove those selected images from that special collection (which unsyncs them and so removes them from the cloud). Once that's done, if required one could then re-enable syncing for the collection, which will sync the images back to the cloud but in Smart Preview form, which doesn't count against the 20GB cloud storage.

In terms of order of uploading I'm not sure that it's simple to predetermine. I do know that syncing order is influenced by rating, i.e. higher rated images are synced first, but after that I rather doubt the album name sequence would have any influence, I would think import or capture time would have more importance.
 
Ah yes I forgot to mention deleting. Good point.

Regarding “offloading by 20GB chunks “, in Lr mobile, how would we be able to know exactly which images have been synced to the cloud and which have not?

Hang on I’m reading victorias ebook and apparently everything is done from LrC as it seems.
 
Last edited:
To be more precise I am referring to page 13 in the ADOBE LIGHTROOM CLASSIC & MOBILE TRAVEL WORKFLOW
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top