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thomass11583269
Participant
July 17, 2016
Question

Lightroom mobile raw workflow

  • July 17, 2016
  • 6 replies
  • 9575 views

Hei everyone,

I am very exited about the new raw feature of the mobile Lightroom version for iOS.

It seams that Lightroom mobile now offers all features I would need for a "real" mobile workflow for photographers.

So I tried the following with about 700 photos:

     1. Download the photos from my camera to my iPhone (into the camera roll)

     2. Add the photos of the camera roll into a new created collection in Lightroom mobile

     3. Rate, Flag, and edit some of the photos

           ---   every thing was fine so far ---

     4. Finish the photo editing on my iMac   

Unfortunately the cloud sync is super slow so I have no clue how to get my photos (and also already edited photos) from my iPhone to my iMac. My preferred workflow would be: To download the raw photos from the iPhone/iPad via USB onto the iMac and import them into Lightroom and only sync the changes made to the photos on the iPhone/iPad. Plan B would be to only sync rated or edited photos. Unfortunately both workflow war not possible - right? The only way right now is to sync a complete collection via Creative Cloud. I have no problem with syncing via the CC but for a couple of hundred photos it takes way to long. Image to be on a 2 week trip - there would be thousands of pictures.

Right now I am still waiting for my test photos to sync... it seams there is another problem because after 2 days only 4 pictures are synced.

Does anyone have an idea how a good mobile workflow could look like with the current versions of Lightroom and Lightroom mobile?

Thanks for any hints!

- Thomas

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    6 replies

    CromCrom
    CromCrom
    Participating Frequently
    October 11, 2016

    Interesting post Thomas, and thank you to Peter for the autolock tip - Adobe really need to sort this out, very tedious and impossible to use at the moment for anything serious. A direct point 2 point wifi transfer feature is needed avoiding any fashionable cloudy shinanigans!

    Just a quick addition - 10 photos done in about 30 minutes....well, it's better than 3 photos in about a week which is all I was managing until I read this thread. I just found one image that had been corrupted on the import into Lightroom, so I found it on the ipad using PhotoSync and then sync'd it across to the NAS (in seconds I should add!) I won't interrupt the big sync via adobe cloud but once it's done I'm going to switch off the sync and use photosync between the ipad and iphone and the nas box.

    Hmmm, I bet that any images I've flagged in lightroom ios won't remain flagged if I do it like that.

    I wonder if it's intelligent enough to recognise an image that I have both on LR ios and LR desktop and pair them up to avoid synching via adobe cloud - I'll experiment!

    P
    PeterRHawkes
    Known Participant
    August 14, 2016

    The synchronised is slow and only works when iPad is 'awake'. If I leave it for any length of time then the synch stops but starts again as soon as I 'wake' the iPad.

    The he only option is to sit with it and not let it sleep, is there not a way to stop the iPad to drop to sleep!!?

    Peter H

    R
    rixpin
    Participant
    August 14, 2016

    To stop the iPad from sleeping go to settings > general > auto-lock > never

    Obviously your device is more vulnerable with it off so remember to turn it back on again afterwards. It will also drain the battery so plug it in whilst doing this. It helps with uploading for me.

    P
    PeterRHawkes
    Known Participant
    August 14, 2016

    Thank you; changing to Never allowed 100 RAW files to upload in just a few minutes!!!

    Peter H

    R
    rixpin
    Participant
    July 28, 2016

    Having the same hurdle with Lightroom Mobile workflow.

    I mainly do travel photography and Lightroom Mobile is a great tool to begin editing some of the images whilst I am away. I would then love to continue editing when I get home, but syncing hundreds of RAW files from my iPad through the Creative Cloud and onto my PC is incredibly slow (impossible, even, if you use up all your CC space). It also seems pretty unnecessary when I could just copy the image files over locally (from either my iPad or the original SD cards).

    Ideally I would just like to import my images into desktop Lightroom from my SD cards when I get home (as normal), then just sync the edits which I had made whilst I was away. I tried this but Lightroom just ends up downloading duplicate RAW files and takes hours.

    It wouldnt be so bad if there was a way to just sync only those images which have been edited.

    Its great that Lightroom Mobile now has RAW support. A quick and easy way to sync edits made in Lightroom mobile to desktop (without requiring hours of uploading and downloading of image files) would be the icing on the cake!

      M
      marc-104
      Known Participant
      July 30, 2016

      Same issue for me

      i have 852 raw of 40mb from a sony a7r2 on my ipad pro ( that i have sorted edited, deleted the rejected photos)

      waiting to synch

      after 2 weeks only 5 have synched on the web

      if i can't recover on my computer the work on the raw made on my ipad pro then the raw import into ipad is pretty useless

        radiomaven
        radiomaven
        Participating Frequently
        July 30, 2016

        Been traveling for a week now. Have uploaded almost 400 images about half raw and half jpg since I am using two cameras. Did minor editing on my iPad pro which worked great. I can share links to my collections directly from the Adobe web site to friends and family while I am still on the trip. Don't know how long all the files will take to download when I finally do get home but so far pretty impressed with Lr mobile while on the trip using a poor Wi-Fi at my hotel.

        D
        Dr Tone
        Participant
        July 19, 2016

        Until there is a faster way to sync to computer outside of CC, I don't think Lightroom Mobile will be completely accepted into a photographers workflow.

        That said this is a step forward from the mostly useless import on computer and sync to iOS device for mobile developing we had prior.

        IMO, as it is right now it's a handy quick develop a few photos for friends or social media tool.  Any volume of photos will still need to be imported directly to computer.

        One more step to go Adobe!  Make us happy!

          radiomaven
          radiomaven
          Participating Frequently
          July 19, 2016

          Some iOS apps that store information allow you to see that info and download it directly to your  computer via iTunes. I checked and LR mobile currently does not support that option. So we must transfer the data via Internet to Adobe that and then download from Adobe  to Lr our computers - a double transfer that takes a really really long time. While that may be fine for a few images, it is certainly not optimum for a large number.

          I would suggest that Lr Mobile consider the existing direct transfer capability that iOS supports via iTunes, so I can plug in my iPad into the PC  and then download the images directly.

          Mohit Goyal
          Community Manager
          Mohit GoyalCommunity Manager
          Community Manager
          July 18, 2016

          Hi thomass,

          The best would be is to add all the image on the Lightroom catalog on iMac and sync only those images which you want to edit on the go.

          Sometimes its not possible to add images directly to your main computer in that case you can add images in Lightroom Mobile App from the Camera Roll and do all the work like rating, editing etc and sync it to the main master catalog on your iMac.

          You can access the synced images on the web as well, refer: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

          Regards,

          Mohit

          T
          thomass11583269Author
          Participant
          July 18, 2016

          Hei Mohit,

          Thanks for your answer.

          Sometimes its not possible to add images directly to your main computer in that case you can add images in Lightroom Mobile App from the Camera Roll and do all the work like rating, editing etc and sync it to the main master catalog on your iMac.

          That is exactly the thing I am trying to do. I tried to import all photos of a session onto my iPhone and after that I rated some and edit a few - Is it possible to only sync the photos I "touched" (rated, flaged, edited) in Lightroom Mobile, because now Lightroom mobile wants to sync about 700 pictures but it took days to sync 4 of them... the CC sync is just to slow for my workflow. Is there any other option? Or a better workflow?

          Regards,

          Thomas

            Bob Somrak
            Bob Somrak
            Legend
            July 18, 2016

            Direct RAW import for Lightroom Mobile is a BIG step in the right direction to improve the tablet workflow.  What is REALLY needed now is a point to point transfer of the photos from Mobile to Desktop.  Right now I use the camera connection kit and the iPad Photos app to temporarily store and triage my RAW photos.  When I get back to the iMac I use Photosync to wirelessly transfer only the photos I need to the Mac hard drive.  My iPad 2 and new iMac and Airport Extreme router all have 802.11AC wireless so the transfer is SUPER fast and no need for USB cables.  Also, for me the MAIN problem with editing on the iPad is the non calibrated screen.  I may use Mobile in the future when keywording and all the the adjustments are available and do final color work on the calibrated screen but NOT without PTP transfer.

            M4 Pro Mac Mini. 48GB
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