LR Classic + LR & PS iPad

[joejukes]

Hello.

I generally sync my LrC collections to my iPad, if I need to edit on the move. Using Lr on the iPad syncs perfectly back to LrC and works very well. However, if I make a round trip edit to PS on the iPad, the resulting PSD that syncs back to LrC is a much smaller file. Is there something that is happening that I can control here? I assume it's editing the Smart Preview in PS (i have very little iPad storage so I can only use those), and then the resulting synced PSD is that of this Smart Preview, ie, these edits dont get synced back to the original RAW in the same way?

Can someone help me understand whats happening and what I may be able to do to make PS on the iPad useful?

Cheers.

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

If you sync an image from Lightroom Classic, then you sync a smart preview, not the original. This is unimportant for edits, because the edits are non-destructive and sync separately as instructions in XMP, not as changes in the image itself. It does mean however that there is only a smart preview size image available in the cloud, so if you send that image from Lightroom iPad to Photoshop iPad, then that is all Photoshop is going to get: a smart preview size image. And the Photoshop image is a new PSDC file, so there is nothing to sync back to in Lightroom Classic.

[joejukes]

Thank you for your time. That's what I feared. So what's the solution? Can I get LrC to upload raws instead of Smart Previews? Would be substantially slower though. I suppose then, that with my workflow PS on the iPad isn't really a usable product. Real shame. 

[JohanElzenga]

No, you cannot let Lightroom Classic upload originals, but there is a way. You need to use Lightroom (desktop) for that. Lightroom desktop is clever enough to understand what is going on when you import a raw file that Lightroom Classic has already synced as smart preview. It will replace that smart preview by the original.

[joejukes]

Could you explain that a little more please? As I use Classic to import and organise my shoots, how would it fit in with that?