Import pictures from iPad photos to Lightroom

[Blackcountryman]

I am trying to process some pictures from my Photos file on the iOS app. I I have an iPad 2021 64mb running iOS 16.2. LR refuses to see ANY photos other than a few I imported from a camera a few months back. I have set Settings-Lightroom-Photos-All Photos but that makes no difference. I cannot find any helpful advice from searching. Any advice please?

[Ged_Traynor]

Moved to the Lightroom ecosystem (Cloud-based) forum from Using the Community

[JohanElzenga]

Apple Photos can automatically offload images to iCloud to save space on the device. What remains is just a small preview, but I assume that Lightroom for iPad will not show that because it can't work with it. Could that be the explanation?

[Blackcountryman]

Thanks for the reply. I have increased my iCloud memory to accommodate pictures as the iPad has such a small unexpandable memory. But I would expect the app to show thumbnails, a list, or other notification of their existence? I can easily view my pictures on the iPad so it does seem a bug in the LR app if it can't!

But that is so, can anyone explain what I need to do in iOS to enable LR to detect pictures?

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

I think the explanation is as follows: If the images are offloaded to iCloud, then Lightroom can't use them. That is why it also does not show them. Apple Photos can use them because it automatically downloads whatever it needs. That is why Apple Photos will show the images and Lightroom will not.

[Blackcountryman]

Johann, I think you're right. I've been looking at my iCloud storage and I can certainly transfer the lot back but I can't see how to do that selectively. Before submitting this post, I did some research to see if I could selectively send pictures to Lightroom through Settings - Lightroom, but it failed. I'll do some experimenting and get back with my results, this will have to be torrow now though.

[Blackcountryman]

Thanks. I gave up on the iPad and downloaded the files from the iCloud website onto my PC and processed them in Lightroom Classic with no problems. I'm not sure I'll ever bother with the iPad apps for Lightroom.