P: Photoshop/Lightroom Mobile: Edit in interoperability for iPad

[thomasnash]

Brand new Photoshop for iPad is a great advance. Within Lightroom on the iPad I immediately looked for a way to directly export to PS, as one can do on the desktop with an "edit in" command. After the PS edit is complete and saved, the file instantly becomes a part of the LR library. This seems to be an obviously missing feature in iOS. Did I miss it, or is this a planned upgrade feature?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

I'm certain that's already on their radar, but extra votes can only help with priorities. In the meantime, I wrote up the workflow here.

[thomasnash]

I had tried your workflow, and retried it after reading your comment. LR creates a maximum size jpg to send to PS. That's not acceptable. One wants the raw (nef for Nikon) to go to PS and I can see no straightforward way to do that.

I tried to Export Original to files. Adobe Document Cloud is greyed out. I did manage to save to my Desktop folder (this is the desktop on my desktop mac) in Apple  iCloud Drive. PS on the iPad could not recognize the file (Unsupported File Format). PS on the desktop correctly opened it into Camera Raw as a nef file.

Conclusion is PS for the iPad does not have Camera Raw available. And there is no way to work around and do the equivalent of an "edit in" Photoshop from LR for iPad.

I sure hope this is on the short range radar and that they can swing some iOS expertise back to LR for iPad as improvements are getting delayed badly on iOS apparently I would guess while the PS for iPad development gets priority.

[thomasnash]

I would add that even ignoring the LR integration with PS on the iPad issue, there is a grossly missing ability in the new PS for iPad to read and edit raw files directly from the Apple's iOS file system which had been imported from a camera or storage card.

[TripleShotEspresso]

To be the "world's best imaging and graphic design software" it must be able to work with RAW.  Why do I even have to state this?  

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I hate raining on all the Photoshop team’s hard work. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy project. It’s just very frustrating as a user. This is THE workflow for so many people. Round tripping to Photoshop from Lightroom is second nature on desktop. Perhaps they hit a show stopping snag late in development? In any case, brings my iPad workflow to a screeching halt. Was so looking forward to it

[TripleShotEspresso]

It's simply unacceptable.  

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Integration will require work from both teams, and the Photoshop team have been... you know, a little bit busy building Photoshop.

Round tripping to/from Lightroom will absolutely be an amazing workflow, which gets my vote 100%, but PS is 1.0 and LR users are only a part of their audience. If they waited until it could do all the stuff we wanted to do, it wouldn't ship for years. This is just a start, and a great feature request to start gathering votes. 

[GloMacD]

 Seriously, I have to wonder if Adobe even understands how people do their work! For photographers and photo editors, the ability to go from Lightroom to PSD and back is crucial. I can’t believe this feature is “on the radar”. LR Mobile can export to PSD Express (useless as it is), so it seems a no-brainer that it would be one of the first things offered. Are you guys trying to get us to jump ship to other apps? Because there are others who are listening to us!

[thomasnash]

Adding psd as a format option in LR for iPad export would allow a work around as one can export in psd from PS for iPad to iOS files someplace and then import back into LR.
  
So this is a temporary fix that could be implemented by the LR team, but all external evidence of very slow improvements to LR for iPad suggests that their iOS expertise is helping out on PS these days.

[kireto_a]

Lightroom should not send the raw file to Photoshop on iPad(this is what Lightroom Classic does on Win/Mac) - this will require camera raw with xmp files integrated in Photoshop for iPad which will take time.
Lightroom for iPad should send 16 bit/Pro Photo RGB tiff much like Lightroom for Mac/Win does now when "Edit in Photoshop" is clicked. This functionality is already in Lightroom(not classic), it needs to be enabled on the iPad version. I've checked and Photoshop for iPad has no problem working with 16 bit/Pro Photo RGB files - I've exported a raw file using Lightroom Mac/Win to Photoshop using "Edit in Photoshop" and stored it as a Cloud PSD. Then Photoshop on iPad opened and edited the file successfully.
As a very first version this will be great, we most probably don't need a way to return this file to Lightroom, though it will be great to have both the raws and psdc files in the Lightroom albums.
This should have being there yesterday - now Photoshop for iPad is simply useless for photographers and creates a huge frustration. We understand that there won't be all the filters and adjustment layers in version 1.0 but not being able to start editing 16 bit tiffs is a real deal breaker and disappointing.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

@thomas, don't worry, PS for iPad is a separate team. When a release seems unusually quiet, it's usually because the LR team are working on something that takes more than one release cycle to accomplish.

Export options just came to Android, so when they make it to iOS (likely next release), that'll give us the ability to output the 16 bit TIFF's you desire to send to PS. Maybe they'll even get the direct integration done by then.

[kireto_a]

This is some weird logic and miss management. So we have to wait a few more months, thus photoshop for iPad is not coming in 2019. nice.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I am very disappointed that round trip isn't available.  This needs to be top priority.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

I've just spotted an interview with Tom Hogarty (big boss) in which he says:

like the current desktop versions, he definitely sees Lightroom being integrated with Photoshop on the iPad, sooner rather than later.
"I think without a doubt, we’re going to need what we’ve done on all the other surfaces, which is if I’m in Lightroom and I want to take it further than Lightroom can go, I want to edit it in Photoshop. [The Photoshop team has] an amazing 1.0 product out the door; we want to let them catch their breath, and then we’ll start knocking on the door."

[thomasnash]

Thanks for pointing at the interview. Clearly this thread's issue is going to get fixed, particularly with all the people chiming in with their votes. But Hogarty's general comments and emphasis on tutorials and a new kind of on-line camera club community does not align with what I would like to see. I know this sort of thing is the Adobe corporation's direction and clearly has been extremely successful for their profit line.

As a stock holder I am delighted (2000% increase since I bought in December 1999), but as a photographer, I feel let down as the basic things I want, like a convenient iPad field ingestion of images workflow, trickle out all too slowly. Thom Hogan has been writing about the continuing decline of the Interchangeable Lens Camera business and how it might impact the auxiliary businesses of which Adobe was traditionally a big example. I suspect we are seeing that result as Adobe corporate focusses on where they think they can make more money than just simple photography... sigh.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've played with iPad Photoshop, and it's a fantastic experience for doing detailed masking work. But how the heck are we supposed to schlep our files over to it, then back into our LR catalog? How I would like my workflow to typically go is, pull up image(s) in LR Classic, edit in Photoshop (on desktop), do some command to send it to iPad Photoshop so I can do my masking work on each layer, then have that work appear back on my desktop where I can run Actions and other stuff... (then maybe tweak it some more on the iPad), then have all those edits appear in my LR catalog.

Instead, what am I supposed to do? Save it do a Creative Cloud folder in Photoshop, then re-import that into LR when I'm done? Maybe copy the file back to the origin folder via Finder/Explorer then Sync the folder to get it back in? Now suddenly despite how nice it is to actually work IN iPad Photoshop, I'm going to have to shelve it for now, and just use Sidecar so I don't have to go through all that extra file management.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I think this is a great start! Looking forward to new features. I would love to see a more seamless integration with Lightroom mobile like there is on desktop version. The integration with Photoshop Fix App is great, quick export and return with changes to Lightroom.

[Chad K]

The ability to open adjusted Lightroom photos from the Photoshop start screen on desktop is great. It would be nice to see the same workflow brought over to Photoshop for iPad.

[mikebrodt]

There is no Camera RAW, but most of us use Lightroom, which can act for round-tripping. This is a vital, show-stopping feature for me, as I work in Lightroom and with NEF files. being able to round trip from Lightroom to photoshop and back is huge.

[kireto_a]

Thank you, Adobe. Lightroom now exports any filetype to Photoshop on iPad 🙂

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It would be very convenient to have the ability to open a document directly into Photoshop mobile from iOS Lightroom Mobile either within Lightroom or from within Photoshop.  Right now, you have to export it to Camera Roll, then import.

[thomasnash]

It is possible, but not obvious or intuitive.

First in LR for iPad click ... in upper right, then click Select, then select image, then at bottom click Share, then click Export As, then choose tif as file type, then click check mark in upper right corner of dialog, then scroll far right in Apps display and click on ... icon labelled More, then under Suggestions, scroll down to click Copy to Photoshop, then enjoy PS.

In that last Apps dialog, you can click in upper right hand corner on Edit and then make Copy to Photoshop one of your favorites so it will appear near the front of the horizontal Apps display and save a couple of steps.

Soon, I am sure we will be able to accomplish all this with one seamless click from LR. Maybe even soon, we will have direct access to Camera Raw in PS and not have to convert to tif.

[jeannem2590496]

Fantastic help - Thank You!!!!

[jeannem2590496]

OK so was able to move a photo from Lightroom Classic to LR for iPad and then with the above instructions move it to PS for iPad. Yay!!

So I made some changes and then was able to see the changed photo in the Creative Cloud Ap on iPad but how do I get a changed photo from PS iPad back to Lightroom Classic on my desktop.