Import to LR Mobile directly from SD card on iPad

[bobgoldstein]

The directions for LR Mobile refer to the Camera Roll as the source for images.  If I have an SD card attached via the lightning connector to my iPad, what do I do to get the images from the card into LR Mobile?

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi Robert,

Please refer How to transfer photos from a camera or card reader to Photoshop Lightroom

I hope that helps!

Regards,

Sheena

[bobgoldstein]

Your suggestion did not relate to LR Mobile. I am asking about using that on an IOS device. To recast the question, do I have to use Photos app first to get the image files into my camera roll?

Bob Goldstein

408-253-4489

[Sheena Kaul · Accepted solution]

I apologize for previous post.

Please follow the tutorial: Manage collections & import photos with Lightroom on mobile | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC tutorials

I hope this answers the question.

Regards,

Sheena

[bobgoldstein]

Thanks. I was hoping that LR Mobile could access a connected SD card and import files directly but it seems it cannot. Photos to be imported to LRM have tone already on the camera roll.

[Sheena Kaul]

You are welcome!

Thanks for the feedback. I will pass it on to the concerned team and hope that this functionality will be introduced in the future updates.

[PhilipDN]

Six months on and no sign of what I would regard as basic functionality. I have a WD My Passport Pro Wireless Hard Drive that I use whenever I am on the road. At present I have to use the WD software to manually open each file individually in LR CC on my iPad Pro. The WD software is limited in that the drive is essentially a storage and server device and it cannot preview raw images.

I don’t want to have to store my images twice on my iPad by loading them all into my Camera Roll. It would seem to be a simple thing to be able to import directly from the drive, or as in the previous posters case from the SD card.

Is LR CC a serious tool for the Pro-Am photographer or just a toy for the masses? It is already bugging me that I have to use at least three other Apps to do the same editing I can on my LR Classic.

[iamcdn]

Still no useful response to this problem?

[iamcdn]

Does everything have to go through the camera roll?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Either through the camera roll, or the Files app. That’s an OS limitation AFAIK.

[keitht3311]

Hey Victoria,

You mention the Files app? I like the Files app on my iPad Pro, but wondering how you incorporate the files app in your workflow to be able to import into LR on the iPad? Would you mind explaining please, as it would be great if I could see my Apple SD reader, but currently can’t even see it in files app. Maybe I’m missing something, but would really love to have this functionality if you know how.

Thanks kindly,

Keith

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Photos that are in Files.app (e.g. those in Dropbox) can be imported through there. For your SD card reader, pull them in through Photos.app, then you can import them into Lightroom.

[PhilipDN]

Victoria,

Either of those options is a clutz. It may be a limitation imposed by Apple, I don’t know. In any case my work around is better than either option of Dropbox or Photo’s. Exporting one at a time from WD My Passport May be painful but is bettter than loading hundreds of images into Photo’s or uploading to Dropbox. More often than not if I’m on the road I don’t have the bandwidth to upload to Dropbox any way. Also I don’t want to store all my images on my iPad, It would fill up very quickly.

So we are left where we were   ☹️ 

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

PhilipDN  wrote

Either of those options is a clutz. It may be a limitation imposed by Apple, I don’t know.

Yes, it is a limitation imposed by Apple. If you can see your WD My Passport from Files, you might be able to access them that way.

[Stefan Wolfrum]

Yep, it‘s SO unfortunate that Apple allows only Apple to access a plugged-in SD card reader (is there another one than the one from Apple anyway?)!

Currently, developers of iOS apps have no chance: as soon as the Lightning SD card adapter is plugged into an iOS device the one and only app that launches (and thus has access to the SD card) is Apple‘s very own Photos app.

Adobe‘s in-app teaser suggests otherwise:

„... directly to your phone ...“ – that‘s cleverly put! Look at the photo: the adapter is connected and the screen shows Lightroom CC. What does this suggest to you?

Do we know what iOS‘s Photos app does with the imported photos? To meta data or even image data?

Plus: in Photos app‘s import dialog we can‘t see which of the photos are RAW and which are JPG/TIFF/...!

If I only want to import the RAW images from the SD card into Lightroom CC on my iPad Pro it‘s a guess work (because I shoot RAW+JPG on my Sony Alpha 7II).

It would be a little help if Apple would propagate a connected SD card to iOS‘s Files app so that we don‘t have to put photos first into the Photos app, then import them from there into the Lightroom CC app and then remove them from the Photos app again. However, at least in the current iOS release 11.3.1 a connected SD card (reader) doesn‘t appear in the Files app. Huge bummer! I sincerely hope that this will come in a future iOS version!

So, folks, that‘s the status quo we all (even Adobe!) have to deal with.

Puzzles me, however, that not even a company as huge and important as Adobe can talk to Apple about this and get something from them!

[cherrytrain]

I’m in chock that this is the second time I try to do the same things as everyone in this Forum and cannot.

I agree with you, something‘a gotta be done. advertisi something that is so practical and would be a game changer for artists On a go, and not following through just makes Adobe look immature.

High Tech needs High functionally people.

Let’s go!!!

[chrisa56612723]

Has anyone tried the File Browser app? It’s a paid app but is awesome from a file access standpoint. https://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/ Just thought I’d see. I’ll try it if not and let everyone know if it works.

[bellevue scott]

After two years I can’t believe Adobe hasn’t figured this out. I was excited to take my iPad Pro to Europe and use lightroom cc to edit photos on the iPad, importing photos using a cf card reader. But lightroom requires you to first put them on the iPad, then import them to the cloud. Talk about clumsy and redundant!

What at started out as a revolutionary way to manage and process photos is turning into a real cluster. Sorry Lightroo, you lose this round.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/bellevue+scott  wrote

After two years I can’t believe Adobe hasn’t figured this out.

Unfortunately that's not something that's in Adobe's control. It's an Apple iOS limitation. On Android, you can copy straight into Lightroom.

[bellevue scott]

That's unfortunate for Adobe. Unfortunately I hear this a lot from MVPs and Adobe personnel in the forums, but honestly, that's not my problem, and Adobe blaming Apple doesn't solve the problem or get us any closer to a solution. So really, with all due respect, this is kind of a non answer, and I don't mean to be rude. Adobe and Apple need to sort that out. They're both 800lb gorillas and are quite used to working together. For me, I can't get involved as an individual consumer. So for me, all I can say is that Adobe no longer has a working mobile photo processing solution. But the problem goes much deeper, which Adobe needs to own. There are just too many features that aren't available. There isn't enough cloud storage. There's no solution for multiple catalogs.

And I'm sorry if I sound like I'm just dumping on LR. It does still have its place and for batch editing on the desktop it's awesome. But my work flow and increased mobility is forcing a change in the way I process raw images that does not include LR, and that's something only Adobe can fix.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/bellevue+scott  wrote

Adobe blaming Apple doesn't solve the problem or get us any closer to a solution. So really, with all due respect, this is kind of a non answer, and I don't mean to be rude. Adobe and Apple need to sort that out.

I completely understand the frustration Scott, as this affects me too. For your other points (features not available etc.), that's absolutely under Adobe's control and new features are being added all the time.

Importing photos on the other hand, is limited by the operating system. If a few years ago we'd said "I want my car to talk to my phone", that's not something a car manufacturer like Porsche could have done without Apple also having the same priorities.

As Adobe and Apple are both 800lb gorillas, neither can force the other company to do what they want. Clearly Apple are aware of the limitation, but currently have other priorities.

[shaunc69945801]

This is the most frustrating thing ever. The entire reason I bought the iPad was for light room and they can’t figure out basic file management. I am going to return it and cancel my lightroom subscription. Beyond silly

[Masintus]

Over three years later, this issue still hasn't been resolved, but I think the anger towards Adobe/Lightroom is misplaced. Clearly, this is an iOS issue, where Apple is acting like a bunch of D's restricting access to important functions to third party developers. Perhaps it's in the name of security, or a seamless user experience. But whatever it is, it's clear to me that they're trying to force you into the Photos app and making you stay on the Apple Plantation.

I've been starting to notice a lot of these types of "incompatibilities," in iOS devices, so I came to the opposite conclusion as you - it's time to dump Apple. Because they neglected the desktop for so long, I got a Windows machine to run Lightroom instead. I haven't looked back, and one by one, I'm going to drop these pieces of junk.

[Lawrence.Scott]

Bummer. I guess I need to take my Macbook Pro with me after all. But like everyone here, I was expecting to be able to import directly into LR CC Mobile form my card reader on my iPad. I suppose I could do that via Apple Photos, but what a chore. For me, this is complicated by the fact that I shoot Fujifilm X100F RAW and Apple Photos doesn't support Fujifilm RAW. (It will see the files, but does not decode them.) So my work flow would have to be: 1) Load into Apple Photos via the card reader; 2) add to LR Mobile - "blind," meaning just load the blank squares that Apple Photos shows. Oh well. I'll work on that.

[Lawrence.Scott]

Here is all I could come up with so far to import Fujifilm RAW via a card reader, to then edit with LR CC Mobile on iOS devices.

---

Uncompressed RAW (For complete editing in either LR CC Mobile or Apple Photos.)

First: Set your Fujifilm camera to Raw Uncompressed. Second: Import into Apple Photos via your SD card reader and the Apple Lightening adaptor. Third: If you have LR CC Mobile installed on your device (and have given it permission), anything you load into Apple Photos will then automatically load into LR and populate throughout the LR cloud and its connected devices. Bingo. You can then delete the Apple Photos copies and edit in LR. (WARNING! **Be sure the files are loaded into LR and its cloud before you delete the Apple Photos copies!)

Lossless Compressed (to get them into LR CC Mobile, but not edit in Apple Photos.)

You can use the same procedure with lossless compressed files and save space by half, with the only difference being that you can not edit them in Apple Photos. (They will appear as blank squares that can't be opened.)