Compatibility of PS for an IPad and Lightroom CC

[DAJ Holmes]

I use LR CC extensively and downloaded PS/IPad today, yet I can't see any of my images on Adobe's CC when using PS/IPad, any ideas ?.

[TonySnark]

This may not be helpful but just thought I'd let you know that it's not just you; I noticed the same thing as well. I had to go to the share menu in Lightroom and share the image to Photoshop to get it to show up.

[DAJ Holmes]

Thanks for the workaround using share but to me having to share makes no sense, as the images are already on adobe CC

[TonySnark]

Yeah it's less than ideal.

After doing some looking around, I found Adobe's Support Article about this:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/cloud-documents-faq.html#difference-clouddocuments-creativec...

If you haven't read it yet it'll explain what's going on but be forewarned: it's frustrating to see in print. I figure, even at some point during the writing of the support doc, someone had to think, "Wow, this implementation is less than stellar. Maybe we should do something completely different." Oh well, they didn't ask my opinion.

[mikebrodt]

So, if I am reading that document right, Adobe doesn't have round-tripping between Lightroom and Photoshop on the iPad because they created a new type of file... a "Cloud Document"... that Lightroom doesn't support and is stored in a different place than "Creative Cloud Files", even though they are both saved in Creative Cloud. 

Now, roundtripping does work from Lightroom CC on the Desktop and Photoshop 2020. What it is doing is getting a tif from Lightroom and that gets saved back to Lightroom after. It never becomes a "Cloud Document". Photoshop for iPad only works on "Cloud Document" PSDs (I think?), so Lightroom has to export the file as a new file that gets opened and auto converted into a Cloud Document PSD. And since that is saved in a different place, and there is no compatibility in Lightroom for it, the only way back is to export the image back to a tif, and then manually import into Lightroom...?

[TonySnark]

That's mostly what I get out of it. I'm not sure Cloud Documents are PSDs necessarily based on the line, "To see your Photoshop edits reflected within your Lightroom catalog, you can export your cloud document into a file format supported by Lightroom, such as a PSD or TIFF, and import your photo back into Lightroom.", but otherwise that seems to be the gist. 

My thought was that "Cloud Documents" are likely similar to smart previews - some proprietary DNG-based filetype that needed to be more flexible than LR smart previews, hence the incompatibility. If any of that is remotely close to accurate I'm sure we'll see a merging of the two types in the next few years. Probably much sooner if they focused on Lightroom CC rather than Classic compatibility, but until CC and Classic are a 1:1 match I'll deal with differing filetypes. 

OR I could be completely off-base and LR files are stored in Azure and PS files in AWS and we're just waiting for contracts to expire!

[David_Illig]

From new2dslr's linked Adobe document: To work with Lightroom photos in Photoshop on the iPad, select a photo from within Lightroom Classic or Lightroom Desktop, and open the photo within Photoshop on your desktop by selecting Photo > Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop from the Lightroom top menu. Once your photo is open within Photoshop on your desktop, choose Save as cloud document. Your photo will then be saved as a cloud document and available for your use on the go within Photoshop on the iPad. 

Wow! I think that needs to change to remove Photoshop from the loop. I would like to see PS Mobile be able to browse my Lr Classic files from a remote location, let me edit one, and move it back into Lr Classic. Otherwise, to have my photos available on the road I might as well carry my MacBook Pro and leave the iPad at home!

[TonySnark]

Ever have those days where you wake up thinking you're going to be really productive because you got some new tool that'll surely help you finally get those files edited and sent out? Well...maybe tomorrow.

But I have been looking around to try and figure out what it's doing with our files and also because I mentioned in another post (or two) that I got PS to recognize my files after converting to DNG. I don't think that's exactly the case.

I just uploaded a couple of DNGs to iCloud and tried to import them to PS Mobile but got the 'invalid file format' error. 

What's shared from LR Mobile are the smart previews (since that's all it uploads from the desktop) so that wasn't terribly helpful. Importing one of the DNGs into LR Mobile from iCloud (maintaining the DNG filetype) and then sharing with PS Mobile renders a JPG which gets read in PS, a "Cloud PSD" is created (point for @mikebrodt) and then the preview is generated. 

So many hoops to jump through! If only they could get ahold of the folks that created DNG files...

[DAJ Holmes]

It's interesting to read these responses, it looks like to me Adobe have just made life a bit more complicated.  

I think I will, with regret,  be sticking with my existing workflow, based around LR mobile used while traveling and PS & LR Classic on my Mac when I get home.

I just wonder to who PS on an IPad is pitched at,  as it seems to me it's focused on graphic artists more so than photographers who expected a seamless integration/flow of their images between their Adobe products.

[selondon]

It’s only the first release and hopefully development happens fast.

It’s a shame that there is no Lightroom Cloud integration yet, even for import in PSM, but I imagine it will come.

I think the high res will need to be in LR’s Cloud though and not just Smart Previews synced from Classic.

[selondon]

Please add your vote for the feature request on the following forum, which is monitored by the engineering team:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/integrate-lightroom-and-photoshop-for-ipad