Hi all. I’m putting the finishing touches on a new Adobe Mobile Workflow course. The course is based on a mobile workflow while traveling (using LR and PS on the tablet), and how to bring all of those photos and edits and organizational stuff back home to your main computer and hard drives.
Please watch the quick 3 minute video below and feel free to leave any comments on what you want to make sure is included. Thanks!
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
I simply want to access my photos to do post processing regardless of the device being used.
I wish I could use LRC mobile, but I find the small screen on my cell phone makes it impossible to use either mobile program with any accuracy or proficiency. I do not have a tablet and do not intend to buy one. So, while I am thrilled to find LRC on my cell phone, I cannot use it — the screen is just too small and even my small fingers cannot maneuver the touch screen with any accuracy.
Thank you for offering the course, though. It is very thoughtful of you and though I will follow your roll-out, I doubt that the course would apply to me.
Good luck with your “least popular” course!
I don’t think you’re alone. Thankfully nothing about what I’m teaching suggests using the phone for any of this.
Hi Matt. As I see it adobe is gently pushing everyone to their online platform. Lots of advantages for this but it comes with escalating costs. My biggest workflow issue is with LRC and LR. I really like the LR interface and the ability to work locally. My struggle is what to do with all my photos in the LRC catalogue? I don’t want to abandon these. Working on photos in LR doesn’t allow me to work on them in LRC and visa versa. Do I need to abandon LRC or LR and just work in one or the other? Lots to give up if I don’t use LR in the mobile world.
Hi Ron. I would agree to an extent. They have to move people. It’s the future and trying to get LR Classic to operate like a modern software application is like trying to get a car from 1985 to win a race today against modern race cars. They technology wasn’t there when it was created. That said, in LRC, for me all I need are my edits and you could go to ALL PHOTOS and force save XMP files and then when you open those photos in LR the edits will be there. Your collections will not be and I could definitely see that as an issue, but over time I just save my edits as XMP files and, slowly over time as I go through old photos, I’ll flag the photos in LR so I can easily get back to them. But there’s just no reason for me to worry about things I did 10 years ago to my photos. If I need them I can find them quickly and I have the edits, but I simply don’t need the collections I created 10 years ago. But I understand everyone is different. I just personally haven’t had an issue getting back to old stuff the few times I’ve needed and my workflow is so much easier, faster and more fun now so it’s worth it. Thanks!
I like this idea a lot. What I miss most on the road is to be able to transfer files from my Canon camera to a tablet without losing the raw format. I used to be able to do this for photos taken on the iPhone using the LR Camera app but not using the extensive range of lenses etc on my main camera. I am about to
Upgrade my iPad and do it would be great to know what spec I will need to make this effortless.
Hi
I use a PC at home, but on many trips (like last week in Africa) I only have a tablet. The tablet / Lightroom combination has some limitations on backup / entering into Lightroom, but I’ve managed : copy to the tablet, copy from the tablet to a portable hdd, load from the tablet to Lightroom. Lightroom then starts syncing to the cloud (albeit pretty slowly given WiFi in an African lodge).
I’d be interested in some way of doing efficient culling of pictures before all those steps. On the last trip I ended up with 3 – 4,000 images. Probably half of them could be scratched immediately (although they may be in focus and exposed OK). My android does not have an app that let’s me look at Sony raw images and quickly delete from the card. On the PC I use Sony’s Imaging edge desktop, and it is pretty convenient. I can see a list of images on the bottom, plus one expanded image. So if I see something that is not acceptable, I can quickly delete a string of similar images.
Thanks for your thoughts
Ron
I am interested in replacing my laptop/desktop to something lighter but as powerful for editing. I would use the table at home connected to a better/larger monitor but need a quality screen when editing on the road. my current iPad will not work for this as it is an older Air model. so guessing a newer iPad Pro, external drive for storing imager and maybe LR library, a hub with a card reader and TB/USB C ports for connecting a monitor when working from home.
Hi Matt, I’m anxiously waiting to this course since I’m getting older and weaker it’s hard for me to carry two cameras (Canon 5DIV converted to IR (590 NM) and the Canon R5 which is a lighter camera but the lenses are not so light weight friendly).
I’m slowly migrating to my iPhone 16 pro which allows me to take IR picture as well as regular regular photo.
Hi. Unfortunately that’s not what this course is for. It’s for taking your camera on a trip and uploading/editing photos while away. It won’t have anything to do with mobile photography. Sorry about that.
Thanks for responding to my comment. You’ve already helped by teaching me how to transfer photos to a drive from my ipad with this video: https://mattk.com/getting-and-backing-up-photos-on-your-tablet-while-traveling/. please keep making bonus videos.
I would appreciate learning about how to transfer the contents on my camera’s card onto a small portable remote hard drive that I can connect to my wife’s I Pad, primarily for the safekeeping of numerous vacation photos while on an extended trip to NZ. My wife’s I Pad currently does not have LR Classic installed on it. I would not necessarily want or need to edit the photos while on vacation, just need a safe back up. How would the photos once backed up onto some kind of portable hard drive then be uploaded onto my i Mac desk top once back at home. I do all of my editing on the iMac desk top at home…never edit while on the road, as I usually don’t have the time to do that anyway. Would I need to somehow install a second copy of LR Classic on my wife’s iPad in order to make the transfer of photos onto the portable hard drive we take with us on the trip?
Hi George. Lightroom Classic doesn’t exist on the tablet and isn’t what you’re looking for. If you just want to transfer photos to a drive check out this video: https://mattk.com/getting-and-backing-up-photos-on-your-tablet-while-traveling/
If you need to connect a card reader and a drive at the same time, use a USB Hub. Hope that helps.
I’ve tried using the Adobe Mobile Workflow several times over the years, but keep giving up. My main library is home on Lightroom Classic which I feel is still necessary. I would like to supplement that on the road to rate photos from a previous shoot or add photos from a new shoot … I don’t see how to easily get my RAW photos back to my main library though. BTW – Keyboarding is a big thing for me (I add Golfer Names, 5k Race Names, etc to photos so I can search for them later). I live in the Lightroom ecosphere any only go to Photoshop or Topaz Photo AI when I can’t get LR to complete my project.
That’s a tough one. You’re trying to use LR Classic in a way it wasn’t meant to be used (on the road). It’s possible but not clean. And no other “mobile” workflow (tablets, etc…) was really meant for some one who does a lot of keywording and metadata.
Today I use Lightroom Classic on the road with a MacBook Pro for new shoots. Then when I get back home I load those into my main library (on my iMac Pro) by “importing from another catalog”. It works, but is a bit cumbersome and only works for new shoots and one way back to the main library. Some day I’m hoping there is a better way.
Yep. That’s the only option you have if you need LR Classic’s capabilities. Just realize that it will never get better than that as a classic user. It will not ever be able to share catalogs or integrate a travel and home catalog any better, etc… So yes it’s a little cumbersome, but it’s doable – and it sounds like you’ve figure it out and that will need to be your workflow as long as you’re a classic user. Adobe has an app with a mobile workflow and that’s Lightroom, and this won’t change in the future. Thanks!
I use LRC and PS. When I travel I take my laptop and a portable HD. I upload my images on the laptop and a copy to the HD. I mostly review and delete from the laptop. I don’t usually edit on the road because when I get home I have to re edit. I haven’t figured out how to transfer my edits to my home computer. I have watched your video on this subject but still have issues. Help please. Thank you
Grandchildren in USA. Home in UK and Macbook left at home when travelling. Use Lightroom Classic at home. Travel only with a 9th Generation iPad.
When taking photos of grandchildren in USA, would like to:
1) Import selected RAW files (CR2 and CR3) into Lightroom on iPad
2) Do some minor editing on iPad – crop, adjust exposure, that sort of thing.
3) Share some of the edited images via WhatsApp on iPad
4) On return to UK, re-edit the same images more extensively in Lightroom Classic.
I’ve got you covered Barry. That’s exactly what I’ll be talking about. Thanks!
Definitely interested in this course! I feel fairly comfortable using LR and PS on my iPad, but am leery of downloading to LRC on my Mac and screwing up the file structure and catalog on the Mac.
I’ve used LRC since v3 and still really don’t use Adobe’s cloud to store full images – I certainly synch libraries! I’ve played around editing on my iPad – and I’m a PC desktop user – but always worry about color differences as my monitors are calibrated (I know this is a contentious topic – but that is what I do and I’m happy with it). My biggest issue is how to deal with the files while traveling – while I mostly use an Olympus OM-1 for my travels these days and its only 20 MP they are still large files and there tend to be a lot of them. Transferring files around is tough – and I honestly will not travel with a laptop. Basically deciding what to download – how – and how to manage a workflow while traveling.
Hi Matt,
The course you are trying to create sounds interesting. I’ve basically stopped using LrC and only process my images now in Lr but on my computer through the local setting. I do have some of my collections synced but not much in the cloud.
What I haven’t been doing is processing on the go on my mobile devices primarily as I’m unsure how, when I get home and download everything to my hard drive, how I update what I have already worked on and for that to become the main file ( have the xmp file attached to it).
I’m hoping that’s actually something really basic that you have already covered off. As I’m not doing it now, I don’t know what I don’t know…
Have an iPad Pro with 2 TB of storage. Went to Alaska and took many pictures. Did not necessarily want to upload to Lightroom mobile and then transfer to external drive but Adobe keep wanting more $$ for storage. It was my understanding that files went to cloud right away and came down as smaller file therefore I could store way more without extra $$. I use Lightroom Classic so pls address my concern as well as what I need to do once home on my regular computer.
Another issue, while traveling do I want to load directly into Lightroom mobile or to the IPad files. And, find them through Lightroom mobile when editing them?
Thank you Jodell Murray
On the trips where I take the most photos I am usually off the grid with no internet access. So I could not upload to the cloud even if I wanted to. I take an old laptop that I use Lightroom classic on to download my pictures to an external SSD drive and back up my pictures, the laptop doesn’t have much memory by today’s standards. The only thing I use Lightroom for is to download, backup, and keyword with location information and subject details like plant or animal identification. Gotta do it daily to make sure I tag photos accurately. I would love to be able to do that with an iPad on these remote trips that are usually weight restricted, so the less weight I have to devote to photo equipment the better.
Hi. You don’t need to sync photos to the cloud while traveling if you use the iPad.
1) I have used LRC on a PC for 15+ years (and been a big MattK fan and referrer for many of those years), with keywords and color labels being an integral part of my workflow. I get frustrated syncing from phone to LRC – in large part in figuring out how to make those photos a part of my library but get them out of my cloud storage – without permanently deleting them from everywhere. It looks like maybe the newest update re-installed the way to see syncing problems, so I hope that part of the process is smoother. I understand your new streamlined workflow with all the “good stuff” on the cloud, but I am constantly digging back into my 150,000+ catalog and pulling out old stuff to reprocess for family, friends or photo challenges.
2) I have tried LR on my laptop when I travel and am annoyed when results of some of the early review I do on the road doesn’t transfer to LRC. I’d like to be able to seamlessly and easily transfer travel photos with edits from laptop to PC at end of a trip in which WiFi was not available, slow or expensive. I’d like to have easy access to the presets I routinely use while I am traveling – whether in LR or if I put a copy of my LRC catalog on an EHD. I take big trips only once or twice a year, so I forget the proper steps to make this work, and my first transfer of images from camera to laptop is always a maddening trial – and usually at the end of the day when I am already tired. I always think I have it mastered – until I don’t!
I have never found a clear description on how to safely remove images only form the cloud and/or only from LrC.
often while travelling I only have access to limited speed or capacity internet so a good efficient workflow to only upload ‘keepers’ to the cloud in an efficient manner is essential.
I would also like to know more about linking folders in LR to Web Albums and also Adobe Portfolio for a sub set of images.
I have issues with the syncing from the phone to the desktop. Covering the setup to sync and trouble shooting when you dont see the images on your desktop. This has been my most frustrating part.
Have a great Mac laptop – top specs – too heavy to travel with in addition to photo gear (wildlife – long heavy lenses). Always download to a portable SSD hard drive as a back- up to memory cards. Ideal to use Lr to edit, then at home, copy onto my home SSD then into LrC (which preserves the edits intact from .xmp files saved by Lr.
I am looking for help with how to access and use Lr on my phone. If I download Lr (which is on my adobe subscription) onto my phone will it pick up that I am subscribed and not start a new account and also how do I download images from memory card onto my phone to work on? Would just use this for posting select images on instagram while travelling. Would do the bulk on returning home on main laptop with LrC.
To travel I am using an old very lightweight MacBook which is slow and lumbering just as an engine to download onto the travel SSD for backup and to edit a few pics…
Matt,
I have been down this road. My process now is to (1) take the photos, load them up to Lightroom, not Classic, review the photos and take the ones that I want to work on and load them to Adobe Cloud. Then, when I have time, I can work on them on my iPad anywhere and save to the cloud. On my laptop, I go into Lightroom and download the finish products to my SSD. Where I needed help, there was times when I wanted to load the photos to the cloud using my iPad from the SD card. You might want to go through that process and what you need.
I’ll be honest, I have’t traveled in quite some time. However, if I ever get the chance to take a vacation and travel to someplace I’d be taking photos, I’d want an easy way to (1) back up photos while away from home, (2) cull photos to save space; whether on my iPhone, camera, iPad or computer, (3) start editing while the ‘live’ shot is in my memory and I want to make sure I get those special photos edited in a way that captures the moment I experienced, (4) save those edited photos in more than one place to ensure they’re not lost.
I have a Samsung tablet and use Sony cameras. I don’t have a clue how to get photos from the sony to the Samsung tablet. I use and have LR and PS. The tablet ONLY has one port on it, I believe it is a mini C?.
Hi. I sent out a video yesterday that shows this: https://mattk.com/getting-and-backing-up-photos-on-your-tablet-while-traveling/
Thanks
Hi Matt,
I’m going to Africa next May. I thought I’d have to buy a bunch of cards and download to computer when I got home. Transfer select photos to phone to post along the way. I have no idea how I would back up to a tablet? Bring an external drive? Or lug my computer? It would be nice to download each day and do a few edits on the go…..have no idea how? Then, I would need less cards. Also, somehow if it were downloaded to tablet? How would I transfer to computer when I get home? Or external hard drive the answer? I don’t know. I would be interested to learn your recommendations. Thanks!
My mobile workflow:
LRC and PS on laptop and desktop.
During travelling:
import, (RAW -> DNG) into LRC. Selecting and first editing DNG files on my laptop. (Tablet or phone screen for me to smal for editing)
Back home:
export as catalog including all files to a external SSD. Import catalog and all files from SSD to my Desktop/file server.
Ecept import and export time my “best way”.
Greetings form Germany
Since I moved to Lightroom cloud I find using LR on my mobile and tablet hugely useful. Being able to edit using dead time at airports and hotels is really helpful. If you are aiming at Classic users I’m guessing the same benefits apply although I always found Classic less cloud friendly.
Personally, I need the basics covered : getting the photos from my DSLR and/or iPhone 14 into appropriately named folders with subfolders for RAW, Select, PS files and Output with jpegs on my iPad. Then using the PS and LR apps on the iPad (using the Apple Pencil and my fingers) to do some preliminary processing (and backing up the folder to a portable SSD drive) prior to finishing on my MacBook Pro. Also cover using my phone to take RAW rather than heic format. Thanks for taking the time to make a course about this neglected topic. Cheers!
Speaking of timing on mobile workflow while traveling…. I’ve been interested in traveling and using the LR and PS on the tablet for a long time. I’m definitely interested in this course and think that there will be a lot of interest in this course. My old iPad just died (need to replace) and I need to update to a phone that has RAW capabilities (currently have iPhone 8Plus). For myself, I just didn’t understand and know where to get the proper information on downloading images and processing them on the iPad using LR and PS apps. So, to have an Adobe Mobile Workflow course on detailing the steps will give me the confidence to be successful and at the same time understand the process.
I got a surprise when I looked at your course on LRC and found out that all images could be stored on my desktop. Or words to that effect.
Then I got interested in iphone video stuff. That is where I AM BOGGED DOWN NOW.
So more info about LRC without using LR library would be good.
Cheers,
Bi
I would like to know how to manage the photos that I put in the cloud. Can I download them to computer and then delete from the cloud?
Personally – I always take my laptop when I travel because I find the tablet cumbersome since I work in PS exclusively. Lightroom doesn’t compute in my brain for some reason. That aside, I would love to be able to work on my tablet in PS, but I find the mobile version of PS limiting, so I guess that makes me spoiled. 🤷🏼♀️ If you come up with something workable, I’d probably use it to see if its viable for me. Your courses always tick a few boxes that I didn’t know needed ticking. So thanks in advance for all your work.
Hi. It sounds like you have a workflow you’re happy with so I wouldn’t suggest changing it. I can’t make PS on the iPad any less limiting. It is what it is and we have the features that we have. So the best I can do is teach it to you. But if you’re bringing a laptop, you would never need it. Thanks!
Hi Matt, thanks for doing this course. When travelling I want to back up my images to the cloud, which I find prohibitively slow, and also do some edits for posting on Facebook. I have used a workflow similar to Peter de Hallé, but I find that fills up my iCloud.
I use Lightroom on my iPad, and if you could include a bit about PS Express, which I have on my phone.
great Idea.
Now starting to use LR on a more regular basis.
Wow, I cannot imagine being able to work from my tablet, and since I spend my life in a car, I am very interested. My first thought is how an iPad could manage even moderately sized files. Sorry, I can’t get past that to come up with any other questions.
My suggestion would be if you’re going to address the actual use of these programs briefly, would be to cover layers, masking and compositing of later mobile PS. LR is pretty straightforward even though I primarily use LrC on desktop. Lastly, transferring edited images from mobile device to desktop. Is there something beyond doing LR and the cloud, or just saving to an external hard drive? Not sure if this helps, but hopefully do.
Consider myself as rather a novice at this whole picture editing thing I am looking for things which are at the level of a basic beginner I find far too often with a lot of the stuff on the Internet that it is beyond my point of development and I get lost frustrated and quit
Hi Rick. I’m approaching this from the basics assuming you don’t know how to do a mobile workflow. Now, I can’t teach you to use your tablet and how to connect things to it as that’s a bit too basic. But when it comes to already knowing how to use your tablet and drives, I can show you how to work with them, move things around and edit while traveling, and get them back home after the trip. Thanks!
Hi Matt.
Looking forward to see the course & I hope my input helps along the way.
My work flow when away on Holiday is as follows:
Take shots with my Canon R6, when back at hotel using the SD card transfer the image files onto my iPad.
Open Lightroom and review / Edit the images.
When back home I use Lightroom Classic
Question is – How do I get all my images from iPad Lightroom onto my hard drives and into Lightroom Classic??
Hope this helps with your project
Cheers Peter
Yes, this is very much needed. It gets confusing as to exactly where your images live. Also, I print. do the files get translated into jpegs when exporting? Looking forward to this course. Thanks
Many times, I find the Ps/LR apps for the iPad are good enough for all the edits I want to make to an image. So I just transfer the original and edited image to my computer and external hard drive. I prefer to print the edited images from my computer.
Hi Matt,
I’m a LRC-user. In the past during my travels I brought a heavy laptop with me. Now I have a android tablet and I love to learn your tips and tricks. I like to learn also screening of my photo’s on a tablet.
I am very excited about your upcoming course. I have a particular interest for such a course, because I regularly travel abroad for extended time periods.
Your timing is great as I am currently looking for ways to lighten my carry-on during long commutes, by potentially taking an iPad (not yet acquired) instead of a MacBook Pro.
I usually travel with a full copy of my working hard drive for storing new images and for managing my files in Lightroom Classic (LrC). The hard drive also gives me access to my library as I may need to find specific images to submit to my photo club for challenges or competitions. As time permits, I also postprocess existing images or manage my library while away. I frequently experience some struggles synchronizing files and libraries once back home, especially in cases where I did not travel with a “working hard drive”. I also carry a smaller capacity SSD for backing up my travel images while away.
I am hoping that your course will provide graphic representations for main workflows, while offering options whenever possible, clear and easy processes to keep LrC and LR in sync (with or without edits in PS). Some practical and cost-effective backup strategies, on-line and on external drives would be of great value.
Currently, I mainly use Lightroom Classic (LrC); I am looking forward to learning more about how I can gradually and confidently integrate Lightroom (LR) into my workflow for most of my future work, to eventually migrate my library to a more effective process altogether.
I use LR & PS on my Mac Studio. I travel with my MacBook Pro. I edit on the road. I take a 4TB external drive with my info – I export as a catalog the year(s) I want access to then use that for my MBP. Once home, I export as Catalog from the MBP to import it onto my Mac Studio. I’m looking for an easier process.
I am totally mobile right now. But I am interested in integrating LrC with that so I don’t have to have everything on the adobe cloud. I use mobile for work (social media stuff) but am not a professional photographer – I am actually a firefighter for a department that does not and cannot get their own social media/PA employees. I also use for my own personal hobby of photography.
Matt,
Wanted to add to my first comment having read a lot of the comments here since I posted the first comment. I don’t really do anything with the photos I load onto my iPad. And I believe I did make a copy to an external drive if there wasn’t a good internet connection to save for later when there was.
It would seem that the Lightroom echo system has changed a lot since 2018. I’m not even sure of what I was using back in 2018: Lightroom mobile or LRC? I may give some credence to the comment suggesting that Adobe purposely made the process harder with the mobile apps to sell more if they have made me it harder since 2018. Since then, I have enough memory cards that I haven’t needed to rely on that process as much.
I have been using Lightroom since it first came out many years ago. I too have been a Canon user for many years starting in the late 70’s with my first of two Canon F1’s. (I still have one) I developed my own B&W work and admired Ansel Adams greatly. Those who view themselves as “purists” and don’t post-process should realize that Adams DID post-process when he changed his development process on a photo by photo basis and printed them with the same type of changes according to the same criteria.
I travel with my phone and my camera. To share photos, take a phone photo process on snapseed and share it while traveling. While I do look at my olympus EM1 mark 3 photos on my tablet, using the olympus app. I do not process or share from there unless I hit a pond. A super magnificent photo that I can’t resist or it is a super long plane flight and I have the time. That’s said, if had an easier workflow from phone camera and tablet and it didn’t take a lot of time, I probably would process with light room on my tablet as I am very comfortable and quick with my processing and adjustments. My external hard drive is 8TB, and I would not want to carry them with me when traveling, so that kind of negates me from taking my lightroom classic catalog with me. I do own small external travel hard drives, but never took the time to see how I could adjust this workflow.As I believe, everything must stay on one hard drive.
Matt,
I was in Italy, I think in 2018, for 2-3 weeks. When I could get a reliable internet connection, I would download my pictures from my Canpn EOS 5D mark IV using either the camera’s WiFi connection or just directly from the memory card using a reader into my iPad.
IU can’t remember whether I loaded them directly into Lightroom on my iPad or not.
Anyway, once there, I would make sure I had the iPad connected to the hotel’s internet and that I left the iPad connected to the charger and LightRoom turned on and it would automatically load the photos to the cloud. When I returned home and fired up LRC, they automatically downloaded.
Now, maybe this pre-dated the advent of LightRoom and they stripped that capability out of LRC when they introduced LightRoom, but it worked like a charm. The trick was finding a reliable internet connect in Europe back then.
I travel now and then and bought an IPad Pro so I could plug in a ssd for back up. So I use a small hub and plug in a SD card reader and SSD and just transfer before doing any adjustments to make sure I am backed up.
I want to be able to be able to edit on the move and then download all the images and XMP files when I get home so I don’t have to do duplicate work
Thanks
YES!. The reason I don’t use this stuff is that I don’t know how best to use it and I don’t have time to figure it out by trail and error. So…1)How to back up “keepers” while traveling. 2) An overall workflow for editing while traveling using a tablet. 3) Anything else you think is pertinent. SInce I haven’t actually done this, I’m not even sure what other questions to ask.
Matt, this is a great idea for a course. I use a iPad Pro with iPad for Lightroom on it for travel. At home,I use LR Classic. When travelling, I edit, delete and curate my photos on the iPad. When I get home I synch my iPad with classic through LR Cloud. This works quite well. My main issue is how are deleted photos handled and replicated and how do I minimize cloud storage. I do not sync my whole LR Classic catalog to the cloud.,I only sync photos that originated on the iPad to the cloud. Any tips and tricks on optimizing this process are appreciated. The main reason I adopted this workflow is to not have to merge , import or export catalogs, which I have found to be a mess.
This will be really helpful for me. I prefer LrC on my desktop – large monitor, using a mouse (vs trackpad or finger) to edit. But when I travel I very often take iPhone photos, both using the Lr app and the native iPhone camera app, and then often want to work on some editing in the evenings. Admittedly though, that editing often gets redone on my desktop when I get home because I don’t know how to sync them to LrC. When I use my mirrorless camera, I leave all photo editing until I return home, mostly because the transferring process to my phone or iPad feels cumbersome, but also because of not knowing a good workflow process between Lr and LrC. I also am concerned about cloud storage with all my RAW images.
Any advice on this would topic be much appreciated.
I use LRC & the photography package & use this for the majority of my editing of photos. I store all my photos on an external HDD. I use an olympus OM1 MK11 camera & also my iphone. When i am travelling i down load my photos each day onto my ipad & do some basic editing & send updates of my trip to friends & family back home. I will upload all my photos to my computer when i get home & create a book and or a slideshow of my trips. I need to seamlessly combine photos from my camera & iphone so that i have everything in one place. I usually shoot all my photos in the camera in raw format which can cause some issues with editing on a tablet (this may be coming less of an issue). It would be good to have an easy work flow to do what i describe. I have the Adobe mobile app but i have not used it very much so combining this may be a good option for me.
I am using LR classic but I do quite a bit of traveling. I have iPad Pro and would like to edit photos while I am traveling.
Looking forward to this new offering. I am using LR classic but I do quite a bit of traveling. I have iPad Pro and would like to edit photos while I am traveling.
Your course concept has merit. I travel a lot and use Ps/ACR & LR Classic as my edit tools on a laptop when traveling. My preferred editing platform is my home desktop because of my home monitor and storage. An easy method to move my travel work to my home computer would be helpful.
It’s great to hear you are working on the Lightroom mobil project. At the end of the month I leave for a 2 1/2 week trip in France and I will be taking photos. I have a M3 iPad Pro and would like to use that for my initial image review without the need to carry my MacBook Pro as well. The weight saving would be very desirable to me.
My workflow would be upload my images onto my iPad on the date taken, then attach a portable SSD and copy the files to the portable drive (with a second SSD to be used as backup.) I would then like to connect the SSD to the iPad and load the images from the iPad into Lightroom mobil, do an initial review and assessment. When I get home my plan will be to then import the images into Lightroom. Of course it would be great if Lightroom mobil could use the catalog I have on an external drive but I don’t think it does that. Hopefully at least amp sidecars are created and that would be preserved at time of import. Since my wifi will be limited using Adobe cloud isn’t a practical alternative for me. My camera is a Sony A &r with files in the 60 megabyte size so that also limits usefulness of Adobe cloud.
I have other options for reviewing the images: Capture One and Nitro. They would work fine for image review and digital development – but don’t transfer to Lightroom as far as I know.
I will buy the course at once as long as it is available before late September. Otherwise I will need to wait until I get back from France.
Hi Matt – Having worked 35 years out in Africa on Safari with photographers from beginner to professional, the biggest issue to everyone once digital came along, was power – charging. Travelling with and working on a laptop always had additional issues such as security but more the extreme environments and conditions. Nothing new to anyone used to being out in the field. But that was before iPads & Tablets … how much easier it will be to carry and work on in such extreme terrain and what a bonus it would have been to many to be able to have quickly and easily viewed, sort and got some basic adjustments and edits done EVEN when bouncing around in confined conditions and on rough roads while transit journeys … All the better to boost confidence, and creativity and to see new potential while also exposing issues and shortcomings along the way.
I don’t own and never had anyone use a Tablet out on safari but can see that its something photographers of all levels will find beneficial, especially so if they get a good foundation a good workflow that I am sure your new course will offer. Had I still been in the safari industry I would definitely point my clients towards using such devices and your courses …. as I will do still whenever I get to the opportunity. Without doubt, for the general safari goer with even a basic camera, the opportunities to boost their overall enjoyment and experience can only be enhanced using this new technology and software. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to try it out and it would have better enabled me to help those non-photographic clients to have got more out of the photographic equipment they came with on safari.
Good luck with the course and thanks for encouragement and tutorials.
As an aside – life’s challenges have kept me from photography since I first contacted you a number of years ago and every time I try to get to deal with my 35 years of safari photographs, some issue arrises, not the least of, since getting to the UK, having had 5 storage hard drives fail (part of that extreme conditions!!) But undaunted at having lost so many years of work, I dip into some of your vides and purchased courses from time to time, but as of yet, not crossed the start line to using anything I learn. My failing not yours. I can only hope things will change sometime soon as I very much appreciate your commitment and approach to teaching and sharing your knowledge.
Kind regards – Gavin
You are correct that there is nothing really out there. I kind of disagree with your statement that it’s really easy if you only use Lightroom on your tablet and computer. I have a card reader that I plug into my iPad and transfer photos from the camera card to the Lightroom Cloud. I then can review and edit photos using Lightroom Mobile. I have Lightroom set up to download the originals to the external hard drive hooked up to my laptop computer. The problem I am having is that I then end up with a lot of originals that I don’t really want to keep, but deleting them in Lightroom only gets rid of the cloud version. That’s OK for ones that maybe I don’t need in the cloud, but want to keep the original. But I haven’t figured out a good way to easily get rid of the ones that I absolutely don’t want. Another thing that perplexes me is that the originals go into a folder that is not recognized by Lightroom when you use the Local function. I actually have to move the photos to a new folder. I only just realized that because I haven’t been using Local, but now that it’s an option I will use it. So basically, any workflow advice that you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I should mention that I no longer use LR Classic because I don’t really want to drag around a laptop, external hard drive, and card reader. It’s a total pain. I am really looking forward to this course.
Hi Matt. Looking forward to this new offering. I’m strictly a Lr Classic user but am really interested in how to integrate with Lightroom mobile and an iPad Pro. Question: to what extent does this overlap with Brian Matiash Lightroom course which I also have an interest? If there is a lot of overlap it doesn’t make sense to get both I don’t think.
Your thoughts and thanks.
Hi Larry. Brian approaches things from an “all cloud” perspective, meaning you’re not using hard drives. And he exclusively teaches LR (desktop, tablet, phone). I approach from using as little “cloud” as possible (it’s necessary to an extent), and assume most of you will want to transfer back to LRC rather than LR on the desktop. Though I will cover both and when you get back home, but going back to LR is infinitely easier than going back to LRC. But again, I will cover all options. Thanks.
Good. I will get both. Also I neglected to mention that I nearly always go over to Ps for certain local adjustments if it’s the better tool..eg some AI tools, plugins etc. I would imagine this not part of your topics?
Looking forward to you new video.
Hi Matt,
If you have any tips on how to manage metadata with the Lightroom mobile that would be useful. I take photos in locations where internet is limited or unavailable and work on device. I find it useful to record some data about my images. At the moment, my workflow is cumbersome. Take photos & transfer to device > edit in LR/PS on iPad and delete duds > transfer to Samsung tablet > add metadata using Android ExifTool (location info, copyright, notes on shots and keywords) > and then finally transfer to LR Classic and use LRC/PS when I get home. There doesn’t seem to be a good metadata editor for iPad.
Mostly I take a MacBook Pro with me when I travel and use LRC/PS on that instead, but in more remote locations lugging the Macbook and power supply etc. around is cumbersome or impractical and it would be great to be able to just use iPad or Samsung tablet.
I think most of the questions were asked that I had. It would be super to have a course on this.
I need to get images from my Nikon camera onto my iPad while traveling to use in emails and social media. I seem to be losing much sharpness with the process I sue now.
I use Lightroom on iPad and phone all the time to edit the photos a good workflow would be helpful
Hi Matt, thanks for asking! I did not read previous comments, and I have not yet used LR other than to show albums on the phone, and I never get that right, so I have a lot to learn. That said, I recently bought a Surface Pro to take on my travels instead of my heavy and bulky laptop.
What I am hoping to do, is cull through the images at the end of each day (CF card plugged into the USB-C of the Surface) and pick 2 or 3 images to process with the group. Maybe post them on Social media. I’d also like to show the images on the Surface to other tourists either from an album or a slideshow (something I can not seem to be able to do with the phone, because it gets rid of the edits as soon as I open the image in full screen). When I get home, I’ll import all the images into LRC and hopefully, the processed images will retain the edits.
Looking forward to your course.
I know that I already left a comment – but I’m presently struggling with managing my cloud storage between Lr Mobile and LrC. I have been using this interface for 5+ years as part of my daily workflow – and I still can’t figure out how to free the space, even when moving files from the LrC destination folder for Mobile files. 20g isn’t much in the whole scheme of things but you load a bunch of RAW files on vacation and you soon have an issue, especially with extra Adobe storage being so expensive. Just help me with that and I’m a happy camper.
I do realize that I’m unusual in how extensively I use this interface – I’m happy to share my issues and workarounds with you.
To add to my earlier reply: thoughts on naming photos easily so can remember later. Keywords, journal, combination of both or ??????
Interestingly, a couple of days ago I Installed Lightroom mobile as was trying to find a workflow to have all my pictures from my phone and camera in a single place. Until now the former lived on my phone managed by Apple/Google Photos and the latter on my laptop managed by Lightroom Classic. I found a blog post that explains a proposed workflow that I’m starting to adopt. It works nicely as it doesn’t require 1TB of storage as it relies on clearing the raw files from the cloud once synced and downloaded to Lightroom Classic. I still don’t know all the questions I’ll eventually have, but one of my goals is to have an Apple Photos type of library with all the best (non-destructively) edited photos that I can enjoy anywhere I want and share with family and friends (unlike Apple Photos if you don’t have an Apple product). I’m fine if this is in Lightroom instead. Hope that helps
Hi Matt
Hopefully his new course may be exactly what I am looking for.
I am normally a Lightroom classic user on my iMac at home.
In the last year I have decided to use an iPhone 14 Pro max for taking all my photos when traveling and a I also take my new 13inch MacBook Air which has Lightroom (not classic) installed and a 2TB T7 Samsung drive for backing up.
Last month I was in Australia visiting Ayres Rock and the outback for a month, which was fabulous. It was then that I discovered the frustration of only having the basic Adobe photo storage plan, The pain of not knowing exactly what the best way to get the photos off the iPhone and also not wanting to use all my data syncing photos on the purchased eSim for Australia.
The first issue was how do I get the photos taken on the iPhone to the MacBook and then backing up to the SSD without using data. It was then that I wished I had installed LR Classic on the MacBook.
The next issue was that as I was travelling with my wife she did not want to spend evenings watching me edit and download photos when there was so much else to do. What would be a quick way to download, do an initial pic a few of the top photos to share and back them all up for later when Im at home and I have the time to play on the iMac.
I was a bit nervous about leaving all the photos on the iPhone because if I should loose it or something happened to it all our photos would be lost.
Then how do I get the photos from either the MacBook if I did sync the photos or iPhone onto the SSD drive?
Then we also would like to be able to share some of the pics of our travels with friends on FB etc.
Doing all this with out it taking to much time out of our travels.
I have now thought that maybe Lightroom Classic would be the better App for me which would enable me to do all this but after listening to your self and Brian Matiash I though that I would try using Lightroom.
Have I got this all wrong??
Look forward to seeing the new course and hopefully this is the sort of input you are looking for and its not to hard to follow.
Thanks
Steven Sharp, NewZealand
I think by now, Matt you have realised this could be your BEST selling course!
Hello Matt,
I have a Lightroom/Photoshop plan that is on my laptop, that I connect to 2 5TB Hardrives. one is a backup. I also have access to Adobe Express on my Android cell Phone, Behance, and Bridge. I have learned the hard way how to get around in Lightroom to store my photos, but there are things that I have come across that drive me crazy. I rarely make any editing adjustment in Photoshop, but I do try to make an edit there every once in a while, after viewing a video that draws my interest. I could go on, but I think I better stop here. I will gladly answer questions to the best of my knowledge.
Well at this point I am not sure if this is something that would be of interest to me!
I use Lrc and Lr. I would like to know how to integrate the mobile workflow to LrC and how to access my file from the cloud to LrC it all seems very disjointed
Matt, it’s amazing that somebody else is doing another course for LR Cloud/Mobile. I decided to move everything to cloud last November, specially motivated mainly by my workflow when traveling and not being dependent on my computer to edit or access my photos. I’ve been erasing thousands of 1-3 stars old photos that only took up “cheap” space in my noisy spinning HDD (you can tell I’ve been listening to the podcast). I now have about 2.5 TB of my 3 TB plan, with about 180K photos… still deleting but adding new ones at the same time.
Actually the final decision of moving everything was after a video, podcast or some collaboration with Brian Matiash and yourself, can’t really remember which one, it was around Oct-Nov 2023 timeframe. It took me 2 weeks of a batch tailor-made migration, that if I wasn’t tech savvy would have been a nightmare.
Anyway, I don’t regret the decision, I’ve been able to take advantage of the cloud ecosystem in many ways, however, it does have some disadvantages. Mainly they are around functionality lost from LrC that are not available on LR Desktop/Mobile. I miss way too much decent keywording, smart collections, etc. But most of the “lacking functionality”, you can live without them.
In my opinion, the most important problem that I’ve had on this months, almost a year, is the almost totally INEXISTENT documentation, information, tutorials, explanations, support, etc. The Brian Matiash course was a good start. I had been using the mobile apps as support for my main catalogue for some years, but I completed Brian’s course in about 3 days (at 1.5x speed) and could understand many things that finally made sense. After that, whenever I need to look up how to do something it’s impossible to find anything specific to LR Desktop… everything is LrC.
So after all this rant… I’m finally making my point. We need a lot more resources to learn, improve, understand, “deal with” LR Desktop and the cloud environment. I don’t know how many of us are really using “the cloud” as the main asset management, but there most be many thousands like me… and even many thousands that are worst than me, because at least I’m tech savvy and have used LrC for 10+ years.
I know this is not exactly the scope of your new course, but my main suggestion, is to make some sort of COMMUNITY for all of us in the void. I’ve been thinking about suggesting this to Brian, but didn’t got to it and now I started writing here and now have the draft for a soap opera (I should edit this, but I’m sorry, I’ll just send the draft 😬). If you consider this to be a good (at least viable) idea, I’m even open and happy to collaborate with you on this. It’s a very lonely world out here 🤣.
To be honest, last couple of weeks I’ve been experimenting with editing in LrC, synced to my cloud environment. This has many drawbacks and some could consider it dangerous haha… I just hope that Adobe starts developing LR Desktop faster.
To close… I do consider the scope of your new course is a great idea. I decided to move everything to cloud because of the complexities of traveling and processing the photos at the same time. I can think of multiple scenarios of how to work with LrC and Cloud for trips, but I’m now committed to the cloud. Right now I just import everything to my iPad and leave it connected overnight, so while I’m in _____________ (wherever) by the time I wake up, the photos are already on my computer back home. I also do a backup to a SDD just in case… I’ve never used it. I normally format it before the next trip, and never used the files in it, but you never know.
BTW, I’ve been traveling just with my iPad for the last 5 years. I never take my laptop anymore.
I am like Bruno – I would like to process photos in LRC on my MacBook Air and then integrate them with LRC on my iMac desk top. I do use the cloud.
I’m most interested in being able to handle the monster files from my D850 on a tablet when I travel. I’ve got 64 ram on my big computer at home and that just races through those files. Using a tablet would occur only two or three times a year a year. Can you tell us what we need in a tablet to work with these files. Thank you.
Finally, someone is taking this seriously. There is little or no information on the internet on how to do this correctly and efficiently. Utilizing the IPAD in the field to review photos and getting them into Lightroom Classic would be a great advantage.
I have being utilising Lightroom on my iPad whilst traveling for many years with my photography. It has being very frustrating finding information around how to integrate the workflow between Mobile Lightroom and LRC on my windows computer.
One of the major pain points is sync’ing photo’s via creative cloud and my computer. The length of time it takes to move them into LRC is extremely slow and most times I just re-upload them into LRC on my windows computer and tweak the photo’s with similar settings that I set within Mobile Lightroom. It makes the workflow it more complex but speeds up the whole process, instead of having to wait 4 hours for the Mobile Lightroom to upload to the creative cloud and then back my computer on my home WiFi.
Will be extremely interested to see how I can streamline or improve this process.
Thanks
Great and necessary course!
What I can do well: I can get my images on to my iPad and into LR mobile, edit them, add keywords, make collections, export to Instagram or to friends back home. I can get my raw files to an EHD connected to my iPad.
What I can not do, or do well: When I get home, yes. Can get the raw images on my laptop, into LR Classic. I have not found any way to move the work I did in LR mobile to LR Classic other than brute force, one by one. It has been so frustrating for me. I know my images are not “done” while traveling. But I’d really like to get those keywords, collections and basic edits ported into Classic in a seamless way. Then I’d like to clean up LR mobile so I’m not using all that cloud space. (In fact, an overall “how to clean up cloud space” for Adobe without messing up or losing anything would really be helpful as well.
I forgot to mention my hardware: I have an iPad Pro 11”, 4th generation, Sony 7a3r, Lacie rugged EHD — all while traveling (along with iPhone 15 Pro images as well). At home i have a MacBook Pro 16” m1 with EHD for storage.
Hi Matt, I’ll be happy to give you my perspective. It may be a bit different from yours because (a) I use Windows, and (b) I’ll cover the scenario that I encounter on cruises which is NO internet connectivity (it’s reportedly really slow and I don’t want to pay for it.).
As a tablet I use a MS Surface Pro 9 with Intel Core I-7 processor, 16 GB RAM. Extra “hard drive” (internal SSD storage) space is ridiculously expensive so I stuck with the basic 256GB and bought a Samsung 2TB external SSD drive – which is small and fast. Accessories are a Surface Pro type-cover style keyboard and a small Blue-tooth mouse. Main software is LRC and PS, plus Canon Utilities and an older version of MS Office that I still had (i.e. free). Since I mainly use it for travel (and scanning), I have not loaded it up with all the junk I have on my main PC so there is actually quite a bit of hard drive space left. I find that this tablet is very capable of processing the images, the main drawback is the small screen.
My workflow looks like this. (1) Every day: download images from camera to external SSD. (2A): Import into LRC, using the COPY option. This method gives me a backup of every image, but is limited to available space on the internal HD. (2B): import into LRC without making copies of the images. In this case I can make backup copies of the images onto cheap, slower, micro-SD cards (using an Anker hub); I don’t do this unless I need to erase a Camera Memory card. (3) I For the most part, I do the basic image adjustments in LR. Only if I really feel the need for it will I do something more elaborate, incl. in PS. (4) If I want to send a photo to friends using my phone, I have two options. (a) I can import a photo directly (wirelessly) from my camera to my phone using a Canon APP, or I can export a smaller version of it using LRC (or PS) and get it on my phone via USB cable. (5) After the trip when I am at home, my tablet will be connected via WiFi to my home network and from my main PC I can go to the LRC catalog menu to import images from the tablet’s catalog. Alternatively, if I have the images and the catalog on the SSD drive, I could connect it to the main PC via USB-C, that would be faster. I then give the images a once-over seeing them on my 27″ monitor, usually being more picky and fixing more issues. Does this help? Let me know if you have more questions.
I’ve been a LRC and Photoshop user on my Studio MAC for years now and pretty much understand their usage, then along came LR and It’s just not as familiar to me as LRC. An example is how to go to Photoshop from LR to do certain edits there and get back to LR? What about other 3 party apps (On1 suite as an example) in LR?
I do have an older Apple iPad Air 4 and would consider upgrading to the new iPad Pro 13-inch if I could use it and the new the new pencil pro in LR. What capacity is recommended? your thoughts on this will be greatly appreciated.
I confess I currently do not process photos while traveling. I have what I’m told (by you and others) is an overly complex workflow, and generally I travel with my wife and friends, so socializing leaves little time for editing photos. That said, I am hoping to take more multi-day trips that might allow me to do at least initial editing or at least culling while traveling.
Some relevant factors: I often use Bridge to do some initial culling. I use LrC to do more culling; I use Topaz Photo AI and LrC to edit every photo I might keep. I use PS when I need to remove distractions that LrC cannot, or to extend photo edges. I store my keeper photos on an external SSD, and back them up on another SSD and a cloud. I currently do all my photo work on an Apple M1 MacBook Pro with an attached Apple Studio Display. I also have a Wacom tablet attached to the MacBook. I currently have an Apple iPad 10th generation, and an Apple pencil. I have a Sony Alpha 1, and I use SD cards. I have a connector that allows me to look at the photos on the SD card.
I’ve gotten used to immediate results when I do something on my MacBook, and I’d worry that my iPad would deliver disappointing performance in comparison, when using LrC at least. I suspect that Photo AI won’t run on iOS at all. That said, it would be very nice to at least do some initial culling with Bridge.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I thought of more to say after I submitted.
I really think that the only thing I’d really want to do mobile for now is to cull. To do so I think Bridge would be enough, as I can easily tell the really bad photos from the maybe good photos. The challenge would be getting the photos from my camera’s SSD card to my iPad storage (I think I can figure that out), and then using a mobile form of Bridge — which may not exist. I guess I could also use PS for culling, but Bridge might be more convenient.
I doubt that for the foreseeable future I’d have the desire, opportunity, or patience to actually do full editing of photos on an iPad or laptop.
I totally agree to Michael Blaser. I have the latest iPad Pro and would love to process my fotos with it during vacation, so that I don’t have to carry my Notebook any longer with me in my camera bag. Instead I could carry one or two more lenses with me Looking forward to your new course. Matt. Really love your work and I owe already nearly all your courses. Greetings from Hamburg (Germany)
I have never used my tablet for PS, because I didn’t think the mobile app had a lot of funtionality. I would like to be able to post-process or create with features similar to the computer version, but that may not be a possibility. I’m a PC/Android, and I am not sure PS is really designed for this.
How best to integrate Bridge into the workflow.
I mostly use the Cloud version but if I want to do something only available in Classic, how to best access photos if they’re in the Cloud.
How to best make use of the local storage option. How to move from the Cloud to local if you want to make the switch (I think you may have this in another class, just not sure where to find it)
Thanks for all you do! You’re correct in that not much is out there for Cloud users. I appreciate you doing this.
While I am traveling I take a Mac book with me and are doing on tour some edits on LRC and afterwards I import the little catalog and merge it with my main catalog on my Mac at home.
I really would love to let my Mac Book at home and just using my iPas Pro while traveling to do some quick edits in LR which I am able to import at home to my LRC main catalog.
Hope it makes sense
Thanks for your awesome work
Cheers Michael
Matt,
That time it went through so here goes. I would be very interested to be able to work with LR on my tablet. I carry a MacBook Air when i travel and it gets heavy when included in my camera bag with all of the gear so being able to just take a tablet would be much appreciated. I have been using LR instead of LRC since I listened to the Podcast (June 2) with you and Brian, tried LR and will never go back to LRC even though I have a catalog. I got your LR course and it helped immensely as have all of your other courses. I think I own the complete MattK library and go back to the courses a lot. Thanks and looking forward to this new one. Neal
I’d say that moving photos around between my iPhone, to Lr on my iPhone, to Adobe, to my iMac with Lr. Knowing when to delete and where to delete the backup up photos. And better management of files. Also how can I find out where I have duplicate files and can manage them better. After years of moving photos around, my storage drives are a mess. Thx.
I predominantly cruise so am unable to use the cloud to store photos, so I take several SD cards my camera takes 2. My MacBook Air a HDD and a card reader so I can copy photos from the SD cards onto the HDD. I would like to improve the way I save and store photos while away, and reduce what I take with me to save images eg how to transfer to iPad and store on HDD without using the laptop, I do have the ability to transfer pictures to the iPad using my camera wifi but that is very time consuming.
I’m looking to process the Raw files on the tablet as far as Lightroom Mobile will let me and temporary back up to Adobe so I have a cloud back up whilst away. I tend to have a number of issues downloading the Raw files with the XMP edits on to my computer once back at home, so I have a hard copy on my home computer, which then backs up to Backblaze and I’m not quite sure why, I tend to struggle to get the edited Raw files onto my home PC. I’d like to see what workflow would do this seamlessly!
I’d also like to know if there is a way of stitching together panoramas and HDR Raw files in the Adobe Mobile environment.
I usually find myself waiting to get home to edit as I don’t bring my main storage with me. When I do have my laptop and main catalogue with me I don’t carry the data drive. I have a different external device for traveling so having to move the files if I do edits. Also often when I am traveling I don’t always have high speed internet so uploading to mobile isn’t always an option and then have to figure out how to get the files back to Lightroom classic when I do.
This sounds great. I am a LRC user who doesn’t store in the cloud. I need to understand how to work between a desktop and a laptop (which I would love to travel with). My problem is that I am not terribly computer literate, and use an android system. I get lost when apple users go through the steps for apple users, then provide a minimum of information for android systems.
I guess I need more detailed information for my system. Is that doable??
I am presently doing a 2 month trip around the UK. I brought an older MacBook Pro that I am using to move photos onto 2 SDDs. When I return I will download them onto mySDD that my photos are on+ my backup SDD.
I tried with an iPad but it was a struggle, hence the older MacBook.
I am most comfortable with Light Room Classic so that is what I have been sticking with for processing. I could change I guess but I am hoping you will be able to make my downloading easier.
Thanks.
The first problem I have to solve is color matching. Different devices have different colors of the same scene. E.g., Google Pixel Phone over saturates the blue sky or turn a dark night sky into dark blue. So I need to match them to my stand alone cameras if I were to create an album containing different devices.
I use the phone photos as my GPS recorder, so I need to transfer those GPS coordinates to the photos taken with the stand alone camera. On the desktop it’s easy. On the tablet with a touch interface, not always easy. The hold to copy doesn’t always copy the right thing.
Thank you.
Hi. I won’t be covering color matching or GPS coordinates. While I understand you may need them, this isn’t an issue the bulk of people who want a mobile workflow are facing. Thanks though.
Your course sounds to be very helpful. have a samsung tablet and used LR, and PS to pre process and store on tablet some photos. My ideal case would be to retrieve pictures from camera to a tablet (You need to include both IPAD and Android i.e Samsung TAB) . Use the tablet to review, sort and rate photos. Using lightroom or photo shop on tablet to make some adjustments to assure the photos are worth keeping. The keepers need to be stored on tablet, sd card or disk. It would be helpful to discuss various hardware and software to transfer Keeper photos to the storage media for transfer to a computer (including brands, price range, features etc.). Finally what you do when you get home. An outline of final processing would be helpful. A pdf of an flow of the process with details on specific items like hardware.
I will be watching for your course.
Hi Matt, thanks for putting this together. You are absolutely right; there is not much useful information about this workflow. Below is what I would like to accomplish:
At home I have an i-Mac as my main LR PC, this is my main catalog is stored, and I use LR classic. There are times, when traveling where I don’t want to take my laptop and external HD for editing. So, I just take my (older) iPad Mini, and a card reader.
In an ideal world, I’d like to connect a card reader > import my image(s) > Edit them > and when I get home I’d like to import the edited image to my main catalog.
I’ve been successful in Importing the image to the iPad and then editing it. However, I have issues transferring the edited image back to my main catalog when I get home. I’ve tried putting the image in collections and then synching the collections, but I don’t always get the result I was expecting. I always ended up with orphan images on my iPad.
Look forward to the course.
Hi Matt –
I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop on my iPad since Adobe released the apps. I much prefer the lighter iPad when traveling. It is the perfect travel device and allows me to pretty much everything from watching movies, listening to music to drafting documents, editing spreadsheets and, what you’re interested in, editing photos. I also use my iPad to backup my photos while traveling and have been ever since Apple made external devices accessible in iOS. I use a USB-C hub connected to my iPad Pro and in the hub I plug in my card reader and my 1TB NVMe SSDs. I use the Apple Files app or other file management apps to copy the files to the SSD drives. Works great and the new iPads with Apple Silicon are really fast.
The one area that I struggle with is getting the edits from Lightroom sync’d photos to the files I import from my memory cards. I don’t do a lot of editing when traveling. I think the most photos I’ve edited while traveling is maybe 10. But, there doesn’t appear (to me) a way to get the edits from the Sync Images to the imported files other than doing Develop Settings – Copy/Paste, on each photo one at a time. Kind of a chore and I hope you’ve found a better way.
The other issue is that Lightroom in iPad is still fairly limited when compared to their desktop brothers. I’ll usually have to clean up a lot of travel edits by refining or replacing masks and making slider adjustments.
Looking forward to your course.
I don’t use LR Mobile very often, but I’d like to know more about it. One reason I don’t do much with LR Mobile is that I use hierarchical keywords in LR Classic, but LR Mobile doesn’t support hierarchical keywords. In order to use LR Mobile more I’d like to know other things that I shouldn’t do in LR Mobile that might mess up what I’m doing in LR Classic.
Thanks Matt for taking the time to put together an Adobe Mobile Workflow video. For me I’m going to Europe for 3 weeks next year and only taking my iPhone. I hope to be taking the iPhone 16 Pro. I normally take my MacBook Pro but this time I’m only going to take my iPad Pro. Wanting to learn more about transferring my iPhone photos/videos over to an external hard drive hooked up to the iPad. Do you recommend an external hard drive for the iPad? Will be doing some editing on the iPad but when returning home transfer all photos/videos to the MacBook to use LRC and PS along with other 3rd party plugins.
Workflow: On long trips I download picutres to my laptop and edit in LrC. That allows me to deleted the bad shots and gets the picture out to impatient kids. It also allows me to clear my card in the camera for the next day. When I get home I export as a catalog and then upload the catalog to my desktop. The files on my desktop are uploaded/stored in the cloud via Carbonite. I would love to hear other options that might be more effictient.
Thanks Matt!
Wow! I’m so glad you’re addressing this issue. I use LR Classic and travel a bit but I’ve never really been able to start from the beginning and make it work.
I would like to put photos from my iPhone and from my camera raw files into it, view, sort and thin out the images and end up with bringing them into Classic when I get home for any final editing and collections making. It seems that the very initial steps in most instructions seem to be missing, assuming that I understand something about it already. That is where I get stuck. I don’t quite understand which images are synced in the cloud and that seems to be key as well.
I’m hoping that this course will let me finally use these tools as they are meant to be used as it seems like a great convenience. Thanks for approaching this and for asking for feedback.
My normal workflow is to use my MacBook Pro and import images from cards directly to LRC. Looking for a good workflow to use the table to import images to IPad and do some basic processing in LR/PS then once back at home move them from mobile to my LRC catalog that I store and organise my collections in using a variety of collection sets/smart collections.
I have used a usb hub, card adapter and a large thumb drive for storage with my iPad and lightroom. I would much prefer a simple bluetooth or cable connection to my Z7 with the intent only to view raw files on a trip. So far bluetooth is useless. I do not save both raw and jpeg images which maybe part of my problem. A card reader and the iPad Photoshop app with the file app works for viewing/processing on the road.
I have always deleted the files from the iPad Lightroom and reinstalled and reprocessed them on my computer at the end of the trip simply to insure the raw files are saved on my photo drive with all my other raw files. A simpler system would be nice.
How to back up photos to tablet? How to bring certain photos into the tablet to work on them with PS.
When I travel, I usually take my small MacBook Pro laptop along with a specific external drive which I call my “travel drive”. Of course I do travel with a small card reader to copy the original files from the card to the external drive.
My preliminary editing is then saved to the external drive which is placed on the main external drive once I get home.
The biggest problem with all of this is that along with all the typical camera gear, I also have the computer, cables, drive & card reader.
Hi Matt,
I’m very interested in a workflow that would allow me to transfer photos (shot with my camera AND my iPhone) to LRC installed on my MacBookPro at home.
I use Apple Cloud and don’t use Adobe Cloud (I don’t want to).
I can’t see myself using PS on my iPhone or iPad mini to correct photos every night.
I travel by bike and my use is a) to save and tag photos; b) to send 1 or 2 photos to my friends to let them know I’m alive.
Kind regards
I use LRC on my laptop and have LRmobile on my phone. But I too rarely use LRmobile because I have difficulties synchronising with LRC back and forth.
I would love to be able to do some quick selections (like picking and flagging), and some keywording on my phone while travelling by public transport, when taking out the laptop isn’t really an option.
Also, I sometimes have the impression that LRC, while synchronising, automatically puts my photos in the cloud, which I hate. However, I would like a workflow where my best images (4 or 5 stars f.e.) are automatically uploaded to the cloud. I also would like to be able and delete images that have been uploaded to the cloud when I did not want that.
I think storage is the kicker… to use any of the mobile apps, Adobe assumes you use their cloud storage and have high speed connectivity to make it paletable. So… to solve any mobile-to-desktop workflow, I think you need to assume only low bandwidth service and previews… and some kind of local storage solution that works seamlessly between them.
Great idea to map this out and solve for everyone!
I travel with my MacBook Pro, a four terabyte LaCie Rugged drive, and my iPad Pro. I do not want to use Adobe Cloud storage any more than I have to. For me, the pricing doesn’t make much financial sense. So, any solution suggestions that increase the storage used would be a non-starter.
I shoot with a Nikon Z8 and download to the LaCie drive using Lightroom Classic and a card reader, creating a temporary travel catalog. Once home, I merge that temp catalog with my main catalog.
I’m not sure where the iPad comes into the picture, but leaving my MacBook Pro at home and downloading through the iPad onto the LaCie drive could be a welcome option.
if you have a solution to download CAMERA Images to an External drive – via an Ipad, please share. I want to minimize the number of devices I carry on my travels.
I just want a Daily BACKUP of my Camera’s memory Card to an External drive. (during my travels) / If I can do that without a Laptop that would be ideal – I do carry an IPAD with me – loaded with travel information.
All Editing can be done after I get home.
I’ve been using both LRC and LR for a long time and have not really perfected a good workflow to optimize either one. When traveling, I alway import my days images to LR via my IPAD Pro and do some editing on what I think are the best photos. I almost always use photoshop for final editing when I return home. Would like to see the best way to be able to only sync what I have edited to the cloud and be able to pick up where I left off using LRC and PS (on a Mac) and then have them updated in the cloud. How do collections fit into the workflow? I have almost 1T of images in the cloud and have not found an easy way to clean them out (duplicated, rejections etc.) I keep an originals folder locally (LR CC SYNC).. do I really need it if I have TimeMachine enabled? I’m sure I’ll think of other question and will be happy to post…. hope this helps…..
I have a new Galaxy tablet. When traveling, how do I use it to back up my photos?
What version of Lightroom should I choose to use on a tablet? I couldn’t figure out how to use the mobile LR version on the tablet. It looked unfamiliar and I wasn’t sure how to access it. I don’t use cloud storage. On some trips, you are unable to connect to the cloud, even if you wanted to.
How would I copy the files from the tablet to another external hard drive, so that I had more than one copy?
Please design your course for those of us who don’t intuitively understand technology, like me!
I don’t use Adobe mobile apps simply because I do not understand them and as Matt said there is nothing out there that gives an overall look at the workflow. One of my issues is I have an iPhone and an iPad but use a PC desktop and the process of getting data off one and onto the PC is horrible.
Not having a laptop but being able to start the process on the Lightroom workflow on the go would be great and then be able to transfer to the PC and import into LRC.
I have to use LRC as I need tethering and I also use a plugin, but also love the cataloguing and collections aspect of LRC.
I always buy Matt’s courses!
I use the LR subscription on my home computer but store all my photos on an external hard drive. When I travel, I take my iPad but not the external hard drive. I upload my photos from my SD card to my iPad just to see what I got but don’t save them there. I upload all photos from my SD card to my external hard drive when back home.
Can I remotely upload my photos to the cloud while traveling so I can later bring them to my external drive once back home? Or can I somehow process my photos on my iPad using LR, and save them to bring back to my external drive later?
I store all my Lightroom Classic images on an external hard drive, which I never move from its location near the chair where I do all my editing.
When I travel, I either keep all my photos on SD card in my camera, or transfer it onto the hard drive of my tablet, which I can edit on the fly if I choose to do so. I transfer all the images to my external hard drive when I get back home.
The only instance I can imagine where I would want to place them on the cloud is if the hard drive of my computer is full, or if I was concerned that both the SD card AND the hard drive of my computer would crash.
The question I would like you to answer is, why should I want to store these images on the cloud?
With that question answered, my approach to storing my strongest travelling images on the cloud would be to create a collection, and link that collection to the cloud. I could then resave those cloud based images onto my external hard drive once I returned home. However, I don’t have a good sense of the best way to do that. Is it best to simply move them from my computer hard drive, or is it better to save them from the cloud.
I hope this is the kind of information you are looking for.
I like the way you teach and I need this now! I want to travel with just an ipad and an external hard drive. I use LR and LR Classic on my Mac, prefer LRC for my best pics. I use LR on my iPad. Can’t figure out how to delete rejected image files from cloud and disc from LR. I’ve been downloading to LR from card. Workflow including download to editing back home on Mac without taking up all my iCloud storage would be super.
I can’t seem to get a grasp on how to efficiently get a photo into LR on the iPad Pro 13 inch (2024 make) and then take the edited photo into the PS app on the iPad afterwards. I do collage work, with my non-photo elements in Dropbox and my photos on an EHD. And since the PS app on the tablet doesn’t do everything the PS app on my Mac desktop does, I usually need to transfer work in progress from the tablet to the desktop when I get home.
I definitely need a systematic, consistent and efficient workflow.
Sounds like a great course. I tried using Lr on an iPad while traveling a few years ago and it sort of worked but getting the photos into my usual LrC folder structure was a challenge and I now just wait until I get home. I have a file called Mobile Downloads.lrdata on my MacBook but I have no idea what it is for lol. As I mentioned I tried this a few years ago, it might be different (and hopefully better) now.
I have an iPad, Apple desk top, and iPhone. I’ve used Lightroom on my phone but find that when I use my phone, I get home and have photos in too many places. I need a flow to get my photos all in one place easily, which for me, is on LR classic.
I’ve been using LR Classic on my desktop and syncing my recent photos to a 1Tb SSD that I take when traveling to work on my photos. Of course, keeping the changes synced when I get home is a challenge and I cannot use my tablet this way. I recently heard if I make smart previews they can be synced to Adobe cloud easily and I can run LR on my laptop and tablet to work on photos. I believe I can also add photos while traveling to the cloud that are already synced to LR Classic. This is my biggest interest. I’m also developing a web site with Portfolio so I can share travel photos during a rip. Tips on this would be good.
My workflow includes LRC with all my photos on a NAS. I’m not really interested in putting my photos in the Adobe cloud. I do have a Dropbox account and sometimes backup my photos there when I’m traveling, if I have a good internet connection. I don’t work on my photos while on a trip mostly because I don’t take my laptop with me if I’m flying. If there is a process that would allow me to travel with a notebook and edit photos I’m interested.
Please really go into depth about how to move photos from camera to LR Mobile on iPad and then to LR Classic once we are home. It’s really the main reason I don’t use any of the mobile features. I can’t figure out how to get my photos onto my iPad from the camera and then into LR Classic on my home computer. I’ve used LR for about 15 yrs and it’s all this moving stuff around that stumps me so I don’t really get to benefit from what is available.
Looking forward to your course , they are always enlightening. When traveling I take as little as possible, iPad Pro, iPhone 15 Max, GoPro and Leica Q2. LR mobile is constantly improving throughout the years however PS mobile is not user friendly for me. Would like to see video editing features in these software , easier workflow to transfer photos to social media with templates and Action feature with PS mobile for faster editing on the go.
Matt,
I enjoy enjoy your work and loyally follow you. You have helped a to improve my photography a lot, thank you. I do a lot of traveling and travel photography in retirement. I would love to participate, but Personally I take lots of photos, sort and process at home on my big screen. My eye sight is not up to LR or PS on my phone, tablet or laptop. Besides I like socializing in the evenings, so don’t have a lot of time to process photos.
If you think I have something to offer I would love to participate and support you. Otherwise pass me by.
I use LRC on win 11 and an ipad pro.. I would love to be able to rate and cull photos on the long flights home and then transfer that to my desktop. Getting the two Eco systems to talk out side the cloud has baffled me.
can I use an external drive w iPad pro use PS Mobile to see and edit a few select photos to share mid trip then have those edit to save and /orcontinue edits on my win 11 desktop? I don’t always want to download all my cards to my iPad (space issues)
can I used the mobile programs w/o downloading to iPad (by connecting an external drive)?
This is a great idea for me! I typically transfer my photos at the end of each travel day into the iOS Photos app on my iPad, then move them from there into LRC when I get home to my desktop. I journal each day using my photos to support the stories. I do not want to use cloud solutions (I guess that speaks to my control-freakish nature.). Anyway, in the past if I have tried to use LR or PS mobile, I end up with duplicates that I have to deal with and have never been able to understand what LR mobile does with my photos. I’m open to a new process using these tools, but have to understand where everything is along the way and what I will be seeing on my desktop when I get home. Thanks for doing this, Matt
All my questions have been asked by others-looking fwd to course-Where can I get a hoodie that you are wearing in the video
I find I am doing more of my every day photography with my iPhone Pro. Please address the most efficient way to get iPhone photos automatically back to my Lightroom classic external drives for permanent storage. Currently they go to my Photos roll on the iPhone. And then once a week, I manually airdrop them all to two external drives using the desktop computer and delete them from the phone. Thanks.
I’m a LRC user…haven’t bit the LR bullet yet!!! I’m sure there are reasons why I should…..but, old dog, new tricks…blah blah blah! I carry my laptop with me when I travel. Would be nice sometimes if I only needed to take my iPad. What’s the easiest way to get photos off of an SD card without a laptop???? The only way I know is to use the wifi of my DSLR and send pics to my phone….is there another way? I’ve found out that the ONLY way even that works is if the battery on the camera is fully charged (which is not always the case when you’re out in the field!!!) Thanks!
Recommendations for folks like me that use external hard drives to store my photos versus storing them on Adobe cloud. Is there a way to access my work without bringing along all of hard drives or just one of my hards to work while I am away from home?
I modified the approach I (think) learned from Matt.
I store all my photos on a 5TB hard drive that lives at home – except for photos taken in the last year or so. These live on a little Samsung SSD that I use at home or is small and sturdy enough to travel with me.
When traveling, I use my MacBook Pro with the Samsung drive to use LR Classic just as if I was at home.
Periodically I move all the (now) older photos to the big ‘archive’ drive. I deliberately chose only a 1TB SSD so that it doesn’t become just another photos hard drive. It forces me to consider it only as my ‘current’ or ‘active’ photos drive.
Both drives are backed up with Carbon Copy Cloner. Of course, the current drive changes much more frequently than the archive drive.
I once lost all my photos of the Grand Canyon to a corrupted SD card and have been paranoid ever since. I use LR and have it on my desktop, laptop and mobile app on mu iPhone. I do use LR cloud to store my photos. I will transfer photos from my camera to LR on my laptop daily when traveling. Also, I transfer pictures from my phone to LR app which makes it easy to have them available on my desktop when I return. Age and eyesight prevent me from doing too much editing on the laptop, but I still do it.
Thanks, as ever, for the cracking work that you do, Matt.Always appreciated. My issue is transferring images from my iPhone into LR Classic. It should be easy but it doesn’t work for me! I can transfer them to LR on my ‘phone/iPad but not into LRC.
Use a Canon 5D MkIII and transferring such large images to the tablet is painful and wait until I get home to edit them. However, I like to take images with the iPhone for their immediacy (and ease of carrying!) and sometime want to post to social media. Any help will be welcome.
My situation is my old 2012 Macbook pro would make a good boat anchor. I operate a. Workflow for pictures utilizing PS and Lightroom on my IPAD and iphone only. Any educational material on the mobile side of things is appreciated – especially with AI coming on. So try to cover – 1.New features of mobile PS and L/R, ASIDE FROM AI. 2.AI features. 3.Integration with PS and Lightroom Classic.
I am also looking forward to the new OS – especially for the IPAD and purchase Of a new iphone! Some year even a new Macbook Pro! I be 80 this year!
I haven’t used mobile but would like to move some photos from classic to my phone and o the cloud.
I don’t know if this is helpful:
I use LR Classic and an iMac with a 14TB master drive. When I travel, I use a MacBook Pro and a Samsung 4TB SSD T7 with two folders dedicated to New Photographs (containing folders by year) and New Master Lightroom catalog (containing three folders: Backups, Imported Keywords, and Lightroom settings) outside these two folders are the active MASTER LIGHTROOM CATALOG backups.
When I get home the LR portable SSD automatically connects to a 14TB master drive and updates.
Matt,
Happy to hear that you are creating a course for the tablet. Having most of your courses and learned so much from you I look forward to this new one. I carry my MacBook air on trips and it is heavy when put in the same bag as my camera gear. Just having to carry a tablet will lighten the load a lot. I switched from LRC to LR after Listening to the podcast with you and Brian and will never go back. Easier to use Hopefully the ease will be transferred to the tablet. Thanks for all you have taught me. Neal
I just want to do the following.
1. Take the picture with camera or iPhone and move the image to a file on my computer with my own filing system which is backed up on my own external hard drive — no cloud.
2. Open up the image in photoshop while making first changes in Camera Raw and make final manipulations in photoshop. The problem is I can’t always figure out how to make those changes in Camera Raw by trying to follow the Lightroom instructions — they differ from Camera Raw. I just want to work without being bothered by the cloud or Lightroom organization,
I use my mirrorless camera and also my iPhone. I work in LR and Photoshop on my desktop. I would like to intergrade all in one, so I can switch between all without having to transfer photos from one to the other.
I’m one of those who use both Lr and LrC and only recently discovered the ability to sync some desktop-stored photos to the Lr (cloud version). I would be interested in a combined workflow between Lr mobile and LrC/Photoshop as I do travel a bit .
I regularly use Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Cloud on iPhone and iPad. I’m not interested in Photoshop.
I want to use LR Cloud and Classic together as organising tools with ratings and tags/keywords. I’m not very interested in processing or editing images on mobile – I will do that back home in Classic.
I want to learn how best to use LR Cloud while travelling and then import those images into LR Classic when home. I don’t want to permanently keep images in Cloud (because of cost) and don’t want to permanently sync Cloud to Classic. I also want to learn what doesn’t work between Cloud and Classic e.g. tags in Cloud aren’t same as keywords in Classic.
thank you
I use LrC mainly. Recently started iPhone photography that makes me use LR. I looked at Brian Matiash’s course on Lr ecosystem but have not got around to implement anything. I would still be interested in your course. at 90 and failing eyes, I cannot cope with editing on the phone or a small tablet.
When traveling, I often take with me an external hard drive which is majority of my more current pictures. I would rather not do that simply because I am concerned what could happen to that hard drive while traveling. However, I would like to be sure that I am not overwriting a picture that I totally edited or forgotten to edit a picture that needed editing.
I do not use the class for a multitude of reasons, but yet I’m always concerned I am not properly storing, revising pictures.
I use LR desktop and LR on an iPad Pro and on an iPhone 15. I generally shoot on a Canon R5 in raw but also take photos with the phone. As you said, if you use the Adobe cloud most of the right stuff just happens. When I travel sometimes I take my MacBook Pro with me and sometimes just the iPad. The issue I have is when I’m in an area with poor or non-existent Internet connection and want to be able to share some of the better shots with folks back home while still traveling. With the MacBook Pro I use the new local mode to copy the pictures from the Canon’s memory card onto the MacBook. Then I can easily edit, cull out the bad ones, etc. When I have Internet, I can move a few shots that I want to share into a cloud album that I share. But with the iPad, I haven’t found a good solution in the poor Internet scenario. The problem is that there’s no local mode (at least that I know of) so when I do get Internet service, there’s a huge number of shots that it tries to sync so there’s no way to share an album and know that it gets synced to the cloud first.
I travel with a 14 inch MacBook Pro with two external hard drives that I use to back up my photos along with the SD in camera cards. I use Lightroom Classic for editing along with Photoshop. I use Lightroom Mobile for sharing photos to the cloud so my workflow process is cumbersome. I have thought about transitioning to Lightroom Mobile but I have so many images in the Lightroom classic catalog system and I do not know how to make the full transition. I have not organized my images as you have so the migration looks like a lot of work. I may need to understand more about how each one handles the file edits so I can just do the hand off more efficiently. I se Lightroom classic for the majority of my edits and go to photoshop for distraction removal or sky replacement. I have enjoyed all of your classes so I am looking forward to what you are developing.
Very timely. We went on a cruise where I did not have internet access. Just bought a new maxed out ipad pro to do the work on. I transferred data from the micro DS to a scandisk ssd drive for ease of transferring data. While I know PS quite well, I stumbled with the interface of PS on the ipad. I knew there were several functions that don’t exist on the ipad version so I’m not sure whether to just stop in LR and leave PS for home finishing. Also found the ipad LR interface a challenge at times in its interface. Would love your course to recomment a strategy on how far to take ipad processing. Besh wishes to you and your family.
Hi Matt,
When i am traveling i put my pictures, movies etc on mine WD “My pasport Pro”, like a phototank. First: I have diffulculties with working on a mine Ipad because it is for me to small to look at. I am 74 years old.
Second: when i am traveling i have not the patience to work at mine photo’s. There are a lot of things i want to see and do. About 10 years ago i have mine laptop with me and evening after evening i was busy with the photo’s so when i came home everybody could see all mine finished photo’s. Now i take on vacation only take pictures. But when you are a photographer for profession that is of course a total different story.
I have installed Lightroom and Photoshop on mine Ipad. Your course could be a moment that i use the apps when i want to edit one special, very beautiful taken photo.
André Kroon
I love using the cloud. I always struggle with “importing” my photos from the cloud into my LRC catalog.
I am also using LR for my 2024 photos and I love the concept. Sometimes I want to add select photos from LR into my LRC catalog and it seems to be more challenging than it is.
I don’t need much about editing photos, more about transferring between cloud and catalog.
Thank you!
Backing up my photos when I am traveling is my main concern. I shoot mainly landscapes, and nighttime stars focusing on the Milky Way. I do my editing with LR classic and PS after returning home. Most of the time reshooting is not possible as I change locations daily. I travel with a 13″ laptop but time is limited to screen and remove bad photos or edit on the fly. Therefore, my main interest is the various methods and equipment others have found to obtain secure backups.
I do not use a tablet but I do use a laptop. We travel to Alaska yearly and take a lot of photos. I upload from the cards into a LRC on a 2TB drive portable drive and save them there. I cannot use Adobe cloud because of poor internet connections and found this is the most practical method.
I do export those files as a catalog when I get home and import that catalog into my main computer and LRC. Sometimes I do have issues in transferring files and some tips there would be very helpful.
Thanks Matt. When we travel it may be to places where the internet connection is rather slow or expensive. Prefer not to use the cloud for image transfer and storage at all. For example, we are off to Antarctica on a cruise next February – internet rates on a cruise ship are exorbitant. So, my vision is to be able to take the images from my camera, transfer them to my drive connected to my tablet then do some image processing so I can send selected images to family via email.
Major challenges I have with the approach so far is getting the images to the drive connected to my tablet without having to go through transferring them to the tablet first. Always seems to fail when I connect both my camera (or separate card reader) and drive to the camera to make a direct transfer.
Would be even better if I could then transfer the images from one drive to another for backup.
As long as the images are on the drive I do not have a problem when returning home to transfer them to my main storage drive. The newest version of lightroom works well as compared to when I had to import a catalog previously.
I’m from the UK and going to Canada for 4 weeks in 2025. I shoot RAW with a Canon camera and need a workflow that sees my photos get looked at and safely backed up while I’m travelling around Canada. How to view them on an iPad, where to store them (cost effectively) and how to retrieve them to LRc on my return. I don’t use LR currently as I fing it limited as it stands.
Chris
Biggest problem I have is how/when to add images into LRC. As a family we travel with sometimes four or more cameras including a drone, and not counting phones. Eventually, I usually re-name photos usually with a date, a shoot name, and the original camera file number.
As the original files are still kept on the SD cards till I get home, they would in all cases continue to retain their original file name.
This can lead to confusion, if there is an issue, maybe with forgetting to copy one of the many sd cards.
Deleting files on the laptop, can also cause matching issues.
It also means that editing before returning home is not so simple, as it then complicates the transfer from the local laptop LRCAT into the main one. I know that in theory, it is simple to export, then import, but it does not always work that simply.
A clear workpath is needed.
Using Lightroom Mobile on new 11” iPad Pro. Easiest way to cull photos before bringing into LR (have card reader ProGrade Digital CFexpress Type A & UHS-II SDXC Dual-Slot USB 3.2 Gen 2 Card Reader, plus ssd ext drive. Cull off card, or after transferring to ssd card?
Q2 ..
will I have catalog issues if I edit and rate,/cull photos on mobile then try to transfer to LRC on desktop?
I do keep my catalog and photos on a portable SSD that I use w desktop and my laptop.. but when doing flight travel I just bring my iPad… I could bring the SSD if it would help the workflow between iPad and win computers w PS and LRC
Hi Matt, great initiative. Brian (Matiash) converted me from Classic to Lightroom (Desktop or Cloud) with his excellent Lightroom Everywhere course. I live in Europe and visited the Tetons, Yellowstone, the plains war battlefields etc this summer. I wanted to take only my iPad, but then I didn’t. Why? Because I am too confused with Photoshop on the iPad. So I took my MacBookAir M1 and was kinda happy. Not too clunky, but still 1kg heavier than the iPad. And travelling with your photogear every ounce counts.
So here’s my thought. Will you be the first one who makes a tutorial about how to use PS for iPad in a simple straightforward manner. Maybe it’s me, (and working with PS on my computer is a pleasure), but I’m frustrated with the iPad version.
Other than that, the Lightroom Cloud and Lightroom mobile combo workflow works really well for me.
Again, thank you for taking this initiative.
This sounds like a great course. As you say there is nothing out there on how to set up a workflow for a table to make it user friendly, so I just don’t do it.
Thanks for taking (or wasting??) your time on this subject. Been on my mind a lot lately.
Here’s my situation…long time LRc user and want to use my iPad Pro more towards processing on the go. But I don’t feel comfortable with the storage options and how to get my photos from LR mobile to LRc. Also using my iPad Pro for moving photos to backup on ssd.
When I travel I like to go lite. So it would be great to carry my IPad and ssds instead of the ol’ MacBook Pro. This way I can backup my sd cards and do some basic processing while away from home. That is the part I don’t feel comfortable about.
I am taking off to the northern part of France next month and would like to feel comfortable with just my camera, cards and ssd. Your course might do the trick.
Thanks again for your time and efforts. Hope you and your family are doing fine.
Take care
Mick
How to access my LR catalog from my iPad, if that’s even possible.
Thanks
It’s not. You can only access a LR Classic catalog from the computer it’s on.
Not so much worried about editing in the field using Lr, more concerned about securing images through Adobe Cloud for later editing using LrC.
Once secured in LrC catalogue would probably want to delete from cloud to regain storage without having to purchase extra.
Hi Matt, I have a Windows Desktop PC which is my heavy lifting editing / photo storage system. I currently take a Windows laptop when travelling. What I would like to do is just take my Apple iPad when travelling and use it to 1) copy photos from CF express cards to backup portable SSD drives (2 drives) . 2) Very basic house keeping, file renaming, a few main hierarchical keywords, star rating. 3) Very simple editing probably using some presets available on both my PC using Lightroom Classic and in mobile solution. Then when I get home need to move photos from Apple formatted drives to Windows drives, import the Lightroom adjustments made whilst travelling. My preferred import method currently is using XMP files.
Hi Matt, just like M. McEvoy stated
I’m a Lightroom Classic user, and I have never used a tablet to download photos from the camera while on a trip. I want to purchase a tablet and then do so if it is straightforward . My fear is how to download the photos onto the tablet and then transfer the photos to my laptop computer when I get home.
At this point when traveling I am creating a new catalogue on my laptop in Lightroom classic. When I return home I import the catalogue into my main Lightroom catalogue on my desktop. I have Lightroom mostly using it for syncing to my mobile devices, and have synced a good amount of collections. Too many as I am already running out of space. I also have a few websites set up using portfolio which is in itself a sometimes frustrating experience. And some times I set up temporary websites so that I can share photos with friends and clients.
I am glad that I can browse my photos on my device in Lightroom, but I mostly use it for temporary photos that I am not interested in importing into my catalogue. Photo storage is a pain. I do carry a portable hard drive but mostly use it to find a particular photo or for backing up. My desktop is my main device at home and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. That’s because of its speed and large storage space.
I love your videos. Thanks for making so many of the available. I belong to the San Antonio camera club and you are referenced often.
Hi Matt. I’m really interested in this course, since I am actually using Lr mobile on my phone in conjunction with Lr classic (where I do most of my edits) and I would love to learn tips and ways to do this in a more optimised way.
Hi Matt, once again you are going over and above to solve the issues that lots of us have but few of us are willing to put in the hard graft to work it out. I am still a classis user, thinking about moving to Lightroom but at present virtual copies are useful to me. I would like to put a bunch of images in the cloud, show them to a client on my phone, make some small adjustments as requested by the client and transfer them back to my hard drive on returning to base and remove them from the cloud. Hope this makes sense. Thanks again.
Hi Matt,
I work from two offices, each with LRC. When I move between them I use external drives to sync photos and catalogue between the two (sync to external at office 1, sync externals to local PC at office 2, the sequence is to sync photo files first then sync LRC catalogue folder). New photos are added as usual to LRC at office 2 and then the sync process is reversed when moving back from office 2 to office 1. I don’t use my laptop in this process but this does involve me travelling with 3 external drives – two as redundent backups of the photo files and one SSD with the catalogue files. I use Backblaze to keep all of this backed up on the cloud as well, just in case of disaster whilst travelling.
I use LR mainly for files that I want to share and so not all my collections are synced as albums (about 50%) and I don’t store photos on the Adobe cloud although my account would allow me to.
This is a clunky approach that has evolved and it kinda works, but if there is a better, safer, more efficient approach that I could use then I am all for it.
I’m not a photographer and I don’t travel due to health issues. But I do most of my photo editing on my iPad Pro M4. Lightroom works great on the iPad. I’ve stopped using Classic after following your course. I store everything in iCloud and on external drives connected to my iMac.
Good luck with developing this course!
I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max. This is now my main go to making photos. I have a cloud subscription, so I have no problems getting my photos in LR and LRC on iPhone, Desktop and Tablet, it’s all done automically by the programs if you use the right settings.
So I think I cannot help you with your question. I wish you good luck with the course!!
The major reason I have not converted to Lightroom, rather than use my Lightroom Classic is the cost of a subscription to the cloud. That is a huge factor.
Should I decide on a subscription to the Adobe cloud, my questions would be how does one then download a lot of images onto Lightroom Classic once home. How does one store the images on a hard drive as a back up, when connected to an iPad and what is the latest version iPad one would need to be able to use your workflow.
Thanks for this opportunity Matt. I like to produce a blog as I travel (for the family back home) and being able to do simple image edits (in PS and LR) and then transfer them easily at home from my android and PC laptop to my PC desktop computer would be a great improvement on my proceses. I’ll be keen to see how your course turns out.
Hi Matt,
I’m a Lightroom Classic user, and I have to say I have never used a tablet or laptop to download photos from the camera while on a trip. I want to do so if it is easy. My biggest fear would be how to transfer the photos to my desktop computer when I get home.
Thanks again, Matt, for all your tutorials and help.
Michael
Well I can tell you how I do it today on a laptop and hopefully I could find a better way to do something similar on a tablet (Android) instead 🙂
Most of the time I have my cmaera with me while travelling but also use my phone.
1. So the first thing I do is to copy all the photos from the camera to the laptop (or then hopefully to an Andoid tablet in the future in separate cataloges (based on date).
Next step is to do a rough selection where I want to make sure the quality is good enough (or at least recoverable). I typically take 3 shots or more of every scene so
2 I want to keep 2-3 of the good photos, Group them together (time based) and then pick out the one I think is the Winner (out of the 2-3).
3. Once this is done I do a backup of the raw-files (most of the time to a separate SSD but also to my phone or to an usb-stick (want more than one backup)
4. A rough edit of all photos (i.e. applying a basic edit)
5. Update the backup
6. Go through the photos again, picking out the stars (4 star) and edit them a bit more thorough.
7. Generate jpgs of the 3 star and 4 stars (to separate folders)
8. Update backup
Then once I’m back home I want to sync/copy the backup into LR Classic with all the adjustments and then work from there.
Hi Matt, I am interested by that mobile course. I am using iphone 12pro max native camera and photo app simple presets and crop and never use LR camera,… and process jpg or dng into LRC on my desktop (dcim folder import) so nice to see how you proceed, your workflow,…
I would be interested by a special section on how to use iphone LR camera better way,…
Very interesting question. I tried many things in the past, but now I use my MacBook Pro with an external hard drive to back up and if I have time to to sort my images. And when I’m back at home, I just have to put photos on local hard drive. The most important things for me is to back up photos so if I have enough cards I don’t format them. I have 2 copies of the photos one of the cards and one on hard drive. I tried to use my iPad, but I never find relevant workflow to use it because it’s a nightmare to use the iPad to back up Photo on a hard drive.
First off I don’t have a tablet so please make the course for people that don’t have that. I have never processed Images on the phone, so please describe exactly how to go about downloading Lightroom onto my phone. I’ve never done that.
I only have a phone and a laptop. I’m mainly interested in 1– How do I go about moving a raw image from my canon camera to my phone in order to process it. ? Once it is on my phone, And I process it, how do I go about that information back to my office Lightroom catalog?
The bottom line is give us a step-by-step instruction on how to get the software onto our phone and how to get the process damage back to the main Lightroom catalog. Don’t use Photoshop.
I’ve been a pro photographer for 40+ years and I’ve always wondered how we got away from using the word develop or process. Everybody tends to use the word edit. Which I believe is a complete misnomer. When you edit photos, that means you’re culling them. Not processing them. Why is that people use the word edit. That’s a complete rhetorical question. It bothers me the same way that it bothers me that people shoot vertical video instead of horizontal. 🙂
Great idea for this course.
When I travel, I usually take my MacBook Pro and iPad. I have a little Samsung SSD that contains my ‘current’ photo folders in my Lightroom Classic catalog that I also carry with me. Periodically I move older/inactive folders to the big ‘archive’ drive that stays at home.
I shoot ‘proper photos’ with my mirrorless or DSLR, but often will also take photos on the iPhone that I carry with me.
Unfortunately the iPhone photos rarely end up in my Lightroom catalog but remain in Apple’s photos library – synced to all of my Apple devices – and most likely ignored. Which is a pity, because some of those are actually good photos that are forgotten because they don’t go through the same edit process.
I don’t have a good process to merge the iPhone photos that I want with my mirrorless photos in Lightroom Classic – at home or on the road.
It’s only certain iPhone photos that I want to keep in Lightroom Classic. I don’t want the mundane/temporary photos of various access codes and maps for the RV park, where I parked the car at the airport, photos of the broken parts so I can show the guy as we look for a replacement, etc. But I DO want the whale video I took with my phone, or the quirky shop that I walked past without my proper camera, or the Apple Live Photo (with long exposure filter applied) of the seascape at sunset (when my proper camera was back at base).
I also want some photos that give information about true time and GPS locations that I can sync to other photos that I took on my Canon R6 that doesn’t have in-built GPS.
I’ve tried travelling with just the iPad but found that I tangled myself in knots, so I just use the MacBook Pro.
Ideally, I would use the iPad to import the photos from the SD card to the SSD where they will ultimately reside.
I have an SD card reader that uses the single USB-C port on the iPad so where do I connect the SSD that contains my photo folders? Does that connect to a separate USB-C port on the dongle?
Typically, I end up importing the photos from the SD card onto the iPad itself, and then use Lightroom cloud sync capabilities to get them to my other devices. However, this leads to potential duplication as I end up with images that remain in the cloud that I don’t need there. Ultimately I want my images to reside on the SSD. I’m not sure of the iPad file storage system, and too scared to delete them from the cloud sync in case I lose the originals completely.
Ideally each day I would choose the best photos that I’ve taken from any camera, edit on the iPad in Lightroom and publish those to social media… while still having all of those photos stored on the SSD in the location where they belong in my Lightroom classic folder structure.
On longer trips I might need to re-use the SD card. I don’t have a great mobile backup strategy. Usually I just copy the active folder to one of my other hard drives temporarily so that I have the originals in two places. It’s a bit risky because both copies are in the same location, but I can’t realistically do offsite backups while we are on cellular data. When I return home, the SSD is automatically backed up and I can delete the temporary copy – if I remember…
Your video made me realise that I make up the workflow as I go along each time, which creates a big mess that I never seem to go back to fix. I need to create and use a consistent workflow.
I use Lightroom with Lightroom Classic. I put everything into classic and then cull and do initial editing in the Classic version. After that I pick the best ones and create a Collection for them so I can put them into the cloud
I use the LR (non classic) version so that I can have the best ones in the cloud to share with others and family.
I have a couple of problems in creating and using these collections
1. I sometimes use 2 or 3 layers of collection sets in LR Classic but have had problems figuring out how to create more than one layer of collection sets in LR (non clasic) to mimic the organization I have in the Collections in the Classic version. It seems that it will not allow multiple set in the LR version.
2. I share most of these with other people but there are a couple of problems in sharing
A. For some reason adobe makes it hard for sharing without the people who get the links having to create an Adobe account most people dont want to create a new account for something they do not use other than to look at files I want them to see. Is there a solution to this problem, so they can access the files without creating an account? Am I missing something here?
B. I have not been able to figure out how to share a Collection Set (several collections in a set), it seems that I can only share links to collections. Is there a way to share a link to a collection set in LR ?
3. There is one other problem I have with the LR Classic version. When looking at the sync progress, it shows that there are 3 files which cannot be synced. I have looked at the file names it shows for those files and found that they are already synced and in all the versions of the cloud apps. So they must be in the cloud correctly and they are in the LR Classic collection correctly. Since they are everywhere correctly how do I get rid of these 3 error remarks?
I thank you for your courses they have been very helpful
If I might change subjects
I know you do mostly LR and PS classes
But have you ever thought about doing one on Adobe Express?
I think it would be popular if you did a course aimed not at photographers but at young kids on how to use Adobe Express to make creative artwork. Like me, I know your audience consists of a lot of older people who have young grand kids, and nephews and nieces plus the younger photographers probably have younger kids (grade shool and middle school age).
I say this because months ago I was at my nephew’s house (he has 7 kids ages 3 mo thru 8 years old); I was at the kitchen table using Adobe Express (which I had just started to learn) making a brochure for a friend’s party invitation. My 8-year-old great-niece was drawing with crayons, she looked at the graphics I was making in Adobe Express then she asked me if I could show her how to use it to make a drawing. I saved what I was doing and then showed her some basic things and after 2 hours she had done a very nice card for her mother.
I setup a login for my nephew and showed hom how ot login on a browser, so that he could log her into Adobe Express to use it for more drawings. After a couple of weeks my nephew called and told me that she was maing all kinds of drawings which amazed him as to how good she had gotten on her own. She ever started to help 2 of her sisters (age 6 and 7) how to use Adobe Express and they were making some nice artwork.
I have spent several days at my nephews house with all three of them showing them more things about Adobe Express, and I have learned some things from them that I did not know.
I started to realize that it would be very popular for someone to have a training video that would be aimed at kids to create artwork and cards for relatives. Kids have great imaginations and are limited in how to use their imagination with only paper and crayons, and they are so much more creative with a tool like Adobe Express.
Two of his kids even used Adobe Expres to create a flyer for their class when they had a project to put together something that showed what they did during the summer; the flyer that they created was fantastic
I think that Adobe Express would be a great tool for young kids to show their creativity and learn to use some basic skills, and what is needed is a good video showing some of the finer point of Adobe Express.
This sounds great, and like a selfless act for you. I teach people about these sort of things, so I’m interested in what you come up with.
Personally, I travel with a 13in MBPro with LR Classic on it. My problem is that I got used to LR Classic DeNoising my photos on my M1Mac Studio with 64GB RAM. DeNoise takes about 10 sec per image. When I’m traveling, DeNoise takes several MINUTES for each image – unacceptable. I checked, and my 2017 MB Pro only has 8GB RAM. I’m planning on getting a new travel laptop because of this. How much RAM will I need to get to be able to DeNoise efficiently on the road?
Thanks and best of luck,
Charlie
I do not travel much anymore, but I would love to use my iPad more while sitting on the couch or on my porch in a more relaxed way. Also, I do not have a dedicated tablet like a Wacom, but I suspect there are many things I could use my Apple Pen for that would make editing more fun and productive. Always love your courses and style.
Hi Matt! Thank-you for opening this comment section. Interestingly, while I was initially excited when I got an iPad Pro and started using Adobe apps on that device, I was imagining that my workflow and image management approach would improve, … clearly, it did not. (Actually, I am still so disappointed that I threaten to sell the iPad Pro, get a cheap tablet and a reasonable laptop, instead.)
The tasks I imagined accomplishing on the iPad for Lightroom, without using the Cloud, were workflow and organization-related mostly: culling and rating; key-wording; and then pen/drawing an edit plan on the image, – preferably on a copy of the image. Then I would create an organized edit plan to follow-through with when I got back to my desktop computer. And I could relax while I picked my way through an image shoot/roll/file using the iPad Pro. Heck, I could go sit in the park or anywhere I wanted! Otherwise, every time I open my desktop LrC, there can be so much going on there (work-work-work) as to be distracting from the focus of the work that needs to be done, in that moment. Anyway, that was what I imagined. That does not appear to be what was in the mind of the folks who designed these apps. Then there is the ‘synching’ thing. Oh yeah, and colour-mgmt on different displays in different environments, … .
For Photoshop, I imagined that it would be a fantastic place to play around with creative compositions, such as composites, making posters or greeting cards for example. Maybe play around with layouts – or presentation order – for multiple images, etc., … . Given that, a device such as an iPad, is to my mind, a “support” device – and should not be used as the work-horse or brains of the operation, I did not expect to do anything deep such as masking or portrait touch-ups. And I thought, I would be able to easily manage a workflow for single images (and eventually for batches) as (please don’t laugh) LrC > LR > PS > LR > LrC. And I thought it would be a fun place to get a bit more creative.
The whole thing is a tough sell, now: It appears that the mobile-device Adobe app-family was designed primarily to get new subscriptions for Adobe-for-mobile devices (to make more membership sales) and that any features that are said to augment or support existing desktop-dedicated Adobe users (and lovers of) were designed after-target-market, … well, because everyone who loves AdobeCC desktop apps, myself included, is going to try really-really hard to love the mobile Adobe apps, too.
If I were someone who only used mobile devices, I would love everything that can be accomplished with the Adobe apps and I wouldn’t be worried about the rest. When it was first launched, Adobe Draw was a decent and fun-to-use app – but it got replaced with Fresco(?) which again, is clearly made for some other user-market.
Thank-you for listening/reading. I trust that you will, as brilliantly as you always do, find all the incredibly useful things that I am missing out on, and show the correct way to think about (and learn how to) get the most out of all this extraordinary technology!
Yikes! I think your in-box is blowing up. Good luck!
I have always stored my photos in organized folders on my hard disk and never saw the need for (or wanted) Lightroom Classic catalogs. I have traditionally used Photo Mechanic for ingest and applying metadata, ACR for raw conversion and initial editing, and PS for final editing. I follow a Blake Rudis workflow except I use Photo Mechanic rather than Adobe Bridge. When you discussed moving to Lightroom from Lightroom Classic and using it with images stored locally, I took a look at it, but unfortunately, I use some local adjustment presets which, as you point out in your Evolving with Lightroom course, are not yet supported. I prefer to (1) have a large screen and (2) the power of a desktop computer when editing, so I have never been interested in editing using say an iPad or even a laptop.
When traveling, I ingest my images to a laptop using Photo Mechanic so that I have a backup of the images stored on my memory cards. When I get home, I ingest the images from the memory cards onto my desktop computer (memory card is primary storage, laptop is secondary storage). It might be nice to ingest and store the images in the cloud until I got home, and then download them from the cloud to my local hard disk. That way the cloud is the primary storage and the images stored on the memory cards are the secondary storage. And, I could use Lightroom for some initial editing while traveling, and then bring all of these edits home when I download the images from the cloud to my hard disk.
Matt, I think the reason you don’t find much is in my opinion not that many people are all that interested in extensive editing using either a tablet or cell phone since neither of these devices have precise controls like a mouse. I have used both LR and PS on my Samsung S22 and in almost all cases I do very little if any editing because it is too time consuming and frustrating trying to do precise editing using my finger as a pointing device. I can do crude editing if I am desperate or editing for social media where I do not care about precise edits. The main thing I use LR for on my phone is to pull the DNG files from my phone into LR mobile which then auto transfers to my desktop when I turn my PC on at home.
Of course I use my camera when traveling, but I use my iphone a lot too, depending on what I might want to do with my photos (plus we all know night-view is the greatest, right?). So, I end up with half my photos in Apple Photos and the camera half in LR. I’d be interested in the best workflow to get the better iphone photos, or maybe the ones that need it most, into LR for the trickier edits. And, if possible, keep the identifying info that I’ve added to them in Apple Photos.
Thanks!
PS Also, I got an older camera modified for infra red, which I haven’t used since darkroom days. Also, I got a 720 nm filter for my phone. I’d like to see a course with workflow for B&W infra red.
I would love to use adobe mobile, I have a Samsung tablet that is pen based, screen is very good quality. I could use SSD devices or I could use Google drive for storing and have those files shared and I could use LrC and Adobe mobile easily. But my prevention is .. is the tablet screen have the right colors if I process them on the tablet? I am not entirely sure this is what your asking is what is preventing me from using a tablet more when traveling. My camera gear is heavy enough and dragging a laptop along is just more than wanting for weight when going through airports and the sorts.
iPhone 15pro max, Canon EOS R5, MAC book pro. iPad, are my mobile suite. Canon user for 50 years but use my iPhone photo raw as much as R5. I photo florals and other ideas for painting working out ideas using AI in PS and some in LR. I’d like to project possible images, 40×60”, 6’x8’, on location to view potential. Thanks. I still have 4×5 and 120 film with cameras, darkroom set up, and b&w IIlford & Zone IV paper. My vision is still alive. One week with Ansel Adams in Yosemite still lives
As amateur photographers, my wife and I usually take all our camera gear plus an Apple MacBook Pro and external disk to download images daily (usually).
First, I copy the SD cards to folders (named by project and YYYYMMDD) on my laptop for input analysis (NOTE: I don’t reformat the SD card until the end of my downloading steps and I have double checked image counts. And then I only use my camera for reformatting.)
Next I do a quick check and triage removing screwups, dups and other faux pas’s using Camera Bits’ Photo Mechanic product. I use this at the recommendation of a NatGeo Exployer who found this product was significantly faster at rendering raw images of all sizes, as fast as you can press the cursor keys.
After the triage, I open LrC and COPY the input file on the laptop into Lightroom, making a second copy onto my external disk into a file named for my project. During the inputting I add whichever Keywords I can which cover the location, target and situation if they apply to all images.
Next I go into LrC to Previous Input which it should already be pointing to if no errors were detected. I then add any specific KeyWords that are appropriate to the activity in the image.
At this point the SD cards can be reformatted And. time of day permitting, I might go slowly through to see if we got what we was trying for today.
My problems with taking LrC into the field is in reintegrating the image file into my home LrC system and that will be what I will be watching for from your We’ve tried exporting the laptop’s catalogue and copying the edited input file to the external drive but the process is confusing and something always seems to go wrong. I’ve also tried using the external drive for editing and then exporting the catalogue to that drive so that it is with the edited file and then, once home, using LrC’s Import From Another Catalog to bring in the editted file, but that has given me problems as well. … Looking forward to hearing your approach.
I don’t want to store my photo in the cloud. I like to cull photos then do initial edits on them and the best I’ll finish once back home. Some I can finish for simple things like uploading to social media but most of the time I’ll finish them when I get home. I have leaned the ones I am keeping and have edited on I’ll transfer those files and the “side cars” to my main phone drive when home. Also hope to learn more about mobile editing.
Definitely interested, depending on the price of the course. I have been greatly disappointed in the lack of information about how to use LR and PS on the iPad. I am not willing to pay extra for cloud storage. I want to be able to do as much as possible within those two apps. I use other platforms and do 100% of my work on my iPad Pro. I only use LR on my pc for resizing and saving. I gave up on using my pc for Photoshop years ago. I do composite work for the most part.
If it would help you. I use my android pixel 9 and take photos. I do some initial editing on the phone. When I get to my PC and use Lightroom desktop and export to my external drive.
depending,after they are on the computer I I delete some or all on the to cloud to save my 20 gig. betailed editing on PC and maybe PS as needed.
finished work goes to cloud
YMMV
I think the most I struggle with when editing on the go is getting to my files on my mobile apps. I often find that I end up limiting how much I carry and so often don’t want to bring my laptop. Last time, I brought my ipad with the thought to upload directly to it, but ended up with not enough memory to access the photos I wanted to play with. If you could show a workflow of somehow downloading files to a hard-drive from my camera (without bringing my laptop) and then accessing them using my ipad to edit some, that would be awesome! I think that is possible, but I am not sure. Is this out of the realm of possibility? Thanks!
Really wish I could make more time in my days to spend on your classes!! I own a few now, but still haven’t finished the photoshop one, I think I pick up most from your short free videos because that is all I can seem to fit in my schedule! But, I will keep trying!! Keep up the great work!!
I would also like to leave the MacBook at home and just take the iPad with me. I have tried this twice, with poor results. I imported the photos from the camera card into Lightroom on the iPad. The majority of them never made it to either my iPhone or my laptop, even after I was home for a few days on my normal (not the best, but perfectly adequate) wifi. I have no idea why the sync never occurred. The other thing I ran into was that while I did not need to buy more storage from Adobe, I did need to opt for more storage for backing up my iPad during the trip, because of the space taken by the photos. If the photos had all synced like they were supposed to, I might have had to get more storage from Adobe as well. The idea that I can load the photos onto the iPad and then move them over to another hard drive plugged into the iPad is new to me — please cover that! What I really like to do when traveling is load all my photos each day, pick one or two, edit those, and email them to a select set of friends as my “photo of the day”. The real editing will wait until I am home on the laptop and in good light.
Hey Matt,
I think I may be at the centre of the dartboard for this content.
Utopia looks like: All my photos, anywhere, editable on any of my devices with those edits being rock solid in terms of syncing back to a central catalogue. Bonus points for both users of my single Mac being able to access the same catalogue, but don’t even get me started.
– LrC is my “home base.”
– Because of the sheer number of photos I have, I use a (Synology) NAS and am well set up to retain / backup / work on my photos using my own storage; I do not want to use Adobe cloud and get trapped into another cloud service that increases in cost over time. I already use Backblaze to automatically upload copies of photos from the NAS, which itself is copied to on-site and off-site backups on a rotational basis.
– I have an iPad Pro with the pencil and I dearly wanted to buy into the dream of “editing on the go” and being able to travel only with a tablet and hard drive.
Unfortunately, as you point out, this all only hangs together if you use Adobe Cloud. It falls apart into a nightmare of sync issues, workarounds & plugins to get smart collections to sync, etc.
Most importantly, I have lost edits made on the iPad that don’t make it back to my images on LrC, and have therefore totally lost confidence in the scenario of being able to access and edit my photos on the go.
The way I handle things today when I travel is to just dump all my Raw (and JPG, for viewing purposes) photos onto a portable hard drive, so it’s really a backup, not a portable editing workflow. On my iPad, with the hard drive attached, I can see the jpgs so I have a crude way of seeing the uncropped unedited jpg version.
My current plan, unless your upcoming content changes my thinking, is to just buy a used Mac Air, install LrC onto it, create a separate travel catalogue, and leave the iPad at home. This doesn’t solve the “see all my photo’s no matter where I am” piece, but at least it’s trivial to import that travel catalogue into my main catalogue, along with copying over all the images automatically, when I get back home. Not elegant.
Technically, I *should* be able to access my catalogue from anywhere since it lives on my NAS and that NAS is securely externally accessible, but in practice in the real world I have never got that to work properly. There’s always some bandwidth issue, an authentication problem, etc etc. Perhaps we’re just not “there yet.”
So, to end where we started: Utopia looks like: All my photos, anywhere, editable on any of my devices with those edits being rock solid in terms of syncing back to a central catalogue.
Hope that helps and good luck!
Mark.
I’m looking forward to the content. I’m not a power user of Lightroom nor Photoshop. I enjoy both and go through times where I use both consistently. I’m lucky to be where Internet connection is steady most of the time – home or travel. I am interested in learning about other options when Internet may not be an option.
I use both my Canon and iPhone. I rarely take my Canon when traveling though.
I’ve used the apps on my phone and Macbook Pro. I have not used them on my iPad – it may be a consideration, though.
I’m not interested in doing final edits on the road. I use my laptop/tablet to cull out the not so good photos and do some basic edits to see the potential in what is left. From there, I transfer the photos I want to fine tune and do final edits on my PC with the large monitor back home.
I’ve tried a number of different tactics when traveling. One thing to take into account is that when traveling, some places have horrible Internet, so I like my travel workflow to not be dependent on having the kind of fast Internet access that I have at home. What I finally decided is that laptops are now plenty powerful enough to run LR and PS well, so I now only have one computer – a Mac laptop. At home I have a large monitor and an external mouse and keyboard. I also have a huge 24TB photo storage drive. My LR Classic catalog lives on my computer, but all my photos are on the external drive. When I travel, I just unplug my computer and take it with me. If I’m just gone for a few days, I put my photos on my internal hard drive. If I’m away for more than 2 days, I travel with a tiny solid state 2TB travel drive. I put all my photos on the internal hard drive or the travel drive when on the road and edit in LR as usual. If there’s Internet, then everything automatically gets backed up with Backblaze. In case there’s no Internet in some places, I never reformat my camera cards while traveling, so those provide an additional backup of the photos. When I get home, I simply drag and drop the folders on the internal drive or the travel drive onto the big photo drive and I’m done. So I guess my main comment is, why bother to use a tablet when you can just take your laptop? It’s so much easier to use the exact same setup at home and on the road.
I want to be able to review images on my IPad and not have to travel with a computer. I want to review, move images to a separate hard drive for an initial quick back-up and be able to do some light editing in the event I am in a workshop and an image review is part of the workshop. First and foremost though is the ability to travel without lugging around a laptop. Thanks
Hi Matt – a course like you are proposing is long overdue since the workflow from travel to home sucks!. Some background I bought an iPad Pro around the time that you could first hook up a hard drive to it so that instead of schlepping a heavy laptop I could process pictures on the road. Along with that I moved from a MaBook Pro to a higher end iMac for working on at home. But I soon found that at that time LR was not great and I seemed to have to reprocess images once they were moved to my NAS. ADobe Cloud was never really in the picture.
After struggling with this approach for several international trips I gave up and moved from a desktop back to a MacBook Air with an M2 processor and a 1Tb drive. That is what I now carry when I travel since it is no heavier than my iPad Pro and has LrC so as I collect images I can collect images in date/location folders in a travel catalog.
But this has it’s own set of problems that Adobe has not addressed to my satisfaction. On my NAS my heirarchy is Year>YearMonth – location>In progress with edited photos ready for publication/sharing moving from “in progress” back into the higher level folder (Year>YearMonth – location). If Iduplicate this heirarchy on my laptop hard driveas a travel catalog and then try to merge the travel catalog with the main catalog and move the photos from laptop to NAS it is never a one to one move – rather the folders that get moved are always NOT directly under the Year but rather off to the side and require moving to thei correct location according to my established heirarchy.
So would I be better off working with Lr on the road and miss out on being able to keyword images while on those long boring flights and ??loosing any edits I did in Lr?
Perhaps you will consider these comments while creating your course because I think that having a consistent and easily workflow with tighter integration between what one can achieve on the road and final stoarge at home would be extremely beneficial to a lot of phtographers.
If you have any questions based on this description please feel to reach out.
Thank you for all you do to educate your fellow photographers.
Simon
I love LR classic have used it for years and my most concern or difficulty when trying to use a mobile device while traveling is how to handle the raw images from my A1 into a mobile device or a cloud. the mobile well has limited space and while traveling the wireless speed might be slow. Thus I find nit very disappointing to instead of raw use jpg files of say a warbler just to edit it in mobile when I know the raw has so much more bandwidth to edit but the mobile device cannot handle the large file.
SO many great comments already I think my issues are all mentioned…I want to get my RAW photos from my camera to my ipad pro (easy I use a card reader) then edit what I want (or delete) and save jpegs – then push everything all back to a SSD (saving edits) so I am not storing on my ipad anything more than jpegs to show/upload to cloud and share….
I am a LrC Lr and PS user but am actually liking the no catalogues of Lr 🙂 Thankyou Matt!
I think this is a great idea. You hit the nail on the head….adobe cloud is very expensive. When I am travelling I do take a portable hard drive that I can download photos onto. I do like to do some edits on the way to share with friends and family what I am doing and where I am going. Currently, I have been taking a laptop with me but I would rather take a tablet to keep the weight down. There is a bit of a struggle there doing edits with the tablet so I just gave up but that is where I would rather be.
Looking forward to doing whatever I can to help you out.
I’m a long time LR Classic user (- since Scott Kelby presented it in Chicago and I got it on a CD!) I have it on a separate laptop PC and use external hard drives.
I have imported photos to my iPad from big camera but it’s been a long time. I have more recently taken photos with iPhone, put my iCloud Photos on a different desktop pc with LR on it. I’ve also done some editing of the phone shots on the iPad using LR.
So laptop has all photos from real camera and LR classic.
Desktop has LR and folder of iPhone-iCloud photos.
It works but it is clunky. If the process could be smoother, it would be great.
I might once have been but I doubt that I am any longer your typical user and student. Bad back. 79 years old. Driving is main travel mode. Oldish hybrid with great mileage and zero comfort. What that means. When I am on the road I have my iPhone and even if I have packed the now-old Sony SLR, it’s all the phone. At home or in a motel at night I crank up my Macbook, launch Lightroom Classic and see if anything has come in. If so I might work it, normally by sending it to PS, and save it. It’s nice to be able to look back on yesterday’s work during a driving break. Not sophisticated at all. But I’ve come to depend on LR on the iPhone–0just the app.
Matt: As a long time LrC user I now have two scenarios for travel: 1) I have room to take the 16″ MacBook pro and use it to import the Canon Mirrorless SD cards daily (and as a 2nd backup and maybe even a 3rd on an SSD), or 2) vacations where I can only bring the iPad and a usb SD card reader.
Ideally I’d like processes that can work for both types of trips
Additionally, there is the workflow issue of backup from LR the Adobe Cloud as another safety against lost while accounting for the (often very) limited internet bandwidth in hotels or worse yet on cruise ships. Uploading all the many GB of files each night hasn’t ever proved particularly successful.
Finally, I’d love to figure out a method of when I have both the laptop and tablet on vacation to somehow get at least the “picks” from the day (if not the entire day) quickly to the iPad so that I can show them to folks I’m traveling with and let them help me cull the photos or react to quick edits in LR on the iPad. But slow wifi and/or the issues with duplicately importing on both devices have kept me from figuring out a workable approach to this
I watched your course on LR vs Classic. Interesting but not changed my mind. Been into LR since about 2003. I teach LRC and PS on a one on one basis. My workflow is to fill two cards at a time, put new ones in and then download all when I get home.
I am in my 80’s and prefer sleep at night as opposed to post. The other negatives for me mainly deal with real estate: an iMac screen is big enough to see a whole file really well when I am going through triage after download at home. Next, I use 2 monitors and am spoiled.
My clients are long-term ones and expect really good work takes a little longer, so my turnaround for delivery is about a week.
I don’t know if any of this is useful, but it is how I live. By the way, I think I have been following you for about 10 years. I met you a long time ago at Out of Chicago…….I guess you made a great impression.
Great idea for a course, can’t wait for it!
Be sure to describe how to get mobile processed images into Lightroom catalog saving all the edits.
I’m Interested too in saving images to a SSD from my iPad rather than LR cloud.
Hi Matt, I spent the last few years trying to find a method of doing this (getting photos into LR on iPad, ability to view and do some rating & basic editing for posting on social media while traveling, getting my photos backed up, and eventually into LRC on my desktop back home) while traveling with as few manual steps as possible. I like the seamless flow I get with photos from my iPhone – importing directly into LR and then auto syncing into LRC when l’m home. I’m currently downloading photos from my Sony A7iii memory cards to my phone or tablet. I carry enough cards with me that I don’t overwrite any of the cards so I have a least two copies of my images. Would love to find a way to have images sync (automatically) to on-line storage (dropbox, etc) so I would have to be concerned with space on my phone or iPad. My biggest wish is too have keywords sync between LRC and LR. When traveling I often peruse my images (setting flags, etc) at the end of the day and would love to be able to keyword the images and have those show up in LRC.
I’ve tried the approach of using LRC on a laptop while traveling then importing that catalog into LRC at home, but too many steps and I don’t travel with my laptop any longer (just my camera kit, iphone, and iPad). Going to Africa next year (2+ weeks) and my total luggage (including carry-on, etc) will be 44 lbs so am looking at ways to parse things down even further.
I really enjoy your tutorials and the courses I’ve purchased over the past years (going back to your PS Killer Tips days with Kelby…) Keep up the good work and thanks for asking for input. Cheers!
Matt,
Here is what I often try to do, but sometimes I lose track of the edits, or lose track of the file through some re-naming mistake.
Objective: Get all jpg photos on one card, RAW files on a second card for each day of shooting. (For cameras having dual slots)
Ideal: Have enough cards for each day. (Four shooting days, four cards for jpg, four cards for RAW.) Copy each to a portable hard drive after every day’s shoot.
Objective: Add the jpg files to any screen device (tablet, phone, laptop) for immediate sharing web/social media/email. Store RAW files for later editing, preferably on LrC, but available to edit on ANY device. Store on portable hard drive, or internal hard drive of a larger desktop. Sort and cull images before syncing to Adobe Cloud.
Objective: Edit on any device, maintaining continuity throughout.
Ideal: Begin editing on a mobile device while on the road where wi-fi may not be available, pick up at home where I left off.
Objective: Have specific edited RAW files sorted into a collection/album for a book, calendar, or other printed version.
Ideal: Collections (albums) are always available on any device.
Objective: Maintain single LrC catalog across mobile devices and hard drives.
Ideal: Have mobile devices recognize the LrC catalog from which the image came from.
I can never remember whether the full version is synced/uploaded, or a “homogenized” version is uploaded. So when I begin to edit a version synced/saved to the Adobe cloud on another device, where are the edits actually housed? Saving with a new name from a new version unknowingly outside of LrC basically means you will never see the file again. Saving it in LR means that it could error off in the syncing process the next time syncing becomes available (in my experience.)
Distributing a database is harder than we usually imagine, but it can be done.
As a LR classic user my needs from the mobile platform would be. storing keepers and sorting outakes while traveling using a tablet and SD. card reader. I shoot raw only and don’t often use LR mobile for editing, preferring LR and PS. I am setting up an Adobe portfolio site and currently have collections synced to Adobe cloud. periodically I browse these collections with LR. Mobile or show my work to friends. I would be looking for the most efficient way to move my Raws taken while traveling to my image drive upon arriving home
Greetings Matt!
I like to use Lightroom Mobile (LrM) on my iPad Pro while traveling and Lightroom Classic (LrC) on my Windows computer at home. Overview of current workflow:
1. Copy pictures from camera to 2 external drives. (Yes, I’m that guy with lots of redundancy!)
2. Import pictures into Lightroom Mobile using iPad Pro. (Wish they supported video! Don’t think LR Mobile handled HDR or panorama either.). I create one or more albums based in what the situation is.
3. Edit on the go.
4. Sync all back to Lightroom Classic.
5. Try to remember how to keep the pictures locally but unhook them from Adobe Cloud. (Getting old – I seem to forget this EVERY TIME!) Pictures are stored long term on a large RAID 5 NAS with cloud backup.
6. Publish to SmugMug from Lightroom Classic after:
a. Face tagging all family members. (I am the historian for my extended family. Face tagging is critical here!)
b. Making sure everything is geotagged.
This is working well enough for me, but I am sure there are things I can learn to make this transition from LrM on my iPad to LrC on my computer easier.
Hello Matt,
Thanks for doing this!
I use LRC on my Widows Laptop with my images residing on external solid state hard drives. The laptop is the computer I use both at home and I now carry it with me when I travel. The workflow I have dreamed about for years is to leave my laptop at home and travel with just my iPad. I would like to connect my memory card to my iPad, copy the images to the iPad, and on the iPad permanently delete the ones I don’t want, process the ones I like using LR mobile for iPad. Then (and this is the trick as I see it) get the images with all the edits transferred to my external hard drives and the images with all the edits imported to LRC and eventually backed up with Backblaze. If you have a way to do this, sign me up!!
I know Mac users can plug their iPads directly to their computers and transfer images, the iPad shows up as a drive on the Mac. But this does not work for Windows/PC users. The only way I have been able to get it to work is to transfer all of the images and edits from the iPad to the cloud (which takes forever, with multiple 61 mp images from my Sony a7rv and then back down from the cloud to my laptop and external hard drives.
Related question: my images are on the external hard drives, but I have LRC installed on my laptop’s internal hard drive and my LR catalogue is on the laptop’s internal hard drive. Is that the best way to do this, or should I have LRC and the catalogue on the external hard drive also?
Thanks
Charles Taylor
I am exactly in the same boat as Charles Taylor and have the same scenario setup.
While I haven’t tried but have a feeling LRC is much more powerful than LR on iPad, such as masking sections and working in it. In addition I have fair amount of your MattK brushes that I don’t think can be installed on iPad. Correct me if I am wrong
Hi Matt,
My interest is very simple. I don’t want to carry my laptop with me when I go on a photo tour or workshop. I travel today with a 8T SSD card, a MacBook Pro, and an iPad. I use Lightroom Classic on my home computer (MAC Studio) and do 95% of my editing there. When I go on a photo trip, I create an empty catalog on my MacBook Pro and import my SD cards to it daily. I may change the file names to match the locations that I shot the photos if I have time. I then back up the Lightroom Library and photos to the 8T SSD drive. I repeat that process each day. When I get home, I import the catalog to my main library on my MAC Studio. I will occasionally edit a photo or two while on the road. I am looking to do the same process without using my MacBook Pro , using an iPad instead. I’d also am interested if you have an easier process. Thanks.
Yes, I’m interested. I don’t want to put all more work in the cloud. I do however use mobile photography. I use LRc and Lr and would love to integrate PS more. I love that I can Browse my images in LR without cloud storage. I would like a simple workflow solution.
Matt,
I use LRC and PS on a Windows 11 desktop and a 13” laptop that’s about 3 years old. I carry an iPad Pro with me, but I don’t edit any photos on the iPad. I use the iPad mainly for checking emails and other miscellaneous uses. I will sync my photo collection to the iPad after they have been selected to process if Wi-Fi has enough bandwidth. I mostly use it to show my finished photos.
I use 3-SSD (Scan Disk). 2 are 1TB and a 2TB. I have LRC installed on my laptop. I make a catalog for the trip. I add folders by date as needed in the catalog.
I have tried other methods, and this is the most reliable for me. I have been using this process for about 5 years or longer.
The process that I use when I get back from a shoot is to immediately download my images either from the camera directly or by a card reader to the 2 TB SSD by a USB-C cable.
I shoot with the latest Canon R5 and use their EOS Utility Software to connect to the camera. I name the file according to what I have shot. I than select the files to be downloaded from my camera to my 2TB hard drive folder for that trip. Once they are downloaded, I will import into LRC to the trip folder and sub folder for the date. Once they are imported into LRC I exit LRC with a backup of the catalog. I then use Goodsync (Goodsync.com) to backup files to other 2-1TB SSD. Any time that I work on Photos in LRC I always backup and then run Goodsync to have an up-to-date backup on each SSD. Once all 3-SSD have been backed up and verified that all the folders and files are the same I will format the card in my camera, and I am ready for the next shoot.
When I return home, I will copy all folders and files to my Synology Disk Station and import the catalog into LRC on my desktop.
I always carry one SSD on my person no matter where I go. I leave one in the room or the car and the other in my camera backpack. I will retrieve all the SSD when I get back from a shoot, repeating the above process.
I have used Goodsync to back all my files on my desktop for about 15 years. It is very fast and reliable software to use. It is a lot faster than other software I have used. Once you have made the initial backup it will only backup new or changed files.
If someone has a better method, I am will to learn.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate. I am a LR Classic user and I don’t want to use Adobe Cloud to store images. I would want to learn about how to use LR on my IPad to process photos while traveling and then load edited files to LRC when I return home. I have found using LR on my IPad somewhat confusing. Suggestions on best file format would be appreciated. I am capable of storing images in Adobe DNG or native camera raw format.
I take 2 types of photos. Sports and fun landscapes, et al. So I need 2 workflows. Sports. I send 5 photos off to the editor. Then I want to edit all the rest on LRc on my laptop then export and import when I get home to send out to players. The second is that I go away and take photos of stuff. Tennis match, beach shots, sunsets, family, etc. I can put some of those on an iPad or laptop, edit and send out to club, family, etc. then export/import to LRc at home. Ugh. I heard that importing to LR Mobile on a laptop syncs them at full res. ????
I often take pictures with my phone even when I am not traveling and may do simple edits in LR. Then I want to edit them further on my PC using LR classic and PS but always run into some glitch getting them to transfer.
Historically I used Lightroom Classic on a laptop while I was traveling. Because I go on a lot of photo tours with instruction, I have to be able to edit my photos while I’m away. I carried a separate SSD drive that had my complete catalogue on it and I backed up that catalogue to my laptop as I worked away from home. But it never worked well for me because I had trouble getting everything into the correct places on my desktop and external hard drives when I got home. My catalog was always a mess.
Since I took your course on using Lightroom locally, I’ve ditched the catalog going forward. I copy my memory cards onto the laptop, and then edit them using Lightroom locally while I’m traveling. After I’ve done some light editing, I back up the laptop photos onto an external SSD drive and then reuse the memory cards. If I want to share photos, I copy them to the cloud, but I still haven’t set up a webpage that people can access. When I get home, I copy the photos from the SSD drive to my external drive. I always hated working with the catalog, so I’m happy that I’m switching versions. I’m not a big Photoshop user but I am trying to learn and would love to know how that works in a mobile setting.
I’ve purchased several MacBooks over the years, but I don’t use them for much other than editing and backing up photos while I’m traveling. It never occurred to me that I could do it all on a tablet, even though I keep upgrading my iPads. Weight is often an issue on these trips, so I would love to use an iPad and then transfer everything to my external drives when I get home, I already have several small SSD drives that I could use to backup the photos from the iPad while I’m traveling. And I would love to stop spending money on laptops.
FWIW, I’m using the Sony A7iv. I usually come back from a trip with hundreds of photos. My most recent trip was in August to Lake Clark National Park to photograph bears. I think I saw that you went there and I meant to email you at the time. I’ve now stayed at Silver Salmon lodge 5 times. It’s my happy place but every pound counts on that trip.
I buy courses from a lot of different photographers but I like your courses the best. You have a way of explaining and demonstrating things in ways that makes sense to me. And you don’t waste a lot of time on chit chat and self promotion which I really appreciate because I’m always short on time.
thank you, Matt, for reading my confused mind and understanding the situation. I primarily use LRC at home, but when traveling i’d like to seamlessly do this with my phone/ipad. So many questions. Also, in an ideal world, I would be able to use photoshop in my workflow when away from home. Bonus points for topaz ai as well. Asking for alot!
Hi Matt
Great to hear you are addressing this issue as so many of us travel and want to be able to edit on the road and bring back all the images and work back to the home computer.
My situation is: that I have a great Windows desktop at home that gives me very good performance and works well for me. When I am on the road on vacation, I have a Windows laptop that is not great but will get by on it. Usually, I take a USB drive to store my images on and use LrC for all my processing, and have no intentions of going to Lr.
In three weeks I leave on a two week European vacation and assume that this course will not be ready in time for this trip.
My process that I use now is to copy my Lightroom catalogue from the desktop to the laptop and do all my processing of my Canon R6 II images while on vacation and then when I return home, I copy the the catalogue from the laptop to the desktop after having changed the name of the desktop catalogue to a new name usually with a suffix like _bkup. I then copy the files from the USB drive to the main drive attached to my desktop computer.
This process is probably a little suspect but it has worked well for me so far.
You are right there is nothing out there. I have dropped Classic (I blame you. lol) & am using desktop Local while pushing my best to the cloud. In this vein I purchased a laptop for travel. I have just got back from 3 weeks in Bali & have now got myself in an unholy confused mess. Not knowing what to do with photos in Apple photos and how to best get my files from laptop to iMac. I have not found a best workflow scenario so help in that direction would be great. I went with the laptop (foregoing my iPad Pro) as I didn’t want to have all my photos in the cloud.
Hi Matt I love your ur courses! I travel a lot take a laptop mostly and usually in places with no connection! Cloud is out. I’d like a workflow for some photos to play with on my phone if laptop doesn’t come with me. I keep all pics on cards – duplicates. i don’t take a tablet. I am avid classic Lr user so still working out Lr mobile. Not sure this helps you. Maybe I just need to get my head around Lr on phone! Like others another scenario is temp files on laptop to sort out at home. Regards Annette (Australia)
The things I would like to know are probably pretty basic: How to move my photos from my tablet to LRC after I get done editing them – and do the edits I did on my tablet move with them in such a way that I can adjust them back in LRC (I’ve done quick basic edits on my tablet/phone so I could post things online, but they aren’t maybe the final edits I want on the photo); once I move things to LRC, how to I remove the photos from LR on my tablet but still keep them in LRC; what are the main differences between LR on my tablet and LRC (what tools/options does one have that the other doesn’t). I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones that are top of mind right now.
Great to hear Matt. I would love not to drag the laptop along (just take the iPad) and still be able to back up files from the camera/card without requiring additional stand-alone devices.
I prefer to use Lightroom Classic and have my photos on an external hard drive, so if I had an easy way to do quick adjustments on my iPhone or iPad while away from home and have those adjustments transferred back to the computer in both applications (Classic and Lightroom) that would make my editing.
Totally agree there is NOTHING out there for how to do this without the Cloud! My two scenarios of interest would be:
1: copy files from camera to iPad local file space (not any cloud), edit in LR mobile or anything else, get back from travels and then add the raw files to my iMac LrC catalog & external storage, and sync up the edits! It’s the last step that’s a roadblock without passing thru Adobe Cloud, as far as I have tried. if Lr Mobile could create .xmp files that could be a solution.
Second scenario is not really a mobile thing – but similar workflow. I will often use my MacBook to copy the camera files to a temp folder, and do a few edits of anything worthwhile, but I’ll use Photoshop for the edits – because that is an easier path for when the raw files and edited .psd files eventually get copied to the iMac storage and imported to the LrC master catalog. The preferred workflow would be a temporary LrC catalog on the laptop, edit in Lrc, add keywords, etc, then get that into the master iMac catalog. Perhaps using a collection export from the laptop temp catalog to the master iMac catalog?
Interesting timing, as I leave in a week for 3 weeks in Europe. On these sorts of trips I leave my cameras at home and just use my iPhone. Using Apple Raw, I’ve had good success with photo quality. Using the phone, of course, makes it easy to get photos on my iPad so that I can use Lightroom Mobile. I would be interested, though, to hear more about how the workflow would work with a camera SD card from a camera instead of having all the photos on iCloud via the phone. (I do have an SD card reader for my iPad, but doubt that I’ve ever used it!). I do think many people are trying to use Lightroom on tablets for travel and other times, so I think your course would be an excellent idea. Looking forward to it.
Hi Matt. I don’t use LR mobile. I use LR Classic only and can’t imagine a time when I’ll use the mobile version.
BUT, if you author a course on it, I know it will be great.
Best,
-Tom
As a Lightroom classic user, one of the most important things is that I can use the tablet to download photos and start the workflow.
But one special thing that I want to know is what kind of tablet do you need for that? Because the obvious answer is an iPad Pro ( that is a computer/laptop )
Other scenarios are the best way to use the phone, and what kind of external hard drives you need.
The course needs to address the best way to select the photos, sync the chosen ones and make adjustments
Matt,
I am a LRc user, but I have never tried to use a ablet in my travels for Photography related activities. I do have an iPad. In the past I have tried to upload photos using Dropbox, but that is really not cost effective. I made a few attempts to upload using Lightroom on my iPhone. That has been a bit cumbersome and as you mentioned, Adobe Cloud can get expensive.
I would like to have the means to upload to a remote computer directly from Lightroom or Photoshop on my iPad or iPhone. Maybe that is nothing more than switching to Lightroom on my pc. iI have tried that a few times, but I am not totally convinced about that change.
Matt,
Happy to hear you are creating a LR course for the iPad. The laptop gets heavy to lug along with the camera gear. This course would be ideal and would complete my library of MattK courses. I got into LR after listening to your Podcast with Brian. I tried it, got your LR course and have abandoned LRC forever. Thanks. Neal
I am really excited for this course. When travelling, I would like to be able to use my iPad to transfer photos from my mirrorless Nikon z8 to an external ssd drive so that I have a daily back-up of my memory cards. I feel that I have enough memory cards now, but in the event I do run out of space, I’d like to reformat a card that I’ve already used. I got as far as finally being able to get my photos to my iPad but I’m not sure what the best way is to get them to an ssd external drive.
Can you possibly include an iPad specific section please?
Thank you, Matt! Greetings to Diana, too!
Probably not going to be your inspirational comment, but you asked what I want when traveling. I use LrC and PS.
My need is to get my images backed up. I don’t care to spend time PP when I’m on a multi-day adventure.
I use One Drive on my laptop and sync only my desktop to my home computer. I create folders on the desktop with images of that day and let them sync.
Trouble is with large RAW images and several hundred of them, it can take longer to sync than I have time for. So, right now, I just back up to a portable drive, and save my SD cards.
Yes, I’m looking for a more efficient way, but creating a LR catalog and doing PP on the road is not for me.
Matt,
I hope this feedback helps you.
I have 2 Macs; 1 iMac and 1 MBP. My primary editing machine is my 2017 27″ iMac (Lightroom Classic and Photoshop – Photography Subscription Plan). My Catalog is now on an external 4TB SSD. When I travel, I take my 2020 13″ M1 MBP with me. Sometimes I take a “SupperDuper” SSD backup of my entire library with me and sometimes I just create a new catalog for my trip on the MBP. I import from my the SD Card via card-reader and do my edits in my free time (while traveling) and then export whatever new content I had stored as a “catalog” and “import” when I get home. My workflow usually consist of creating the new date-stamp directory (or catalog), deleting any bad shots/duplicates, about 10 different edits (black point, white point, contrast, de-haze, texture, clarity, saturation, crop, lens corrections, transform) and in extreme cases, a trip to Photoshop and back. I’ve been doing this for 10 years+, no problems. Since I seem to enjoy this labor of love, I seem to be ok with the required investment in time. Having the MBP with me, as well as the ability to support my “tried and trued” workflow, seem to give me the assurance that I need, as well as the flexibility of having all of my macOS related resources with me. Having said this, I’m not opposed to learning how to accomplish something similar with an iPad, but not sure what I’d be missing, gaining or if the effort would even be worth it. I will say I’m in the camp that feels like its’ one of my missions in life to have all of my stuff on my systems (Classic), backing-up all my files (in countless places). If there’s a better way, I’m open to hearing about it.
Interested in the course. I always learn something, often the unexpected.
To date I have not gone the route of tablets, Adobe cloud and synching. I fear too many layers and interfaces to keep straight and working. The KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid) made me choose to do everything in my primary laptop (an M1 16″ MacBook Pro). At home it is connected to a 27″ Apple Studio Monitor. When traveling I bring my face closer to the 16″ screen. I download my card to the computer daily, importing into LrC. In my Sony a7Rv the 2nd card slot gives me all the backup security I need, however I now prefer my a7CR, single slot, so that backup is gone. Have I ever needed my backup? No.
I do not wish to return home from travel with a daunting mass of unselected, unprocessed photos. I prefer to work on my photos as quickly as possible for greatest pleasure and while my interest is highest. This also allows quik sharing. For my processing I need LrC, Ps, Topaz PhAI, Helicon focus and maybe Nik Silver Efex. So I need a laptop, not a tablet. The places I go cannot provide Internet speeds useful for uploading large files. Cloud is out.
The 16″ MacBook Pro is wonderful but heavy and bulky when flying. My next computer might be the 14″. Given the 27″ monitor on my desk at home, the 14 would suffice. And since I am soon to have lens implants in both eyes (cataracts & glaucoma) maybe I’ll soon see that smaller screen just fine.
I can produce high quality images with my iPhone 15, but a large part of the pleasure of photography is using a well designed camera with a top quality lens. I want to impart my visualized concepts and control how the image is created, which a point and shoot phone camera bypasses. Then there are the difficult situations where the better gear is essential.
The biggest struggle I had was syncing. If I sync through Lightroom CC to the desktop, how to make that work with Lightroom classic. This includes syncing any work done on my tablet, any versions I made, making sure changes done in Lightroom CC also appear correctly in classic (since there isn’t 100% feature parity what could be lost or displayed differently between the two versions).
Should it sync through Lightroom CC? If so how to control allocated space? And how to handle desktop changes made on Classic to shoe correctly on CC on the tablet— without creating duplicates.
If not syncing through CC, how to export non-destructive edits back into Classic? And moving photos between Classic and CC if I want to travel with some photos or just work on a tablet for the day.
It was actually a lot to work with and I never got comfortable with it.
Great course idea! While traveling, I would like to be able to EASILY view images from my Canon R5 and my iPhone on my iPad in LR so I can start the culling process (delete duplicates/missed focus/blurry images) and also assign star ratings, and of course have all the edits/ratings/etc show up in LRC when I get back home. I would love to be able to do keywording on the go, too. The best time for me to do all this is in the car when we are driving between destinations. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for a final course.
Hi Matt,
I am fully retired and Photography is my main passion in life (apart from my wife!).
I travel a lot (from and within Australia.
My tools of trade include Sony equipment, IMac desktop, Macbookair, I pad and iPhone.
I have always struggled to seamlessly move between my desktop and mackbook and work and edit between them.
Your proposed course sounds like a great help to improve my photography organisation and facilitate and combine my editing at home and on the road.
P.S I do not utilise the cloud other than nominally.
Look forward to your development of this course.
Hi Matt, great idea and I will buy this course. I think I own all your other courses…
I work as Sales Director International Business Development, so I do a lot of interantional traveling. Photography is one of my major hobbies.
So here is my problem: I take pictures with my iPhone 15 Pro and also my SONY 7, but mostly iPhone.
The iPhone is set up to transfer to iCloud as soon as I have WiFi. However, the pictures on my Sony will typically not be offloaded until the end of the trip, which creates an organizational issue for me.
I travel with a laptop and iPad, both have Lightroom.
I enjoy editing on my phone and iPad (mostly iPhone) while traveling, especially while sitting at an airport or in a bar, but I typically never open my laptop to use Lightroom. And the pictures on my Sony are never edited until I get home. (and sometimes they never get edited)
At home I switched from Classic to Desktop on my PC (after your recommendation)
So how could this slightly dysfunctional workflow be improved, and what do you recommend?
Another tip: look at Brian Mathiash’s training course for masking, in which he covers both the desktop and mobile versions and shows how to do it on both platforms.
Regards,
Thomas
I may be unusual in the way I use LRC when travelling. I am heavy shooter. Typical trip might entail 5-8000 images for a weekend trip. A multi week safari might yield 15,000 images. All raw so I need a fair amount of HD space.
I seldom do much editing on in the field. Perhaps few images to show (1 or 2 / day), both LRC and PS. If I have time I would toss junk and perhaps star rate some (seldom have much time).
Things that would be valuable to me
1. how to use iPad Mini vs laptop with the number of images I shoot. Importin, backing up, and editing.
2. More importantly, how do I synch images between LRC and LR or photos on my iphone / ipad without spending lots of time recreating albums. Can I use album structure in LRC?
Hi Matt, I just spent part of the last month putting together a similar course for my local photography club. There were two primary things the members wanted to be able to do while traveling. First they wanted to be able to use both their DSLR/mirrorless camera and their cell phones throughout the day, then be able to review them all, edit them and share a few of the day’s events on social media or email. Secondly, they want them all together in one place when they get home to add to their Classic catalog along with the remaining images on the SD card they didn’t share.
An additional concern was removing them from the cloud once everything was in the Classic catalog and organized the way they wanted. The underlying question being, “ once i have them in my organized system, why would I want them to stay in the cloud?
I think you’ll find a larger audience for this class than you think. Thanks for working on it.
Great idea . . . For me to completely understand the ecosystem. If I delete a file in Lightroom on my phone/tablet how does it affect my catalogue, LR classic and PS on my iMac desktop. If I change a file on my iPhone/Tablet in LR does the change prorate across everything (catalogue?). Thanks, CJR
I shoot hundreds of photos (50 to 80MB NEFs) each time I go on an assignment and would love to be able to view them on the larger screen of my iPad Mini without actually transferring them to the limited memory on the mini. Right now, I have to drag along a 64GB PC laptop and 4TB external drive to download them before I start to cull and edit.
It would be great to be able to pick a half dozen or so of the best and upload to the customer from the Mini if possible before returning to the office.
Goal: to not have to take a laptop with me when I travel, and to be able to load everything onto my desktop (where I organize all my photo files using Lightroom Classic) when I get home.
Situation:
1) General travel, meaning not specifically for photography but with the intent of taking a fair number of images.
2) Potentially also during photo workshops. I generally only do light editing on a handful of images to share during image review sessions. Would need to be able to export onto a USB drive. I realize that this is more of a hardware issue 🙂
Other:
– Incorporate an “on the go” backup strategy. I realize this is mostly a hardware issue…
– Be able to transfer all metadata from tablet to desktop
– I’m willing to use Lightroom Cloud on my desktop as an intermediary step if that helps with the transfer of image files into Lightroom Classic
– Be able to generate jpeg’s when needed while traveling. This assumes that I can preserve the original RAW files all throughout the workflow.
– While traveling accept and organize travel images from both my iPhone and also my mirrorless camera, with the end goal of getting everything into Lightroom Classic once home.
Matt – I hear exactly what you are saying. I am firmly planted in the Lightroom Classic and PhotoShop camp. I use Lightroom on my phone or tablet exclusively to share collections with others and while I am out and about.
It would be wonderful to be able to use my phone and iPad while traveling to review images and to back them off of the cards (I have a dock that connects to my iPad and allows me to copy files from cards onto an external ssd).
I would love to be able to function while away without absolutely having to carry my laptop everywhere. I am sure that there are ways to utilize Lightroom and the iPad version of PS, but I’m not at all sure how that might be.
Thanks and I look forward to hearing and seeing more about this!
Mark’
A very much needed course. From time to time I get interested in LR Mobile but quickly lose interest because I don’t know what to do after a certain point. Knowing how to bring photos back to LRC (“Real Lightroom”) without unreasonable effort would be very beneficial. I seldom invest in courses but this one sounds very useful.
Please start with the basics, such as (1) the most efficient way to upload pictures from my SD Card to Lightroom on the iPad, (2) how to integrate pictures taken with the iPhone into Lightroom on the iPad, and (3) how to efficiently maintain my existing filing system used with Classic (do I transfer pictures on the iPad directly to my hard drive or import them first to Classic)?
Hi Matt, Like you said, not a lot out there on the subject. I’m 71 years old and you always manage to teach this old dog some new tricks.
I went on a bucket list cruise/excursion trip to Alaska a few months ago. Along with my trusty travel kit (Nikon D7500 w/ 18-200mm lens), my iPhone 13 (soon to be upgraded) and my iPad pro. I set up my phone to send all the new images to LRMobile. The images on my SD cards I imported into the file app on my iPad with an Anker SD card reader, then transferred to LRMobile. Finally, I would back everything up on a SanDisk potable SSD drive. That gave me three copies of each image, originals on my iPhone and ssd cards, a backup on the SanDisk drive and all the images sent back to my desk top computer at home via LRMobile. It might have taken 10-15 minutes a night to do this.
– I would be interested in any other workflows you use to import and backup my images.
– Are images sent to my desktop via LRMobile stored in the cloud ?
– What is your workflow when using LRMobile and PS?
– I may be switching to LR with local storage (thanks for your great class). What changes would that cause?
Thanks again for doing this. I look forward to signing up when it comes out
Matt, I would be interested in your course if it included iPad. What I need to know is how to get the photos into iPad from my camera and how to use Lightroom Mobile. You may already have done this, how do I get my photos from LR Mobile to LR Classic on my desktop.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for putting together a course like this. I’ve been using an iPad as the basis for my travel workflow for many years. At the beginning it was a struggle to get photos into LR Mobile, but that has gotten easier as Apple and Adobe update their software.
My biggest issue is getting the photos from the camera to the iPad. I haven’t been able to develop a reliable and reproducible method. Canon Camera Connect works sometimes but is reliant on a good Wi-Fi. As a fall back I often add the images to the Photos app using the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter cable and then import all or selected images into LR. This also helps as way to create an easy backup of your images to the cloud. Of course you need to backup able let the iPad connect to the cloud, which is not easy at times. Other times I can manage a direct import from camera to LR, which is easier in the long run.
The other issue I struggled with was keeping my “home” catalog in sync and avoiding duplicates. A while ago I discovered that in LRC settings you can specify where you want synced images to be saved. So I just selected my main catalog’s folder and then specified the same folder naming and structure as I use for importing directly to laptop. That was a big breakthrough and avoided having to search for duplicates etc.
At the moment my workflow when traveling is limited to a clear back-up procedure. n future I wantto extemd this to taking photas on my nobile or SLR bscking up to a hard driveand processing in Lightroom CC Local or at, least, a first pass.IAt present I am doing something similar with mylaptop and the SD card from ny camera. I was looking to extend this to incuse m mobile a nd tablet but without paying for additioal storage from Adobe.
Thanks Matt
I’m older guy and don’t use mobile editing at all but would like to start when i travel. I personally don’t like to have any of my images in the cloud so really anything you cover that would help to cull my images before i get home and transfer them to my home computer would be really helpful. I love your courses they are always very informative. Im not sure if you only cover LR classic but anything using Light room would be great.
Thank you
OK, Matt, now you really got me thinking. I’v wrestled with this from the purchase of my first IPad, many years ago, using several different third party apps to get them transferred, but here’s what’s evolved for me:
1. I use LRC on an IMAC at home. On the road, I transfer the day’s shots via a card reader to my IPAD for my Canon, and upload from my IPhone to my IPad. I create an album on the IPad into which all these go.
2. I review, and make simple edits as desired here.
3. Upon returning home, I create an identical album (now called a collection) in LRC. Given a bit of time, the images transfer in LRC automatically.
4. I do my major selections, and editing in this collection.
5. Since I didn’t start this workflow many years ago, I have an extensive file tree of images into which I now transfer all the images I want to keep, and delete the discards from the collection. Those discards will auto delete from the IPAD album. If I don’t need the IPAD album, I just delete it.
6. Now I’m thinking, with a little forethought, I could create both the collection in LRC and the album in LR Mobile BEFORE leaving home. That way all the images would be waiting for me when I open LRC upon returning home.
Other apps like Snapseed and distressed fx
I use Lightroom Classic and Photoshop and in the past have not worked on my photos while traveling. I have a very compact 1 TB SanDisk drive and I have a notebook (PC) and find this video timely as I am trying to decide how to make this whole process work better for me. In that past I have taken a card reader and at the end of every day or two, depending on how many images I have, I used to just “send” them to the drive and rename the file from “DCIM” to a descriptive name with the date and name of the trip. When I get home I work on them but would be interested in a workflow to do some editing before I get home.
Hi Matt,
Thank you for addressing this issue. I’ve been tormented by it for some time. Here is my issue. I have about 7T of images being backed up on 2 separate Lacie 16t external HDD drives. When I travel, I’d like to have access to any combination of these images, but cloud storage is either too expensive or sometimes there is no WIFI and they would be not available. When I travel I take 4 separate Samsung 4T’s with all these images, this acts like a second redundant back-up and I’m able to view any and all my images from my laptop. When I’m shooting, I back up all my originals to a 5th Samsung 4t SSD and a back-up on a 500gb SSD drive. I use this last drive to work on and select my images, delete the ones I don’t want. When I get home, I copy the originals and my selected, worked on images to the 16T HDD drive. I’m waiting for the day when all this backing up won’t be necessary. Is there a cost effective method for doing this? On the road I use an Apple M1 Air. I do my final edits on an MacPro 27″ using PS and Topaz. I shoot with 2 Canon R5’s, 24-105mm and 100-500mm. Always in RAW.
I am very interested in this upcoming course. I use LR Classic on my MacBook Pro laptop but take only my iPad mini when traveling internationally. I take both iPhone and Sony mirrorless photos and struggle with downloading and consolidating photos from both sources into an organization that makes sense when I get home and want to get them all into LR Classic. I use Collections extensively in LR Classic so haven’t migrated yet to web LR. I want to be able to offload photos from my iPhone frequently so I manage my iPhone storage (I only shoot raw) and have a backup that isn’t only in the cloud. I can easily download everything to ann external SSD and put them in folders but then I get confused about what is in LR and edited and what is not. When I get home and try to put everything in LR Classic, what happens? Do my edits import or do I just get raw files with no edits? Note: I’m going to Egypt in February so get that course done 😊
Hi Matt,
Really looking forward to this course. I travel extensively and am looking to lighten the gear load. At home, on a MacBook Pro with an M1 chip, use LRC (and when necessary PS) and have a BenQ photo monitor. When traveling I have been using a relatively old MacBook Air and external SSD drives. Need to replace the MacBook Air, and would like to do it with an IPad. I photograph primarily with a Fuji X-T5 which has been converted to full spectrum infrared. I am able to insert/change internal filters for the range of infrared nanometers, as well as return the camera to “normal” use. The choice of what filters to use is based on what the subject matter is and lighting conditions. I also use an iPhone 13, which is synced to automatically download iPhone pictures to LR on the phone. On both camera and iPhone I shoot exclusively in RAW.
Things I would appreciate your covering are:
– Set up for using iPad with external SSD drive to download images to LR on iPad and back up to external SSD. Detailed instructions please!
– Detailed instructions on copying images to my MacBook Pro at home. Can I put a LR catalog on the iPad? If so, can the “Import from another catalog” in LRC be used to transfer everything to the MacBook Pro at home? If not, how are the images and any adjustments I’ve made transferred? I definitely need to keep everything in RAW and have full resolution images transferred to my MacBook Pro.
– Can a custom Profile be used with LR on the iPad? This is needed because infrared images come out red, and need to be processed using a custom Profile to allow for greater White Balance adjustments. I will probably make any final adjustments once I get home from a trip, but need to see what I’ve photographed and what adjustments to make for infrared shooting.
– What iPad/iPad Pro do you recommend?
Will send further comments as I think of them.
thanks for doing this course!
yes Adobe is expensive and yes I want to be able to be on holiday and edit photographs that I have waiting to be done, not always a new holiday shoot, but on long haul flights to be able to edit effectively would be my goal without having my full set of collections showing (not always in the same order although I change nothing) a nice efficient streamlined editing workflow.
I’m in Matt. My workflow for the past few years has been iPhone-edit- airdrop to computer- finish on photoshop. I got sick of LR catalogues. It if you make the video, I’m buying
I started moving away from DSLR when doing side-by-side comparisons archiving documents for my volunteer gig indicated that my iPhone 15 Pro Max was equal to or superior to the images produced by two of my DSLR cameras. A recent trip to Oregon confirmed those findings. Next month will involve a trip to Utah in which I plan to take only the iPhone and my iPad, so I would be very interested in learning how to make this transition, learning tips from your course and perhaps sharing comments and a couple of examples.
Hi Mat,
You mentioned LRC, not LR. I think I would rather not use cloud storage, so I would need info on file handling, setting up a catalog and getting all of this on my desktop when I get home.
Matt, this sounds like a great idea and should be worthwhile for a lot of folks. In looking through the comments, I see many Apple users. I don’t think you would but don’t forget us Windows (11) folks. I always travel with a laptop and copy my images to the laptop and 2 SSDs when I’m done for the day. I have LRC on my home PC and the laptop and use a separate catalog for the trip which I then combine with my main catalog when I get back. The main issues I have are:
1) I just started doing wildlife/bird photography and find I may have MANY hundreds of images to to go through. I started using FastRawViewer to do it quickly before I import into LRC but obviously this is another step
2) How can I organize the shots easily when I may do focus stacking, exposure bracketing, etc. (obviously just for landscape images)
Hi Matt, I switched over to LR Desktop some 6 mths ago. I have not used a tablet with LR but believe there could be some real advantages to doing so. Comments on those advantages would be helpful.
I travel a fair bit and photograph along the way. My currently workflow is to use download my CF cards to my Thinkpad X1 and work on the images some hours after photographing. This workflow works well for me.
I am intrigued with the idea of introducing a tablet into the mix. Questions:
– Why would I want to do that?
– Advantages/disadvantages?
– How is the workflow work impacted when I don’t have a Lightroom (1 TB) but do have the Creative Cloud Photography plan?
– This is probably off topic (dealt with in another course?), but I have kept the latter plan because I think I still want to access LRC. However, since I’ve made the switch to LR Desktop I’m thinking to also switch to the Creative Cloud Photography plan. Any comments on this would be helpful.
– Do you use the tablet at the site where you are photographing? Connected to your camera? Any thots on that setup or maybe that is beyond the scope of this course.
Kusta thought about something I do.
I like to take the location information from iphone photos and add to my Canon photos that I bring into LR Classic. That way all my photos can be added to a map– in case I ever want to see them that way.
Matt, I don’t know whether my comments will be helpful. When I was traveling I took my 10″ laptop with me, one or two external drives and plenty of memory cards. At the end of the day, I created new folders on an external drive for each location I had visited that day. Then I downloaded all photos to their relevant folders on the external drive. Then I deleted all those photos that were unusable. Then I batch renamed everything with Bridge. After a long day, that was enough for me.
When I came home, I had 2 backups: renamed photos on the hard drive and memory cards as originals.
Hi Matt!
I mainly use LR Classic, I even teach it to local photo clubs and individual students.
You are my go to reliable source every time LR has something new.
I have been using LR mobile almost exclusively to show collections or to do some very light work while on the go. I wish I could apply keywords while away through mobile: that would help me when I get back (I know you don’t like keywords but I really do 😉 )
I have been asked to prepare a conference about LR mobile and, as you mentioned, there is really no information available at the moment.
I am looking forward to the information that you will provide and I really hope it will be soon.
I enjoy numerous cruises each year to Alaska and the Caribbean with an emphasis on gathering and posting travel photos to help others see what is available in each port. i have a personal (no advertising or sales) hobby photography website (www.rogerjett-photography.com) where I post my photos and cruising information. In addition, I capture gift calendar photos for friends, doctor, dentist, etc. With a portable hard drive of my travel photos, I do all of my work on my home PC in Lightroom Classic when I return.
I am looking for a traveling Lightroom tablet photo workflow (before I return home for Lightroom Classic enhancements), that will prevent premature photo rejections, delete photo distractions, add keywords, and allow me to show enhanced photos to those with whom I am traveling.
Matt, I am currently in transition. I use a laptop, which I travel with, for all my photo editing. I use LrC and PS. My laptop just doesn’t have the horsepower to do a great job – both with respect to the display and computing power. One solution is to buy a more powerful laptop. An alternative is to get separate systems for travel and for use at home. Either approach would require significant $$$’s, so I want to do something that will work for me for at least a couple of years. Believe me – I have no idea what I should do. Hope you can help!
I use Lr a lot on my iPhone, iPad and laptop depending on the type of trip and how much I was to carry with me. I’ve done hikes with just my mobile phone and dongle and trips in the car with a laptop. I’ve been using Lr now for about eight months …used classic since it first came out. I consider myself “expert” and teach workshops occasionally at a local photo club.
I have an Adobe 1Tb plan but can see “the end” coming. Sometime during the next six months I will probably want to unload chunks off the cloud back to LRC. I will stay with the cloud because it works so well for my travels but I can see this won’t last forever.
I actually faced this exact scenario on a trip to Africa last December. You can’t carry a whole lot on small aircraft (weight is restricted and every ounce matters), so it was down to just iPad and external SSD. Using the iPad as a hub between the SSD and card reader was a bit of a pain. Even an iPad Pro is pretty slow for full-sized RAWs. Daily transfer/backup is a must or things get REALLY messy. I know there are hub-type devices “out there” and I would recommend spending the money for one and saving aggravation on the road. It is also critical to use a precise organization method for each day’s images and the longer the trip, the more critical organization becomes. OK, that said, I did use the iPad for reviewing images and for editing (it was a photog group and we had daily image reviews). If planning to edit during the trip, a pencil to go with the tablet is a must. Fingertip editing is a recipe for extreme frustration, especially when time is at a premium. The hand off between Lr and Ps on the iPad is pretty straightforward, so that part of the process isn’t difficult. If weight is NOT an issue, a regular laptop is a better proposition and of course there are 3rd-party Ps tools available which generally do not exist for iPad.
Hi Matt,
This would be an amazing course for me. I have tried in the past to use LR/PS mobile while on the road,but always seemed to have issues with getting them into LR classic and then deleting them from the cloud. Also, what is your method for backing up while on the road.
Thanks so much!
I am looking to be able to edit on the go with less stuff with me. I normally bring with me to workshops my laptop (MacBook 17″), small apple keyboard, external hard drive, magic mouse and the small Wacom pad/pen. I would like to edit new images while on the road from my iPad pro (12″) to reduce the weight I am carrying. I would like to keep the images on a portable hard drive, I do have a Logic-tec cover/keyboard and the Apple 2 pen. I also have a external drive that could auto copy images from the memory card to the hard drive with-out being connected to the computer. Information I would like to see will include how to access load, store the images and then add the new images with edits back into my hard drives back at home. I have played with the mobile software but just not use to the mobile system so I just do not make it my “go to” setup.
I made the switch from LrC to Lr after your course on evolving. I will be one of the “few” buying the new course to explore using my tablet when traveling. I would really like to know the best way to transfer images from my memory card to a hard drive without using a laptop. Is there a way to do this with just my iPad? Thanks for what you do…
Matt, you got a lot of great comments. Is there a way of letting us do a thumbs up or something if we have same thoughts (to help you consolidate comments for most frequent/important.)
Although i learned on LrC 10 years ago, the frustration of managing catalogues and lost photos has been un bearable-costing me hundreds of hours from time to time to sort things out. Br and PS are much more convenient and intuitive.
Last trip I tried processing on my ipad, but when i got home, i had thousands of duplicates in LR and finally.gave up all my travel edits just to get back to sanity. So for me the catalog nightmare/workflow is what needs to be solved before i will edit on the fly again. Thamks.
I would like to understand how to go from Lightroom to photoshop on an android tablet.
Yes I’d like to be able to easily move images from my memory card to my iPad Pro and/or external HD, away from home; do some editing. Then import them into LR Classic on my Mac Mini at home. I organize all my images in LR Classic. And I don’t have a MacBook.
I realize the easiest workflow would be to take my external HD (where all my images are located; backed up in two places) with me and buy and use a MacBook Pro when away from home. But I’d only use the MacBook when on trips so It’s hard to justify the expense.
I like using my Mac with a 27 in monitor in my home office; and use my iPad Pro when not in my office. The light iPad with its touch screen is way nicer to use than a MacBook. The frustration is LR Classic doesn’t work on a tablet. So if you have a workaround I’d love to know what it is. Thanks
I agree that there is nothing good out there. I had to figure out everything on my own. I only take my iPad on vacation anymore. I import to my tablet with an sd card reader, edit, then use the Adobe cloud to download to Lightroom Classic when I get home. I have found that it can take a day or more to download onto my computer when I get home, obviously if it’s a lot of photos. I don’t want to just plug my sd card into my computer when I get home because I would lose the edits done while traveling. I am wondering how long you have found it takes to download when you get home. Is there anything I can do to speed up the process?
after a trip is completed, I am looking for a quick and efficient way to bring all of my photos to LRC, irrespective of the device they were taken with. There is nothing for me learn on how to import my main camera files to LRC. I also know how to import images taken with the LR camera into LRC. I still have difficulties with seamlessly importing those pictures that have been taken with the iPhone camera or with any other third-party camera (ProCamera, Fjorden, etc.). That would be helpful to me.
Sorry Matt, would love to help out but I really don’t use the mobile stuff. Best of luck with the new course.
I would to be able understand and use Adobe LightRoom better on my android phone.
get photos LightRoom mobile to LRclassic
an easy way to download load photos easy and quick from my camera to LightRoom mobile.
workflow
thanks
I’m primarily a Lightroom Classic user on a MacBook at home (also ON1 & Luminar Neo) and when we travel often don’t have access to internet ($$$). I use iPad and hubs to download images from card to a separate SSD. I usually do editing back at home. But would really like to quickly review the day’s images to make sure I’m not screwing up and maybe do some initial culling and quick (AUTO?) correction of RAW. Would like to know how best to use a travel catalog and merge it back home with my LRC catalog. I find the smaller screen of an iPad a bit too small for old eyes to do much detailed editing. If I do find some WIFI access, I would like to send a jpg off on occasion. Love all your videos and courses over the years. Thanks
Hey Matt – Nice concept for a tutorial. Ok, here are some thoughts: When traveling, everything for support of the day’s shoot needs to fit into a compact separate container. That way I’m never hunting for drives, cables, or power supplies. 2. I lean on SSD drives to maximize speed and minimize battery usage as I cannot always be at a powered location. 3. My first step is to review for downloading via FastRawViewer then only download candidates for final saving. This previewing app is fast and uses full RAW image detail for the selection process. 4. Always download selected images twice – once for the working drive, second on a SSD backup drive. Save the laptop’s drive for processing images and working space. 5. Once I am satisfied I have reviewed and/or proofed images will I consider formatting the photo card drives. It has been rare in field trips to have access to the “Cloud” so having a routine of back ups and potentially a second dedicated SSD drive for video content makes it all work. Best wishes for your project. Thanks for keeping it real!
I know I’m in the minority because I only use Photoshop and Camera Raw. What proportion of the course would deal with interacting Lightroom catalog? That part would be of no interest to me. But I’m assuming the tablet version of Develop and Camera Raw are pretty much the same, so tips for one would work for the other. So that part of the course would have value for me.
I already learned something! Namely why I can see external drives on my iPad and and my friend can not. His is too old, while mine is not.
Thank you, Matt – your query of us is very timely for me. I’m going to Croatia and Slovenia for two weeks at the end of this month with Jeff Hirsch, a professional here in St. Louis who is a genius in Lightroom and Photoshop. Not sure if you two actually know each other, but he’s told me he likes your work.
I’m a LRC user in editing my photos. I don’t do dramatic stuff, just improving what comes out of the camera. My dilemma has been the workflow needed when I travel, which is pretty often – some big trips like Croatia, some with my wife where I still photograph as much as I can.
I’ll come back from a big trip with thousands of photos and thus far I never use my iPad or Mobile to edit while I’m on the trip. On a minor note, that’s kind of kept me from being able to edit while gone and send photos while gone. My workflow has been to bring a MacBook Pro (heavy) and a couple Samsung T7 drives for backup, which I think is an absolute necessity. Jeff even suggests backing up two drives and giving one to someone else traveling home with me.
I am not as fluent in Lightroom and Lightroom Mobile in terms of editing power which is why I haven’t gravitated to using them while traveling.
The truth is that it’s hard to find the time to edit while on these trips, so in some ways my biggest motivation might be to travel lighter, less photographic weight to lug around. So if your new class gives me the confidence to edit as well while I travel as I do on LRC, reduce the weight of my gear and email a few images home now and then, I’ll be a buyer.
You might be surprised at the amount of interest in this course…I hope! I need it.
In the field, I currently use a 2017 MacBook Pro laptop with a Samsung 2 TB Portable SSD.
Workflow Each Day: 1. Images from camera card > card reader > laptop. 2. Bridge to screen, discard bad images, rename, and add metadata. 3. Best few images > ACR and PS. 4. Copy images > to portable SSD.
The MacBook is showing its age and I need another workflow. I would love to be able to do exactly the same process with a tablet instead of a Macbook due to weight and cost, but I know that’s impossible. So, I am very interested in a workflow that will allow me to replace my aging MacBook with a tablet and be able to do some useful processing and backup to a portable SSD in the field.
PS: I do not use Lightroom or C. I do not like them Matt I am. I would not… Okay, nuff said.
The whole LR cloud thing was confusing as all heck, until I watched Jarad Platt’s “One Catalogue to Rule them ALL” during this years’ LR summit. When traveling: 1) iPhone images are taken with the LR camera in Raw format and synced with the cloud. 2) Camera images are transferred to my laptop and edited using LR (Not Classic) and synced to the cloud. 3) As a result all images are on my home desktop (with edits) inside LR Classic, and can easily be moved to my HD and off the Adobe Cloud. So I’m using the Adobe Cloud as a temporary storage.
I like this!
Hi Matt, I’d like to include my tablet that is an Android device. If anyone can solve my problem, it would be you. Your courses are wonderful and easy to follow. Thanks Matt, from a fellow New Jerseyite. Jim Gerner
I am absolutely interested in having access to a mobile work flow that will allow me to process “negatives” that may be edited and shared on the road, so to speak. I want to be able to have newly created negatives and also have the ability to send out and share my newly credited photos and edited images. I have been a Lightroom Classic user almost “since the start” and had always assumed that Adobe would enable a way to devise a method effectively. I’d like to be able to use my iPad, too. At the moment, my large screen is the only device in my house available to me now since my laptop is incapable of having the power to process today’s large DNG’s.
I use LRC catalog on my Apple Studio computer to store and edit all of my images. (23,000 images over 20 years).
I rarely use Adobe PS (but it is included in my subscription service). I typically do not look at my images when I am traveling, but wait until I arrive home to download camera images from SD cards, & begin sorting & editing.
I am leaving on a 3 week trip on Saturday to Glacier NP plus parks in ND/SD.
It would be nice to look at my images on my Apple Laptop using LR while on this trip, but I am not sure HOW to do this effectively. Your new course would be useful. If this course is ready within the next 3-4 weeks, I might be able to watch this while on my Sept photo trip.
I do use my iPhone to take occasional photos, but the iPhone screen is too small for me to sort images.
I also take an iPad with me on travel trips, but do not use it for input, because I do not like the iPad keyboard.
Matt K
THANK YOU! I too have been searching for this information. Like you I’m a classic user. My problem is when I go on cruises or vacations. I often do not have the ability to sync to the cloud. And like you, I will have far too many photos to do that with. Previously, I had allowed them to pile up in Lightroom on the iPad. The last time I did that it took three days of continuous running to sync them.
– Address the issue of not having access to the cloud.
– Don’t forget XMP files I think they’re invaluable for this.
– I love editing on the iPad!
– I hate dragging a laptop around on a trip
– I don’t mind taking an external drive with me. I built one from a 2TB NVME.2 stick in an enclosure, which I use with my MacBook. This drive contains the photos and the Lightroom catalog. I have a second one that I use to back these files up. The hard drive on the Mac is only one terabyte which isn’t big enough.
– what might be my biggest problem is that once I’ve edited a half dozen or so photos in the field, I want to share them immediately. I’d like to be able to sync those few or export them into small JPEG so I could send them out in an email whenever I get a connection while on the trip.
– Another problem is syncing everything back up with Lightroom classic on the computer at home. Obviously, if I take my MacBook with me, like I learned from you, that isn’t a problem.
– As far as I know, there is no way to use Lightroom while working on photos on an external drive. They have to be on the iPad.
– Of lesser importance, you might want to include airdropping photos from the phone to the iPad or using Lightroom on the phone to sync them but then again, of course, that requires a connection to the Internet.
I’ve tried editing on the road with the iPad. I really wanted it to work, but it was just too much trouble and not functional. I’ve resorted to using the MacBook on the road. But I would really like to use the iPad. I’m super glad that you’re addressing this issue. Like you I haven’t found any information on the subject. And I will 100% buy your course. So many content creators offer me tips that I forget, almost as quick as I learn them. But if you address a problem I actually have, it would be extremely useful to me.
Thanks for doing this. If anyone can make sense out of it, it would be you.
Larry
Right, I don’t want to store images in the cloud. But I have moved from LR Classic to LR and I really like not having a catalog.
So while I am out in the field, I want to get images from my camera to my IPad.(I currently use Camera Connect). I will likely not want all images that I took on my IPAD. Next I would do basic LR adjustments on my IPad and post the images. When I get home, I want those images with the LR adjustments on my PC laptop.
This is a great topic, thanks Matt!
Although I would not have believed it 5 years ago, based on the adage that the best camera is the one you have with you, much of my travel photography is with my phone. Thus, the first consideration is getting the image from the phone into LRc on your tablet. This is not always straightforward. A review of the available methods would make a good start.
Wonderful and helpful, I’m sure for many many people. I’m a little like the next poster JoeLib. I do not ever use Lightroom—totally always Photoshop CS either on desk, or laptop. I’m in my late 80’s and don’t travel anymore, so I’m not the one to give you feedback at all. Good Luck with this and it will most definitely be a BOON to getting at those travel photos while you are still energized with the trip and all you’ve captured.
Thanks, Matt for being one of my First teachers —I think with Version FIVE!!!!
I have been using this method for a couple of trips now and have been having a bit of worry over the 20 GB limit. On the most recent trip I turned off syncing on my iPad and my iPhone so I didn’t have to worry. Tips on this would be great. I also decided to make a change to my “need” to save every file. While on the road I deleted the reject files so they never hit the cloud. I still don’t know have a good strategy for longer trips with a couple thousand photos. I presume I’ll have to take my MacBook Pro with me and work in an Edit (on iPad), Sync, d/l to Lightroom Classic, delete from cloud, keep only the very best on my iPad. I should add that much of my travel is in a camper van and can be weeks at a time on the road. I have my MacBook with me, but editing in the van is a lot easier on the iPad.
I have learned how to take the synced files (once I returned home) and move them to my Classic library so that I didn’t have to re-import them. Once they are synced from the cloud moving the on my MacBook doesn’t affect the cloud copy, right?
Very much looking forward to this course.
I am very interested in this upcoming course. I use LR Classic on my MacBook Pro laptop but take only my iPad mini when traveling internationally. I take both iPhone and Sony mirrorless photos and struggle with downloading and consolidating photos from both sources into an organization that makes sense when I get home and want to get them all into LR Classic. I use Collections extensively in LR Classic so haven’t migrated yet to web LR. I want to be able to offload photos from my iPhone frequently so I manage my iPhone storage (I only shoot raw) and have a backup that isn’t only in the cloud. I can easily download everything to ann external SSD and put them in folders but then I get confused about what is in LR and edited and what is not. When I get home and try to put everything in LR Classic, what happens? Do my edits import or do I just get raw files with no edits? Note: I’m going to Egypt in February so get that course done 😊
Hi Matt. I mostly use Photoshop Camera Raw to process my photos at home. I have only recently started using Lr, the non-cloud version. I never liked using LrC because of the catalogs and the hassle of loading photos into LrC. Anyway, I was on a European vacation this summer and did not process any photos while I was traveling. I then came home with several thousand photos which has been a nightmare to process all of the photos that I felt worthy of processing. Having the capability to process the photos while traveling would be a big help. My questions are: 1) Can large file size photos actually be process with Lr on a cell phone and if so, what would the requirements be for the cell phone? 2) Is it even practical to process photos on a cell phone or do we have to have a tablet or a laptop. 3) If a tablet or laptop is required, what would the requirements be for those? Those are my questions. Thanks Matt.
Matt. Not sure I can help with this as, like you, I have switched to LightRoom and have not used LightRoom Classic for over 9 months now. Brian’s course helped a great deal and I like having everything in the cloud and can access on my iPhone, ipad, Mac Mini or MacBook Air. I would be intrigued to see your workflow using Classic so I’ll probably get the course as I like to support you when I can. After all I owe you so much for teaching me LightRoom and Photoshop over the last 8 years or so.
Matt
Thanks for doing this. This is definitely a course I wound be interested in because you are right – there is nothing out there. I just recently went on a trip for 3 weeks and tried to do this. The set up I had was a Samsung galaxy tablet with a portable ssd drive, a multiport hub and card readers for Sd cards and CF-A cards (I have Sony A9, A9iii and A7iii). I chose the galaxy over iPad since I could put a 1TB micro sd card in the tablet to get better editing performance. My goals were to be able to first transfer images from camera to tablet for viewing and to back up my
Pictures. 2nd goal was to cull pictures on the road and third was to be able to make edits, store them locally and bring them back into at least LR (not classic) and potentially LRC when I got home. The set up worked well for viewing and backup and basic editing. All edits were done in the cloud. Two things I would like to see covered would be how to do the ratings and filtering on the mobile app to get quickly delete pictures like I do on LR and LR Classic and then how to get the edits stored locally so I can bring them back into LR desktop. From my experience doing this, the key challenges I found were : the speed of transfer from the card to storage was very slow, there are very few viewers on the galaxy for lossless compressed raw file from A9iii (LR being one of the few), and general editing performance on the tablet was slower so I basically used it to back up, do basic culling and simple edits for the pictures I wanted to share on social media. I did the main edits when I got home. Are you going to cover Android mobile devices or just Apple?
Hi – I hardly ever take a computer traveling, but I do have an extra. I want to know what to do about the catalog when I travel? Do I use a travel only catalog and how do I get everything back on my main computer and synced up.
I’m not sure this input will help in developing your course objectives, but this is my workflow going forward. I now use Lightroom excusably to enhance or develop my photos and occasionally move on to photoshop for some minor editing such as sky replacement, spotlight placement, or other minor adjustment. My photo source is a Nikon Z6 to a SQD card which I download when I return home. I do not use cloud storage choosing my hard drives for my photo storage. Hope this helps.
1) Are there any (creative) workarounds for cloud management if someone has invested time and money into using GoogleDrive, or one of the other cloud sources rather than additional investment into more cloud capacity with Adobe?
2) Because of screen size on an iPhone or tablet, there is a limit to viewing detail (fine shadows, overall picture sharpness, etc.), nothing I currently do on these devices I would consider a finished product. Can you talk a bit about the limits of these technologies? For example, I would not rely on this hardware, if I was preparing a piece of work to be sold as a print.
3) I tend to be less aggressive in my reviews of images on these devices and l imit posting to social media where most viewing is done on a smaller screen.
4) I haven’t done much in this regard, but do these screens do a good job with displaying B&W as compared to color images. Would/could you see the same level of bland to white gradient? Any tricks or are these smaller devices not able to do that (expansion of a question above).
5) Just because Adobe has put out there a software product, do we need to use it? Other than backing up a days’s set of pictures, does have a payoff, of is it just to generate income from less serious photographers?
This couldn’t be more timely. I am in Hawaii with Don Smith and Gary Hart and just finished a sunrise shoot here on the Big Island. I am getting ready to download my images from this AM. I travel with my laptop. I would love to be able to put them right into my desk top LR Classic. What I do now is put them here on my laptop and back up in two portable SSD T5s. I then pick a picture of two to edit to show for the image reviews. I do it in LR for basic exposure adjustments and then go to PS. What I would like to be able to figure out how to do is use my TK9 workflow which I do on all my images on my desktop at home. I am trying to cobble together some of the features, but sure do miss his program. By the way Don Smith is a big TK9 user.
With the airlines restricting carry on, I would like to leave my laptop at home. That being said my primary Ideal would be to download backup images images off my memory cards to my portable external drive. I usually bring my iPad but it does not have a means or capacity to store anything but I would like to view (check) a few images to insure all is going good. Perhaps this is a good reason to get a tablet and ditch the old iPad!
Currently I keep my memory cards as back up and use my PC laptop to store the card contense until I get back. The restrictions in overhead bins on regional jets is really bad. The laptop or a couple of lenses!
Hi Matt, When I’m away from home, I backup my photos on to my laptop and edit them in LR Classic. When I get home I just merge the temporary catalog with my main catalog.
I’m a LRC user and rarely use LR. I don’t take a laptop on travel but would love to take a tablet for backup and edits. This is a good course idea. Thanks.
Thank you – thank you. For those of us with older Apple tablets (not current ios), will there be an issue? How much storage is the minimum? Relating to storage, deletion from the iPhone, when can that be performed. Speaking as someone, who just used the process of iPhone to Lightroom (cloud) and then to Classic, what are the limitations?
You are absolutely correct regarding the info out there! looking forward to this.
Hi Pat. The tablet needs to allow the connection of a hard drive and/or card reader via USB. Typically that feature is only available in tablets after 2018 or so. But if you can connect a hard drive and see that drive in the “FILES” app on your tablet then it will work. And yes, size will be limitation too. If your tablet only holes say 250GB then if you want to use LR on the tablet while traveling you’ll be limited to the space on your tablet. Thanks.
Mobile is the future. I’m not an expert but would definitely like to know how to use the LR and PS apps on my iPad
Hi Matt. I have a Nikon Z9 and Z8. When shooting birds & wildlife I will have as many as 2500 to 3000 photos at the end of a day’s outing. My current workflow is to cull in NX Studio to about 10% which I’ll want to examine later for editing. I import those into LrC. I’ll do this in the evening on my MacBook Pro and format my cards for the next day’s shooting. Ultimately, I’ll have 30 or so per day that I’ll keep for final editing over time, but I won’t make the final selection until I get home.
If I were going to use my iPad, I’d want to use it to cull photos instead of using my laptop and I’d need to connect the iPad to my camera, preferably hardwired. I’d then want to save the 250 to 300 raw files so that I can import them into LrC later.
If you have some recommendations on how to do that, I’m all ears. Will your course be helpful given my scenario?
Hi Jerome. The course will cover how to get your photos from your camera/card reader, on to a drive as well as on to your tablet. Then, how to get them in to Lightroom (on the tablet) for culling/editing. Finally, how to get those edits and photos to LRC or LR when you’re back at your regular computer. Thanks!
Thanks, Matt. I’ll purchase the course once you let us know it’s available. For all of us, our time is valuable. Your courses are always concise and to the point. I’m looking forward to this one!
I use LR Classic both on the road and at home. On long trips I have a laptop that I load raw files on to 2 external SSD for redundancy. I use Photo Mechanic to create directories by day and prepend the date yyyy-mm-dd to each file. I will import into a local LR Classic catalog to take a look and a first evaluation. When I get home, I transfer the files to my server from the SSD and then import into my master LR catalog. What would be nice is a way to avoid reimporting into LR again cleanly.
I do use LR Mobile to have LR collections show up on my phone or tablet and that is very cool since no effort is involved.
Great idea Matt. I’m trying to download from card to mobile or tablet whilst travelling, to create a backup and also cull whilst away, plus to upload/share to social media. The basic workflow is to do this in Lightroom and once I’ve returned home then to sync with Lightroom Classic for more detailed edits. To do this I sync with Lightroom Classic then move the files to an offline folder (after pausing sync). I then return to Lightroom and delete to ensure I only ever have one copy. It works but is convoluted.
One problem I have is shooting jpeg and RAW. I cull based on the JPEGs in Lightroom but would like an easy way to match the keeper JPEGs in Lightroom Classic with the RAW files to easily delete the RAWs that I wish to cull based on the jpeg cull.
I have Imac 27. iPhone, iPad, Lightroom Classic, Lightroom. photoshop and we travel often with photo clubs and family throughout the US. Although I have a canon Mirrorless camera, i often only use my I phone to take photos…I am interested in how to download these photos back to lightroom classic when I return. I also have a Mac X9 crucial external ssd drive that I would like to save the pictures to using my iPhone or iPad while on the road so I can share the pictures with family while traveling, and store them until I can transfer them to lightroom classic. I need a step by step process. I know some of the basics but I once lost a camera card on the way back from Oregon which had my uncle’s picture on it and he died before i was able to get another picture.
I think this is a great idea. I take a tablet and an external SSD with me everywhere I take my camera. I would like to do some post processing on the tablet but so far, as ou said, there really isn’t much out there to help me to this. Please continue with this project It is needed for a good workflow.
If I could download my photos on my iPad in the field, and transfer ACR files there instead of carrying my laptop everywhere, life would be easier. Even better store files from iPad to mobile hard drive until I am back home with my desktop and laptop.
Thanks Matt.
I would like to not use the cloud. I shoot while away on my camera and phone, copy files to a couple of small (4T) drives, work on some of the images (LR, Photoshop) on my phone and in my laptop. I want to return home and be able to copy everything to my big in-office drives (8T and 12T) that are my permanent LR catalog.
I save all my retouched images to a separate drive but keep all the NEF files in my one catalog.
Should I be traveling with my LR catalog?
How can I set things up so I can easily get everything back home and continue to work in Classic. Would love to have this workflow.
Matt –
Never say never, but I usually do not edit photos while adventuring around… but I could be convinced to begin that methodology as well..
I like everything you do, so I would watch and am happy to contribute if it would help you.
Simple, down and dirty works for me…
Hi Matt,
I am a long-time LrC /Photoshop user with no desire to move to LR due to the extraordinary cost of putting all of my photos in the cloud. I just returned from a 14-day Alaskan land and sea cruise. As you can imagine I took a lot of pictures. My plan was to do some photo selection and editing to post online for my friends and family to see as we traveled. That didn’t happen for a number of reasons but primarily due to limited internet connections along the way. As I worked to manage my photos to ensure I didn’t lose any of them, I began to wonder how best to manage my mobile catalog and how to efficiently download these images to my primary catalog upon returning home. Also, the edits that I was able to do, how best to import them along with the originals when I returned home. I am looking forward to your new course!
Take photos on my iPhone, get them into LR, process them on my iPad on the go, and then when home see them and organise them better/ improve some on LR classic on my Mac! Can I get just as good outcomes for my level on my iPad!? Surely yes as nothing too complicated
I am going to be trekking to see gorrillas in Uganda so super keen to up my game! Thanks
Thanks, Matt. This couldn’t be more timely! I just got back from a one week trip and only took my tablet and cellphone. I found that the pictures I wanted to enhance were limited to my basic understanding of Snapseed so I ended up mailing the images to myself so I could work on them when I returned home. Not an ideal solution because I used up all the data on my cellphone plan and had to purchase more. UGH!!!!! I find I am more comfortable working in PS than in LrC and rarely save to the cloud. I’m eager to help but at a loss as to how. It might be advantageous if I had my presets at my fingertips but they are stored on my home MacMini. Thus, unavailable until I return.
Matt
I don’t want to use the cloud at all. I need to work in areas where I won’t have Internet access.
I want to know how to get my images from my camera to a drive then to my tablet(iPad). I can do this to my MacBook Pro but no idea how to do this with an iPad.
I don’t use Lightroom Classic because I hate the restrictions of a catalog. I prefer Bridge>Camera RAW>Photoshop so this course probably won’t apply to my needs.
Thanks for asking.
[Gary Ford, Kelly Vanderbeek’s Father-in-Law]
When I travel, I bring my laptop, card readers, and external hard drive. I create a catalog for the trip and then after the end of the trip I export as catalog and then when I return home I import from the catalog. I have found LR (Mobile) to be just enough different than LRC which my 77 yr old brain has been using for as long as you taught your first Kelby Seminar in Chicago. I am still using keywords for the search features in LRC as I can search my 25 year old catalog to find a wedding from years past as again happened recently.
I would welcome this course to make my travel photography more efficient.
In addition, I am finding I am using my Apple Mirrorless Camera (iPhone) often rather than lugging my Nikons. I would like some chapter to include getting the photos off the iPhone into LRC.
Looking forward to the course.
Great idea. I do not currently use a tablet or phone to start editing my images when I travel. I certainly see the utility on a long trip. I’m always somewhat frustrated when I return from a trip and have to edit several thousand images. A couple of things I would find useful:
* Some thoughts/guidance on the technical capabilities needed on a tablet in order to run these programs (both minimum requirements and nice to have requirements)
* Same for a smart phone.
* How do I use lightroom classic in the mobile environment. I always was under the impression you had to use Lightroom in the mobile environment.
* How does one connect a portable SSD to a tablet to store/backup images while traveling.
This is a concept I hadn’t envisioned before since I use LrC and don’t use a tablet at all. I look forward to seeing what you have to say.
I successfully use LR on my phone, tablet and desktop for some aspects of my work. This mostly is with AI generated images where I am creating them on all of my devices but I want them all together. So the cloud ends up being the place and it is easy to move photos from each device. I don’t do much editing on these, so LR is fine.
I have not had success incorporating LrC into the mix. Due to the nature of my photography (I’m a marching arts photographer), I have everything in separate catalogs by year and season. That means I have 3 catalogues a year but only one is my current work. What I’ve found is that if I sync one of my catalogs to the cloud (you can only have one synced at a time), that it downloads everything on the cloud to that catalog. I can control what is uploaded by syncing a collection but I don’t want all of the other photos in the current season’s catalog. So, what I end up doing is exporting photos from LrC and uploading them to the cloud. These would be my best photos that I want to have around on my phone to show my work.
It would be so much easier if each catalog could be automatically connected to the cloud and you could control what is where. But mostly due to the volume of my marching arts photography (250,000 photos a year), the cloud is not practical. Plus LR Desktop is lacking in really key features that I need – example file export presets.
I use Photoshop/Camera Raw/Bridge exclusively; I don’t use Lightroom at all. Consequently, my input might not be relevant or helpful.
But, anyway, I’d like to be able to assess intelligently whether to even try to use Ps mobile on my iPad while travelling, or just wait until I return home to download the images to my home computer and work on Ps there. What are the compelling advantages for beginning my processing workflow on my iPad while still travelling? Or, are there no substantial advantages at all? Thanks!
Hi Peter. Compelling reasons would be 1) You have an ipad and that’s what you want to bring with you 2) You want to edit while traveling. I’m not trying to sell people on the workflow, I’m just trying to help the people that have a tablet and want to edit while traveling. Thanks!
Hi Matt, I do not have a tablet, however I do take my laptop with an external drive with me when traveling. So I was just wondering if this would benefit me as well as thoses with tablets. If not then just remove me from the email list you will be sending out. Please keep me on your regular email list.
Thanks and I hope you get the responses you are looking for,
Semper Fi,
Joe W.
Hi Mat:
Essentially what I would like to do would be to bring photos that are taken on a trip or vacation into my iPad Pro from my SD Card into Lightroom on my iPad. I would like to then review the photos and do some general culling, rejects, rating, keyboarding (Not sure keyboarding is possible in Lightroom?!?) etc. before returning home to my Mac Studio where I would then “move” the photos from Lightroom on the iPad to my Lightroom Classic photo library on my Mac Studio. Hope that all makes sense! Cheers!
I switched to the LR cloud version with 1TB storage several years ago, so I have that part down. What I’m really interested in starts with capture. Since the camera on my phone is so good, I’ve come to the conclusion, especially for travel, that I only take out my “big” camera when I need exceptional quality or I’m trying to capture something especially challenging. But for capturing day to day tourist photos, memories of what we saw on our trip, or pictures of the people I’m traveling with, my phone is just fine and I don’t have to lug around my camera and lenses. I shoot everything in raw and the auto settings and Adobe’s camera settings get me pretty close to matching all the in-phone AI magic. But some processing tips would be helpful: dealing with noise, background artifacts, fixing wide angle distortion on selfies and portraits, basic video editing in LR, etc.
When travelling I take my macbook pro with two TB portable SSD (Samsung)
Use my Z8 and Z6iii. and take RAW files
Every day, I download the images in a folder for the day
If time allows, I aim to cull the images rather than post-process them.
Screen brightness and colour variable on portable devices so I prefer to edit them on my mac studio with its calibrated screen.
Lightroom Cloud would do it readily but is quite expensive – and I’m doing this for a hobby so not to earn anything.
Thanks for all that you do!
Best wishes
Matt,
I just returned from 3-1/2 weeks in Ireland, took a couple thousand shots. More than 12 were on my Samsung S22 Ultra, rest on my Sony A7R5. I did use Lightroom Mobile on my Samsung tablet, and found it workable for some thjings, not for others.
My intent for processing while traveling was to post a few shots on Facebook and Instagram while overseas. I used Sony Creator’s App to transfer to my tablet, mostly with 2Meg images.Major tasks were cropping and straightening, adjusting exposure and color. Many cloudy days, so I did some sky masking to add a little contrast to the clouds. I did use the remove tool. All that worked fairly well.
What didn’t work: I shot a few HDR frames around sunset and found that I had no was to process those on the tablet, so those waited until I got home. Also, like you, I use Topaz a lot, and could not get the noise reduction I wanted. But for Facebook, not that important.
I did not make any attempt to import the processed images from Lightroom mobile when I got home. I knew there were a few favorites I wanted to spend some time with, so I worked those up in Lightroom Classic. I did the HDR merges, too, though Adobe failed on a couple, so I bought Photomatix for LR.
Most of the phone pics were snapshots, so little post with those, except what the phone offered.
Now I’m assembling slideshow videos, will see hom many people I can bore stiff…
I use a laptop and a portable SSD to backup my photos daily wheb I’m traveling. I sometimes cull photos and any particularly “great” photos I’ll play with using LR (NOT LrC). Two things would make it easier:
1. Learn how to use my iPad instead of my laptop for culling in LR (not LrC).
2. I have a Sony A7R-IV and I use the map function in LrC. I would like to find a more convenient to move RAW Apple photos to the same file structure as my photos so they import into my LrC catalog when I return home. The Apple photos automaticallyimbed GPS data for use in LrC.
I’m using my iPhone when I travel more often now. I always have trouble getting my images into Lightroom Classic. Sometimes I use the Apple camera, sometimes the Lightroom camera. I never know for sure where my images end up. I’ve been going through Brian Matiash’s course “Lightroom Everywhere.” He says LR Classic will go away at some point, if I understand him correctly. I haven’t finished the course but I think he spends most of his time discussing Lightroom.
The things you mentioned in your video sound exactly what I need to know and have been searching for. I prefer to work on my images on LR Classic from my desktop, so how do I get the images from my phone to my HD? Once they’re there, I can manage them.
When I’m traveling I may want to work on them from my iPad. I still have a lot to learn about that. But I still will want to be able to save them on my HD.
I’m probably forgetting some things but this is the basics of what I want to learn. Thanks for tackling this topic!
I’ve been editing with LR on my IPAD whenever I travel since 2019. I use the following workflow: dump memory card onto “files” on my IPAD. I have lots of memory on the iPAD, so it works as a backup to the memory card.Then I make sure my IPAD is disconnected from the cloud. I import everything into LR on the IPAD, and go through a selection process – only a few photos get a “pick” flag – just the few that I want to work on immediately while I’m still travelling. Everything else gets immediately deleted from LR, because I don’t want all these photos trying to go up to the cloud. It’s important to also empty your “deleted” files in LR, otherwise these go to the cloud. When I get home, the first step is to allow those photos to sync from the IPAD to the cloud and to LR Classic on my desktop. I rename them at that point, using the same syntax the my normal import into LR Classic uses (and I usually label them with a colour just for comfort. Once that it done, I can import all the photos from my memory cards into LR Classic. I don’t get duplicates or if I do I can find them easily. Once everything on my desktop is backed up, I can erase them from “files” on my IPAD and from my memory cards. This is fairly clunky but works for me. I’d love it if there were a more streamlined method.
Matt, Great idea for the course. I generally use an ipad pro to download wildlife photos on an sd card to LC cloud version and then cull discards. It tends to use lots of cloud storage for culls and time to upload, view and delete. I may have a thousand images. Too bad I cannot import onto an external drive first for the culling process. If I could use LR Classic on the ipad with an external drive, that would be better.
Alternatively, I keep all images on sd cards until I return home and download them using lr Classic on an external drive. I cull images there and import keepers into Lightroom Cloud. This method is quicker and makes for more efficient use of the cloud storage.
As I understand it, how do I deal with my images with LRC when on the road? Well, this is what I’ve done ever since I started using LRC: For me, that was around 2010.
1) My camera is now a 7Dm2; before that, it was a 30D (both Canon, obviously). During the day, I take as many photos as I want/need.
2) Once back in the hotel/motel, I ingest all images into my wife’s laptop. (At home, I have a Mac Studio, but during our travels, I take over her MBPro. My “2nd seat” of Adobe software is on this laptop.)
2b) I place a folder on the desktop that contains the images and the catalogs (and related files) all in that folder.
3) I then spend the evening working on the images. I may or may not complete the day’s images, depending on how tired I am or how many images I’ve taken.
4) I then quit and backed up the images
5) I have a backup of that folder that I now update with everything in that folder on an external drive via Chronosync.
6) Once I have two copies of everything, I can reformat the camera card so it’s ready for the next day’s shoot. (That 2nd drive goes into a suitcase, NOT my camera bag.)
7) Wash, rinse, and repeat until the tip is over.
Once back home, I plug the external drive into my computer and open it with LRC. I need to tell LRC where the images are (because it still thinks the catalog, images, and everything else are on the laptop). Setting one image does them all.
Now, I can “Import from another Catalog” into my LRC catalog at home.
Extra credit: I now create Collections of selected images from the trip that I can send to friends to show them what we did on our trip. These can be seen in any browser via a desktop, iPad, or iPhone. After a complaint that the viewer didn’t know what/where they were looking at. I solved that by placing the place/location in front of each set of images in Photoshop.
If you’re curious about this last bit, ask for one.
Oh, yeah, I have left off a lot of the details. :>)
I realize that many people use teh Apple ecosystem. However, I hope that you will address teh Andriod ecosystem as well.
Hi Stephen. I’m pretty sure I said “Tablet” throughout, not iPad. LR on the iPad is same as Android. And PS isn’t on the Android, so there would be nothing to cover. Thanks!
Hi Matt, I have moved away from LRC and now use Adobe’s cloud based system for Lightroom and Photoshop. Will you be mainly concentrating on using an ipad or will you also look at the use of android tablets?
Hi Tony. I’ll be talking about using the tablet while traveling. Whether it’s android or apple doesn’t matter. Thanks.
I don’t use either Lightroom products. I’m strictly a Photoshop user. My husband and I typically take 2-3 road trips a year. The minimum amount of time is 10 days and can be up to 3 weeks. If possible, I’d love to be able to leave my laptop at home. So, I’d like to be able to edit some photos on my iPad, backup files to an external hard drive and to Google Drive/Photos.
Hi Matt, this is perfect timing. I will be traveling to Europe in a couple months and would love to be able to take my iPad instead of my laptop. I need to be able to back up all the files and then cull through them at a later time. I’ve been thinking of taking separate SD cards for each day but would also need to back them up somewhere. WiFi will be sketchy at best so cloud backups are not an option. Also, I need to be able to do quick edits for traveling companions while there with more in-depth edits at home. I am very interested in your ideas and workflow that you have developed. Thank you in advance!
Thanks, Matt. I prefer LRC for financial reasons and to give easy access to my non-techy family when I go to the great beyond. Using LR when traveling is an excellent alternative, and really, I agree with one of the other commenters. I just use LR to cull the non-keepers—maybe do a crop, but no major editing on the road. I look forward to your course, as I’m sure you’ll show me some cool stuff that I never considered. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Al. Though I had to laugh at the thought of the “non-techy family” using LR Classic one day. I can’t think of a worse program to saddle my family with if something were to happen to me. I live it everyday and still don’t find it intuitive let alone my non-techy family needing to make their way around it 🙂
But I think you’ll enjoy the course as it’s made for some one just like you. Thanks!
I use Lightroom mobile on my phone to import galaxy S22+ photos. They then sync to the Adobe cloud via lightroom mobile and when I get home the are available and downloaded to my PC hard drive. I then delete them from the all synced photos (cloud) and on my phone. I seldom do edits to photos in the field , I prefer a large monitor on a desktop.
I find there is no good simple instructions to set this process up and as you said there is nothing out there that’s any good
Have previously used laptop when traveling, and uploading to the laptop and retaining the card until uploaded again on PC when I return home.
Problem is that the degree of certainty is not high, so would like to efficiently upload once , no matter wherever I am – (assuming I have decent internet connection) and receive clear communication back showing how many files , etc have been uploaded and tested as being full copy of what was originally uploaded to iPad that was with me. Something like “Success – 135 files uploaded to…. and files have been compared with the original upload and are identical at time of upload.”
Would also be useful to have a dedicated app for the initial upload that drives me through the process and makes that as simple as possible. Perhaps include links to something like Excire to include typical labels, etc.
On completion then directs user into post processing on the new images, ideally with an initial list of things to do with the new images on iPad, ideally some form of schedule of things to do, such as, crop, straighten, etc preferably with a list that is built automatically over time and updates and prioritizes the list. Something like could happen manually after watching one of your videos and then the list is update with new activity or new tools – still user’s option to do them but at least user would be getting reminders.
Also the SSD request from Eric Hall is also an issue for me.
I use a laptop and a portable SSD to backup my photos daily whebn traveling. I sometimes cull photos and any particularly “great” photos I’ll play with using LR (NOT LrC). Two things would make it easier:
1.
Accidently closed the comment too early.
Thank you. It will appeal to me, as I’m always trying to figure out how to simplify mingling my iPhone images with ones I take from my mirrorless Olympus disc onto my laptop. So many workflows! I’d like to hear more about everything you are saying. Thanks…/zina
My travel workflow:
Macbook Pro with LRC
SSD EHD 4T (Trip pix only)
Daily shoots imported into new catalog (Trip Name), pix stored on travel EHD SSD 4T
Minor editing daily; rejects deleted; all keepers into collection for each day (Day1, Day2, etc).
2nd card slot on Nikon Z8 as BU
Computer & EHD backed up to Backblaze if Wifi available
On return, merge trip catalog to Master catalog; copying pix to Master EHD
Double check for pix on Master EHD & Backblaze
Reformat cards
Reformat travel EHD SSD 4T
This is a marvelous idea for a tutorial, Matt. Especially useful would be techniques for getting files into and back out of the iPad or other tablet. Hopefully the techniques would also generally apply to video and other types of files. Also, suggestions of which types of external storage devices work best would be greatly appreciated. I’ve mostly worked with Affinity Photo on the iPad, so getting a handle on LR & Photoshop is especially enticing.
I have wanted to use my ipad for years but never found a good/effective/easy way to do it. I always bring my macbook to store and process. Why do I want to process on the road?? I use it for backup; to review the day’s captures on a larger screen and to do a first cut and first good image selection; usually post images from my travels and that.
Bottom line – it’s easier to carry an ipad rather than a macbook
Hooray!! I am so glad you are doing this course. There is nothing good out there, and I am just getting into the iPad Pro and wanting to use it when we travel. My anticipated workflow is to use LR and PS on the iPad to do basic edits and maybe some fine tuning and then do final edits on my iMac when I get home. I also create digital paintings and other enhancements, so would like to use either Procreate or Fresco to create digital paintings. You can see the type of work I do on my website at bjspanos.com.
I am having trouble finding information on how to import presets that I use on LR Classic and PS and even if they’re compatible. I know that third-party plugin panels (such as Blake Rudis’ panels) are not. I have a number of your and Blake’s presets for LR Classic and would like to use them when I’m traveling. Any tips there would be most helpful.
Thank you, Matt! I can’t wait for this course! Best wishes – BJ Spanos
I am the “queen” of the Lightroom Mobile/LrC workflow. Just FYI as my daily workflow I import to Classic, create a Collection, Sync with Mobile – then mark for culling and do basic edits in Mobile. Obviously, I’m working with Smart Previews.
The issues I’ve encountered while traveling relate the data limits on my iPad and syncing the files back via the cloud take a lot of space. I have not edited in Mobile using an external drive, however. I’m lucky that several years ago I got a WD hard drive with a SD slot. However, my forums are full of people looking for hubs to download to a HD. I hope you’ll cover that. Also it is hard to free-up some of that 20g of space in Synced Photos – when I get back to my computer I always have to drag and drop into a folder, then delete from synced photos.
The one thing I’ve found helpful is to create a Collection for my photos in LrC before I leave – and set it to sync. Then that’s where I put them when downloading to my iPad. That seems easier to ”find” than vice versa. You might warn people that you’re always captive to slow hotel WiFi when every other guest is streaming.
Also just recently I’ve encountered real slowness of the interface between the two – even with my fast home internet. Others might note that…
I’m hopeful that your research will help me with my own workflow.
Store photos in another application than one on the iMac as I want to insure my photos are safe
and I had duplicates if there is a computer crash (it happened to me recently)
I have terabytes of information in some files
Would love to find an uncomplicated way to store my pictures safely
Thanks for all your hard work making my work that much easier
I would LOVE to incorporate Adobe’s mobile products into my workflow.
But I prefer to use Lightroom Classic (and am heavily invested in it – to the tune of many thousands of photos).
Brian Matiash can claim until the cows come home that you can survive without Lightroom Classic and use the mobile-only versions (and frankly, you have gently disparaged hardcore Lightroom Classic users on occasion as well, so it’s pretty rich that you put this particular course together).
But the reality is that until Adobe forces me to leave Classic behind, I won’t. To that end, I’m open to incorporating the mobile products into a Classic-focused workflow, but it’s a tough nut to crack.
Any assistance you can offer in that vein would be appreciated.
Hi David. I said in the video this will be LR Classic focussed. There’s nothing much to cover if it’s just LR, because that automatically works out of the box. Thanks.
How to see my big camera pictures on something other than a camera back! Suggestions of a “quick” edit for sharing. And keep the work I’ve done with the photo when I get back to Lightroom on my main computer.
Matt, I have switched from classic backbone mixed with Lightroom on every single platform to Lightroom on every single platform, including the web. I have also upgraded my storage to one terabyte the way I did it is I took a catalog and brought all originals into Lightroom desktop, etc. I then created a new catalog that serves as my back up since it is now linked with Lightroom as opposed to the old one. I would love it if you had extensive modules on using Lightroom desktop/web/mobile with Photoshop on the iPad. There is a paucity of information about this. The other thing to consider is each platform has different functionality; for example, I now see the web-based Lightroom has single click functions for presets/auto which is very similar to some of the other companies applications. It’s lots of fun. another thing to include are some of the advantages of a mobile environment with regard to sharing on the web And use wifh Adobe portfolio. Also learning and importing others presets. Those are some quick thoughts. I’d be happy to give you some more as the weeks go by if you find them useful thanks for this opportunity.
On the road, I’m trying to enjoy myself, so I limit it to two things:
1) backup everything to my USB SSD drive
2) maybe cull a little bit to get rid of obvious mistakes and duplicates (as long as I’m sure)
To do this, use an iPad and run any raw image viewer (LR is fine) and also install “a-Shell”. It gives you a command prompt so you can easily:
> cd $SDCARD
> mkdir $SSD/YYYY-MM-DD
> cp -fp DCIM/*/*.RAW $SSD/YYYY-MM-DD/.
> mv DCIM/* Done/YYY-MM-DD
That may be heavy-duty for a lot of people, but I know _you_ can do it. It’s not that hard. The “$SSD” and “$SDCARD” notations signify the places where iOS attaches (mounts) the camera’s SD/CFexpress/CF card and where the SSD USB drive gets attached. You should have a powered switch for your iPad anyway (keyboard, mouse, SD reader, SSD drive, …)
If I can minimize my gear (Laptop) while traveling that would be a big bonus. I would want to download onto a SSD everyday both as back up and security. I know many folks who edit on an iPad but I have never attempted this, So if your course will include the salient features of tablet editing that can then be transferable to home Hard drive where I can continue my work, that would be awesome.
I use primarily LR classic. I like to edit on big screens, so I do not see how this would help- unless you show me some real benefits.
I welcome your efforts, and I would like to see how would this approach help me.
My images take about 8 TB of SSD drives, and they are easy to carry.
Again , please show me why this would be useful for me
Thank you for making this course. There are many of us who prefer to work on a Lightroom System, that does NOT require making catalogs. I used to use Bridge, Camera Raw and then Photoshop.
I would like to see how can we get to Plug Ins, without having to go to Photoshop. We should be able to get to various plug ins from Lightroom, I hope.
Thank you,
Juan Gonzales
Thanks Juan. This course is about mobile workflow on a tablet. And plug-ins don’t work on your tablet so that won’t be covered. And plug-ins don’t work in Lightroom on the desktop so even if I wanted to cover it, I can’t because it doesn’t support that feature. But thanks for replying.
I’ve got 4 cruises booked for the next year. I don’t want to take my camera, will just have my phone and an old ipad pro. I’d like to be able to quickly review and edit the keepers enough to know that they are keepers. I’d like to not buy the wifi package so transferring between devices would be helpful. I hope this helps.
Gotcha Fred. As long as the iPad was purchased after 2018 I’ll have you covered in the course. It just needs to be able to see an external hard drive which came in the 2018 and later iPads. Thanks!
I always enjoy your courses and teaching style, and have many of them.
I have to admit, I have gone all in on Adobe’s Cloud system — I upgraded my subscription to 3 TB, and have my entire library there. I like being able to search for any of my photos from anywhere that I am, so it is worth it to me.
Before I went all-in, though, one of my primary concerns was how to get the photo in to Lightroom Classic and rename it and keep any edits I might have done with my mobile device.
With my current workflow, one of my biggest complaints about Lightroom is that it doesn’t have the Batch Rename option that Classic did. I really like my photos to be renamed to YYYYMMDD-hhmmss, and have done that for years. Currently, my workflow is to first use Adobe Bridge to rename my photos, then import them in to Lightroom. However, when mobile, I don’t have the rename ability, and end up importing my photos as named, and then there isn’t a way that I know of to batch rename them. If you have a way around that, I would love to hear it!
I also own and have completed Brian Matiash’s Lightroom Everywhere, which really does a good job of explaining how to do things on the computer, iPad and phone, but I don’t think he covered Classic at all.
Hi Matt I am looking for aa easy way to use LR on the road. Best for me to use my iPad and leave my laptop at home I agree the adobe cloud is way to expensive Workflow would be great
This is the holy grail. I would like to plug in small-form ssd into my ipad and then when downloading from the camera’s SD card, smartpreviews are saved to the ipad to preserve ipad storage while RAWs go to the SSD. The previews would have to be synced to the SSD somehow. Going to the cloud doesn’t make sense when connectivity is limited in the field.
Thanks Eric. Great info. Just so you know, there isn’t an option to save Smart Previews to iPad AND full raws to SSD. That isn’t possible, as there is no connection to the SSD and Lightroom once photos are imported. But… you won’t need to sync to the cloud at all while traveling, and you’ll still be able to edit and organize in Lightroom on the tablet without syncing – so that’s good news. Thanks!
You can save originals or just certain albums in your iPad or phone.also on your PC/Mac. On a iPad connected SD drive would be fantastic!!