# Anyone Use Photosmith App on iPad?



## GaryR60 (May 14, 2013)

I have the Photosmith app on my iPad, but I am leery of using it with Lightroom (on my laptop), as I have thousands of photos in my Lightroom catalog and I don't want them all loaded onto my iPad, where they would instantly suck up all available storage (I have n iPad 2 with a mere 16GB). Is there a way to limit what is imported to the iPad's Photo Roll from Lightroom?

If so, what - if anything - are you guys using Photosmith for, exactly? I can just as well download my photos from the camera to my laptop and, thus, direct to Lightroom, where I do all my image processing, but I am thinking I may want to use the iPad as a preliminary storage place in the field when on a trip, and the fact that it can sync back to Lightroom is an attractive feature.

Gary


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## Replytoken (May 14, 2013)

Welcome to the forum, Gary!  I am not using Photosmith on my iPad, but if your iPad is only 16GB, and probably has other data on it, how many files can it hold, especially in comparison to the size and cost of cards these days?  I believe that there are a few threads here where folks describe how they use an iPad in their work flow.  Have you searched the forum?

--Ken


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## GaryR60 (May 14, 2013)

Exactly, Ken. I have a 32GB card in my Sony NEX-5N, so I would rarely run out of storage on the camera, however, on a week or two week trip, that might be a different story unless I have something to offload to, temporarily. I thought about using a high-capacity USB flashdrive, which would be a fine and compact way to store my RAW files (over 15MB each), but I think it would be nicer to have all those files automatically loaded into Lightroom, instead. My card holds over 1,200 RAW files, I think, but I have typically shot anywhere between 100 to 300 photos in a couple of hours of local shooting, so it would only be a few days, at most, before I'd fill the card. There is always the option of buying a backup card or two, but again, I like the idea of my photos already being in Lightroom by the time I get back. Can Photosmith reliably load my images into Lightroom so that I can erase the files from my iPad and make room for another batch?

Thanks. I haven't searched the other forums, yet. Maybe the Workflow forum would be a good place to look.



Replytoken said:


> Welcome to the forum, Gary!  I am not using Photosmith on my iPad, but if your iPad is only 16GB, and probably has other data on it, how many files can it hold, especially in comparison to the size and cost of cards these days?  I believe that there are a few threads here where folks describe how they use an iPad in their work flow.  Have you searched the forum?
> 
> --Ken


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## awp (May 14, 2013)

I don't have an iPad or Photosmith.  I've looked at getting them but I don't see the point.  On a long trip I too wanted to get started working on the pics but Photosmith only does metadata you can't 'develop' your pictures.  I take my laptop instead - 300+GB space - upload my pics and work on them in LR and then transfer everything back into my main catalogue when I return.  Just don't see the point in spending £800+ on a large iPad and software to do half the job.


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## GaryR60 (May 14, 2013)

Yep, I have arrived at the same conclusion, re: the iPad, pretty much. In fact, I had tried it as a preliminary editing platform, in the field, but I found that whatever processing I did in, say, Snapseed, simply had to be done over again in Lightroom/HDR Efex Pro/Silver Efex Pro later, so I was effectively processing twice and, of course, spending twice as much time at it. So, I eventually deleted all my photo editing apps from the iPad and regained a lot of storage space in the process.

Still, I like the idea of having a way to offload photos from the camera in the field, so I can keep shooting. Maybe I'll just take the laptop with me, instead, and I can do my processing while away, too. Thanks for bringing me back to reality.  




awp said:


> I don't have an iPad or Photosmith.  I've looked at getting them but I don't see the point.  On a long trip I too wanted to get started working on the pics but Photosmith only does metadata you can't 'develop' your pictures.  I take my laptop instead - 300+GB space - upload my pics and work on them in LR and then transfer everything back into my main catalogue when I return.  Just don't see the point in spending £800+ on a large iPad and software to do half the job.


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## Bruce J (May 14, 2013)

Ok, I'll add my $.02, since I do use Photosmith with my iPad. I have a 64GB iPad 2. While traveling, I download raw images daily to the iPad. I then use Photosmith to add metadata (primarily location and caption info) and also to make quick slideshows for fellow travelers. I don't erase my camera cards, so the copies on the iPad form a backup. At the end of the trip, all images get synced to the desktop computer for further processing. I find the iPad much easier to travel with than a laptop and I long ago gave up trying to do image processing on a laptop screen in an uncontrolled lighting situation. Photosmith now seems to be perfectly reliable, but note that I do not use the iPad as the only copy of my images and I only use it as a one-way tool; I never move images from the desktop to the iPad. Once I have moved a batch of Images to the desktop, they are deleted from the iPad and Photosmith.


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## Replytoken (May 14, 2013)

Having owned an iPad for two years now, I find it a great travel device, but I have never incorporated it into my work flow.  It's fine for a quick preview, or to quickly send an image if I have a connection, but if I want to really work on images, then I would bring some type of notebook/laptop and the appropriate software and/or storage devices.  And at that point, its mostly budget that determines what is the most effective solution.  I know that other have found ways to incorporate iPads into their work flow, but it is mostly a personal device for me.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## GaryR60 (May 15, 2013)

Thanks for the insights, Bruce. Really, the only thing I am interested in using the iPad for in my remote workflow is to move files to Lightroom, where they will be backed up and ready for processing when I return home. That was my original idea, anyway. So, I wouldn't be doing any processing while away from home and any files downloaded to the iPad would be deleted from the iPad once transferred to my laptop and Lightroom, assuming that can be done in a reliable and confirmable way. By the way, I didn't know Apple made a 64GB iPad 2. I had thought the 32GB was the maximum, in terms of storage.


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## Bruce J (May 15, 2013)

GaryR60 said:


> Thanks for the insights, Bruce. Really, the only thing I am interested in using the iPad for in my remote workflow is to move files to Lightroom, where they will be backed up and ready for processing when I return home. That was my original idea, anyway. So, I wouldn't be doing any processing while away from home and any files downloaded to the iPad would be deleted from the iPad once transferred to my laptop and Lightroom, assuming that can be done in a reliable and confirmable way. By the way, I didn't know Apple made a 64GB iPad 2. I had thought the 32GB was the maximum, in terms of storage.



Seems like that would work, but if that's all you want to do, why not just copy your images directly to the laptop?

My iPad 2 says that it has 22GB of memory in use and 37GB of free space.  I presume the rest is used by the operating system.


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## GaryR60 (May 16, 2013)

Bruce J said:


> Seems like that would work, but if that's all you want to do, why not just copy your images directly to the laptop?
> 
> My iPad 2 says that it has 22GB of memory in use and 37GB of free space.  I presume the rest is used by the operating system.



Exactly what I've concluded. I decided to use a high-capacity USB drive to offload my RAW files to, if necessary to continue shooting while away, and then I can download those files to the laptop and Lightroom directly from the flash drive later. Or, I could avoid that and just get a backup 32GB card or two, so I'd have three cards to use while gone and the likelihood of running out of storage would be pretty slim. I was out shooting street images today and shot 140 pics and still had room for over 1,700 more on my 32GB card.


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## Victoria Bampton (May 17, 2013)

Gary, I have to thank you for getting me to look at Photosmith again. It's come a long way since I last looked at it. The Publish Services plug-in appears to work great, so I'm busy transferring low res JPEGs of certain folders over to my new iPad Mini. I'm 99% sure I'd still upload to my laptop if I was away, but it's nice to have culling capabilities on my iPad.


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## GaryR60 (May 18, 2013)

Glad I helped, Victoria.


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## wnelson (May 29, 2013)

Gary:

I've been pondering using my wife's Ipad 2 (64GB) while on vacation.  We are taking a trip to Russia at the end of June and I would like to have a way to review my photos on a larger screen than the back of the camera.  I ran across an article on Photosmith the other day and was lucky to run across your post.  Would you mind elaborating on any issues that you have uncovered (if any) using your Ipad in this way.  I'm concerned that the transfer rates will be slow between the camera connector and the IPad.  I'm shooting RAW only and so the file size will be around 23MP.  I've got Compact Flash and SD cards for backup so would be using the Ipad primarily for review and maybe organizing.  Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Bill Nelson


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## Victoria Bampton (May 30, 2013)

I'm loving being able to select photos on my iPad, but the two-way sync is proving too buggy for me to trust it. Apparently version 3, which is coming soon, is meant to be much better on that.


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## GaryR60 (May 31, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I'm loving being able to select photos on my iPad, but the two-way sync is proving too buggy for me to trust it. Apparently version 3, which is coming soon, is meant to be much better on that.



Yep. I've since abandoned the idea, myself.


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## Vadim_R (Jun 11, 2013)

I deleted Photosmith and now I use PhotoPicker for Lightroom


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 11, 2013)

Hi Vadim, welcome to the forum!

We don't encourage resurrecting old threads to post the same thing, so I've deleted some of the oldest ones, but here's the link in case anyone else is interested in PhotoPicker.  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/phot...l=ru&ls=1&mt=8

Can you tell us a little more about why you like PhotoPicker better than Photosmith?  And do you have any involvement with the development?


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## Vadim_R (Jun 11, 2013)

Hi, Victoria.

First of all, Photosmith is not liked because of the instability. I am a wedding photographer and with every wedding shoot more than 5000 photos. With so many photos Photosmith is often critically shutdown on my ipad 3


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## Grizz (Jun 11, 2013)

Photosmith 3 is awaiting Apple approval. Its supposed to be quite different and stable. See here. http://www.photosmithapp.com/index.php/blog/ 

I have been trying to use the current Photosmith app and its a little buggy. This new version is supposed to be better, its a free upgrade also.


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## jimburgess (Jun 11, 2013)

Grizz said:


> I have been trying to use the current Photosmith app and its a little buggy.


Every version of Photosmith has been "a little buggy".


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## mikewren (Jun 12, 2013)

jimburgess said:


> Every version of Photosmith has been "a little buggy".



Yup... except this one.   

Photosmith 3 was released about six hours ago - I'm very interested in hearing about any crashes you guys & gals are able to produce.  We've fixed all known sources of crashes, and it's proven stable during our extended beta test with 10,000 image syncs with Lightroom and catalogs up to 25,000 photos.  It'll get a little sluggish on iPad2 with 25k catalog, but we couldn't get it to crash.

A last-minute feature we added is full Lightroom 5 compatibility and the ability to use Smart Previews



Mike Wren
Photosmith


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 12, 2013)

LOL!  Good to see you here Mike.

Since I have your attention, what's the best way of wiping Photosmith 2 and all the photos off my iPad and starting again?  And if I do that, do I need to do anything with the LR plug-in?


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## mikewren (Jun 12, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> LOL!  Good to see you here Mike.
> 
> Since I have your attention, what's the best way of wiping Photosmith 2 and all the photos off my iPad and starting again?  And if I do that, do I need to do anything with the LR plug-in?



I've been here for a while, just on extended holiday!    The easiest way to wipe Photosmith 2 is to delete the app from your iPad, then install Photosmith 3 from the App Store.  On first launch, you'll be presented with a Welcome Wizard introducing you to the new features of Photosmith 3.

The Lightroom plugin should prompt you to update to the latest version, which is currently v3.0.0.4.  If it doesn't prompt you, there's an update button in Lr's Plugin Manager.


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## Grizz (Jun 12, 2013)

I have upgraded from Photosmith 2 to 3 and so far so good! I'm liking the way it works. This is what I expected and so far I am very pleased. Good job on the upgrade! Oh and BTW I'm using LR 5 and installed the new plugin without a hitch.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 12, 2013)

Thanks Mike, busy syncing........


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## GaryR60 (May 14, 2013)

I have the Photosmith app on my iPad, but I am leery of using it with Lightroom (on my laptop), as I have thousands of photos in my Lightroom catalog and I don't want them all loaded onto my iPad, where they would instantly suck up all available storage (I have n iPad 2 with a mere 16GB). Is there a way to limit what is imported to the iPad's Photo Roll from Lightroom?

If so, what - if anything - are you guys using Photosmith for, exactly? I can just as well download my photos from the camera to my laptop and, thus, direct to Lightroom, where I do all my image processing, but I am thinking I may want to use the iPad as a preliminary storage place in the field when on a trip, and the fact that it can sync back to Lightroom is an attractive feature.

Gary


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## mikewren (Jun 12, 2013)

Awesome, great to hear.  The feature that has me personally most excited (other than, you know, the whole stability/non-crash thing) is the ability to sync offline photos that have Smart Previews rendered.  For me, this means having access to my entire back catalog in Lr (and by extension iPad), without the hassle of plugging in externals disks.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 12, 2013)

Mike, any chance Smart Collections will be making a comeback?  I'd love to be able to create a SC in LR for all the 3-5 star photos, even if that became a static collection on Photosmith.


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## mikewren (Jun 12, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Mike, any chance Smart Collections will be making a comeback?  I'd love to be able to create a SC in LR for all the 3-5 star photos, even if that became a static collection on Photosmith.



Syncing Lr Smart Collections sure would be nice, wouldn't it?  It's on our list, but there's some other stuff ahead of it, like searching in Photosmith for photos based on parameters other than star rating, color labels and flags.  If only development time was infinite...


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 12, 2013)

I know the feeling Mike!  Thanks for the update.


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## freecall (Jun 14, 2013)

I tried Photosmith as well but after upgrading to D800 with huge file size and slow wifi transfer it does not make sense to me anymore; But I found a good use in my ipad when traveling for my workflow using the 2 card capabilities in my D800 ...I am shooting RAW and therefore have huge data when coming home to import & select keepers, special after a vacation trip.

Now my new workflow is (to reduced number of files to be transfered after coming home)

1) shoot raw & jpeg small
2) use eyewifi card to transfer only small JPEG to ipad (therefore no speed & space problem)
3) select keepers & delete rest on IPAD (plus show picture to other travellers with JPEG processed settings)
4) coming home & export both JPEG from IPAD & RAW folder from D800 into one temp folder 
5) run a batch to delete all raw files without matching JPEG
6) result is a folder with RAW keepers ready to import into LR

so no keywords or any tagging ..but solving my biggest problem when coming home in selection keepers from hundreds of photos .. now I do it at the end of each day on ipad 

Bjoern


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## mikewren (Jul 16, 2013)

freecall said:


> I tried Photosmith as well but after upgrading to D800 with huge file size and slow wifi transfer it does not make sense to me anymore; But I found a good use in my ipad when traveling for my workflow using the 2 card capabilities in my D800 ...I am shooting RAW and therefore have huge data when coming home to import & select keepers, special after a vacation trip.
> 
> Now my new workflow is (to reduced number of files to be transfered after coming home)
> 
> ...



Have you looked into Photosmith's Proxy JPG workflow?  http://support.photosmithapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/66161

Basically, you can shoot and transfer your small-ish reference JPG's right into Photosmith, make your selects and do some tagging, then ingest your big camera raws right into Lightroom.  Then sync with Photosmith.  Your tags will get synced to the camera raws in Lightroom.

It's basically exactly like your proposed workflow, only Photosmith makes it super easy


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## boevermann (Jul 27, 2013)

I've been lurking on the forums for a while now, but it's time I start participating.

I love all of the comments in this thread, as I have been struggling to determine if it makes sense to even buy an iPad, much less how it would fit into my photo workflow.  I ran across a book called 'The iPad for Photographers' by Jeff Carlson and after reading through that I have a solid idea of how I might use it. The author describes various workflows.  Like many of you, I have no interest in editing my photos on the iPad.  At least not until Adobe release an iPad version of LR!

My plan is to use the iPad for keywording while on the road.  I have enough cards that I won't use the iPad for a backup, but I plan on getting a 64gb version so that I can load a full card's worth of RAW images onto the iPad for review (I use up to 32gb cards).  I plan on using Photosmith to do the keywording and then export xmp sidecars out to Dropbox.  I neither need nor want to pay for storage on Dropbox beyond the 2gb you get for free.  The time to upload 32gb of photos to the cloud would take too long anyway while on crappy connections on the road.

At home I will offload the RAW files into my file structure and add the xmp files alongside.  I'm sure I am missing some details.

I was happy to see that the latest version of Photosmith allows you to export only the xmp sidecars to Dropbox.  That was my only question mark that I was about to contact the Photosmith folks about.


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## Harry Briels (Aug 3, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Gary, I have to thank you for getting me to look at Photosmith again. It's come a long way since I last looked at it. The Publish Services plug-in appears to work great, so I'm busy transferring low res JPEGs of certain folders over to my new iPad Mini. I'm 99% sure I'd still upload to my laptop if I was away, but it's nice to have culling capabilities on my iPad.



Dear Victoria,
I now have a Sony RX1, an iMAC 10.6.8 and the latest iPAD 32GB.
I would like to transfer images from my camera card to iPAD to have a look at the shots taken, when traveling.
So what I first of all would like to accomplish is to be able to enjoy seeing my images when traveling, on my iPAD.

But if at all possible I would like to remove some shots and later on move the remaining images from iPAD to iMAC and import those in to Lightroom.
I understand that I will need a iPAD camera connection kit. 
I will not need, I suppose, a Eye-fi-card if I use the connection kit?
Or would it be better to purchase Eye-fi-cards instead of the connection kit?
Will the Eye-fi-card function properly on my Sone RX1?

If too complicated to go the RX1-iPAD-iMac-Lightroom way, I will just keep all images on my cards and import those, when back home, directly in to Lightroom
I like to keep things simple!
I appreciate your help and advise.
Thank you in advance,
Harry


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