# Lightroom iPad syncing to Desktop



## AshleyNO (Oct 15, 2016)

I took my ipad travelling with my camera recently.

Idea was to import RAW photos from the camera CF card direct to the iPad and edit them in Lightroom mobile while travelling for social media etc.
This seemed to work well enough. 
(Except for the iPad's inability to WRITE to a CF card. Would have been great to make copies of photos on separate CF cards for backup, however apple don't allow you to write info to a CF card for some obscurely ridiculous reason)

Anyway, now that I've finished my trip, I'd like to import all the photos edited on the iPad photos back to LR desktop. 
I have CC and have updated both apps.

I tried making a new collection on the ipad with the photos I'd like to sync, but can't find the option since the latest update?

Meanwhile it looks like every single photo in my iPad LR app is slowly syncing? Which I don't want. But even so, I can't find the photos that it has already synced anywhere on my LR Desktop?

Also if there's anyone from Adobe reading this, it would be super useful if you could sync directly without having to go through adobe servers OR backward Australian internet. E.g. I used a third party app photosync, it transferred 3 Gig of RAW photo files from my iPad to my laptop on the local network, but in the same time LR ipad has only uploaded 2 photos!!!
Unfortunately this isn't a viable solution for my problem though, as the RAW file transferred via photoSync don't include the lightroom edits. 

If anyone has and advice, it'd be greatly appreciated.
And if you're reading this and are thinking about buying an iPad DON"T DO IT!!!
You're better off getting an android tablet, so that you can copy photo backups to different CF cards.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 15, 2016)

Lightroom syncs through the cloud, so it will indeed be slow. That applies to Android as well. The photos should appear in a special collection, and in the folder panel they should appear as a special 'device' (like a separate disk).


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## clee01l (Oct 15, 2016)

Compared to highly compressed JPEGs, Out of the camera RAW files are huge. Your iPad memory is going to quickly limit the number of camera card images that can be imported. 

These RAW files have to make two trips through the ethernet to reach your LR catalog.  The first is from the iPad to the cloud and second, from the Adobe creative cloud to your LR catalog on your computer. 
You can purchase some third party storage devices that let you backup data from your iPad.  Some have SD card readers and perhaps even CF card readers included.  Still by the time you have purchased an iPad with 128GB of memory and a backup drive for your iPad, you could have purchased a MBA and a portable EHD and used a real version of LR.


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## AshleyNO (Oct 16, 2016)

Thanks for the replies.
I still can't see the special device folder in Lightroom catalog on my desktop? 
I'm guessing that the iPad has to complete its upload before it registers in my catalog?

At the current rate it'll take more than a week for the iPad to finish uploading to the cloud....

I already owned an iPad. It weighs a few hundred grams, takes up less room in my pack than a large notebook, battery life is awesome, and the touch screen interface makes it really easy to work on in confined spaces like planes and trains. So much more convenient for quick editing while traveling than carrying around a laptop. 

I'm shooting micro 4/3 and averaging around ~17MB per RAW photo so capable of storing several thousand photos on a 128gb iPad.

If the software integration with desktop LR was usable, and you could save to CF cards, the iPad would be perfect for travel photography on the go.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 16, 2016)

The special 'device' isn't a folder and it isn't on your desktop. You can change this in the preferences, but by default it's a 'package' (a folder that is treated by the Finder as a file and looks like a file). The default location is your 'Pictures' folder, inside a folder called 'Lightroom'. The package has a rather cryptic name, so you may not recognize it.

It's possible that it won't show in Lightroom until everything is synched, I'm not sure about that.


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## clee01l (Oct 16, 2016)

In CC2015.7, there is an option in preferences to specify the location for the Lightroom mobile images and to store in subfolders by capture date. (i.e  the same folders for importing images off of a camera card)  Johan is correct, these (new) folders won't appear in LR until the download is complete.  Creative cloud sync probably uses a local temporary folder to accumulate downloaded LR mobile images. 

I don't think Lightroom Mobile was ever intended to be a vehicle to import images from any other camera besides the camera built in to the mobile device (iPad).  And this probably only means mobile device JPEGs.  Mobile device RAW files also may choke the cloud transfer process.  In short, IMO a mobile device is not suitable for storing and importing 'real' camera images to your master LR catalog on a 'real' computer.

I have an iPad2 w/32GB.  Initially I thought I could replace my aging laptop for travel.  My RAW files are twice the size of yours.  The 32 GB  is the only storage for all of my data, all of my apps and iOS operating system.  It won't even hold one 32GB camera card.  A larger capacity iPad won't hold 4 full camera cards of that capacity.  On a weekend trip, I can shoot several cards full of new images. 

FWIW, a 13" MBA w/256GB is $1200USD while a 9.7" iPad Pro w/ 256GB is $800USD.  I opted for a 13" Retina MBP w/500GB at $1800.  It and a 1TB EHD for backup have served me well in my travels.  My longest trip so far as been a two week sojourn to Scotland and the Shetlands where I accumulated ~5000 36mp images.  I could not have done that with my iPad even with max capacity of 256GB.  Also Syncing to my master catalog in Texas would have been an unrealistic expectation assuming I had continuous internet connection.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 16, 2016)

clee01l said:


> In CC2015.7, there is an option in preferences to specify the location for the Lightroom mobile images and to store in subfolders by capture date. (i.e  the same folders for importing images off of a camera card)  Johan is correct, these (new) folders won't appear in LR until the download is complete.  Creative cloud sync probably uses a local temporary folder to accumulate downloaded LR mobile images.



I think you'll find that the folder(s) will appear in Lightroom as soon as the download starts.



> I don't think Lightroom Mobile was ever intended to be a vehicle to import images from any other camera besides the camera built in to the mobile device (iPad).  And this probably only means mobile device JPEGs.



Possibly that was the original thinking, but if so that has certainly changed (otherwise why bother to introduce full RAW support in version iOS 2.4?). Agreed that it won't work for everyone, but it will for some.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 16, 2016)

clee01l said:


> I don't think Lightroom Mobile was ever intended to be a vehicle to import images from any other camera besides the camera built in to the mobile device (iPad).



It was planned right back at the start of LrM - but other workflows were prioritised. See this article The Field Triage Opportunity for Lr Mobile


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