# RAW handoff from iOS to desktop. What should the workflow look like?



## Doug B (Aug 9, 2016)

So a few months ago I decided to buy an iPad Pro. I knew I'd be shooting a wedding soon after the purchase, and figured that there would be some way to sync collections for culling purposes. That might have worked I suppose, had I shot RAW+Jpg, but I shot only RAW. And even if I had shot both, it would have still been a pain in the rump to manage. Shooting RAW only allows you to see the jpg previews in the iOS Camera app, but not in LR. At least, that's how it was a few months ago. I looked for other RAW converters, and there ARE a couple of them.. but they really stink on ice. I decided to return the iPad Pro, and go with an iPad Air 2 refurb

Needless to say, RAW support is now here. Which is really cool. But I'm a bit confused about how to do certain specific things. My intention is to:

 shoot>import>cull. Then I was hoping that if some editing needed to be done, I'd be able to start on the iPad, then have it hand-off those edited files to the CC cloud server and then have them wind up either back in LR on my desktop, or in PS on the desktop. Which one it wound up in, would depend on which app it was last in for editing. 

In other words, if I was doing some basic skin retouching or cloning in PS mobile, it would wind up in PS as a TIFF on the desktop. And if I was just doing basic exposure or color editing in LR Mobile, it would end up in the collection I created for that particular job, in its original RAW form within LR desktop. 

Am I asking for too much at this point, or is ANY of that possible right now? I really want nothing to do with dng files, which I know plays a part in this process at some point, correct? 

Doug


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 9, 2016)

Doug B said:


> In other words, if I was doing some basic skin retouching or cloning in PS mobile, it would wind up in PS as a TIFF on the desktop. And if I was just doing basic exposure or color editing in LR Mobile, it would end up in the collection I created for that particular job, in its original RAW form within LR desktop.



I don't know what the workflow would look like if you send a raw file to PS on the iPad, but I don't believe there is any sync capability between PS desktop and PS Mobile, so I guess the file (TIFF?) would need to be returned to LRmobile for syncing back to LRdesktop. But all Raw files imported to LRmobile (+ any LRmobile edits) would be synced back to LRdesktop automatically, where they would appear in their native raw format.


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## johnbeardy (Aug 9, 2016)

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Jim Wilde said:


> I don't know what the workflow would look like if you send a raw file to PS on the iPad,



Both Photoshop Mix and Photoshop Fix (is that what you mean by "PS mobile", Doug?) are available to Lightroom Mobile, and they can each save output back to Lightroom Mobile. The files would then arrive automatically on your desktop. Whether you can do much of value in Fix or Mix is my big doubt - I find them OK for working up ideas, which I then repeat in the real Photoshop.


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## Doug B (Aug 9, 2016)

Jim Wilde said:


> I don't know what the workflow would look like if you send a raw file to PS on the iPad, but I don't believe there is any sync capability between PS desktop and PS Mobile, so I guess the file (TIFF?) would need to be returned to LRmobile for syncing back to LRdesktop. But all Raw files imported to LRmobile (+ any LRmobile edits) would be synced back to LRdesktop automatically, where they would appear in their native raw format.



I'm just trying to figure out whether the file which is sent to PS Fix,( from iOS,) is a TIFF or a DNG, and if it's the latter, is there a way to make it default to TIFF instead..What I'm seeing when trying to send a file to either Fix or some other, is the option for file size. So, there's compression going on, but what kind, exactly? 



johnbeardy said:


> Files saved from
> Both Photoshop Mix and Photoshop Fix (is that what you mean by "PS mobile", Doug?) are available to Lightroom Mobile, and they can each save output back to Lightroom Mobile. The files would then arrive automatically on your desktop. Whether you can do much of value in Fix or Mix is my big doubt - I find them OK for working up ideas, which I then repeat in the real Photoshop.



Yes, those are the apps I was referring to John, thank you for the correction. But.. DO those files as you say "arrive automatically" on the desktop, or is there something that one must do in order to ensure their making it that far? I've definitely seen a PS Fix file make it to the desktop version of PS automatically, but it wasn't necessarily straight forward. There was kind of a trick to it..  Also, would these files have to exist in a collection, or would they be able to sync as such, without making a collection at all? I just feel like the app/apps have a ways to go before they feel fleshed out and totally coherent, IMO.  

I'm also just trying very hard to justify staying within the Adobe sphere, when other software does a better job with my Fuji X-Trans files. I mean, if Capture One had cloud based syncing and a mobile app like Fix, I'd dump Adobe in a heartbeat. I have Affinity Photo, which for me, does everything I need PS to do. It's not that I mind paying a monthly fee, but it's also not that I make a ton of money with my photography, either. And $120 is $120, right? If Adobe got their stuff together, and ACR developed my Fuji RAW's as well as Iridient or Capture One, I'd stop complaining in an instant. 

I really like the PS Fix app. Granted, the iPad's screen isn't calibrated like my iMac's is, but I can start to do things like cloning objects, and get rid of blemishes with it. Of course, that's AFTER I've done some basic exposure and color adjustments for the demosaicing process. Though.. you might have a point in the end. If the algorithm for demosaicing in LR Mobile is different from ACR on the desktop, it could have a negative impact on the overall outcome. And I obviously wouldn't do any cloning or retouching before outputting to TIFF. I've yet to run tests to compare the demosaic output from LR mobile vs its sibling on the desktop. 

Though, I'd like to assume that Adobe had these things in mind when developing the apps? Otherwise, it would be a disservice to photographers, and its only utility would be for culling and tagging etc.. 

Doug


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