# Lightroom and iPad Pro



## David Horne (Dec 28, 2020)

Two questions: 1. How much space should Lightroom take up on my iPad Pro (2nd gen)?  My system's iPad Storage shows Lightroom occupying a healthy 316.45GG (of my 1TB iPad Pro). While Photos shows 146.54GB. Which makes me think some of my import photos are being stored "locally" on the iPad instead of being bumped up to the cloud.

Which brings me to question 2. How can I find photos on my iPad that Lightroom might be storing locally on the iPad?

My workflow: I use my iPad while traveling. I first import all my photos from a day's shoot by inserting my sd card into a Gnarbox.  The Gnarbox is my first backup copy. Then I use iPad's Files to copy all files onto a Samsung T5 2TB drive for a second backup.  After that, I insert the sd card into an sd card reader plugged into my iPad and import them into Lightroom on my iPad Pro.  They are then uploaded to Adobe Cloud and copied to my external hard drive attached to my iMac at home. While on the road I cull my photos and sometimes start editing some of the photos from the trip using the iPad. 

I stopped traveling with a MacBook more than 3 years ago and I have found that the iPad more than meets my requirements for traveling with much less weight.


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## clee01l (Dec 28, 2020)

My Lightroom/Lightroom Classic workflow is similar.  Lightroom on My iPadPro (512GB) is consuming 3.65GB. It sounds like you have not cleared the Lightroom Cache in Lightroom preferences {Local Storage} I have a Lightroom inventory of about 7000 images mostly in the cloud. I have disabled iCloud storage of iPhotos and do not use the Photos app locally. IOW all of my iPadPro Photos go directly to Lightroom and from there to the Adobe cloud. There is no duplication between Lightroom Storage and Photos app store age. 
The Adobe cloud sync’s everything down to my Lightroom Classic on my iMac. 
I import from my camera card into Lightroom on the iPadPro and thence sync’d to the cloud and my LrC catalog. After I import a camera card into Lightroom on the iPadPro, I make a second copy to a 1TB EHD that I carry when I travel and might be in an unreachable internet or a slow internet transfer to my iMac at home. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Jim Wilde (Dec 28, 2020)

> Two questions: 1. How much space should Lightroom take up on my iPad Pro (2nd gen)?



How long is a piece of string? It's impossible to even ballpark the amount of storage that the app will take up, as it depends on so many factors: how many images in your catalog, how many smart previews have you downloaded, do you download smart previews for offline use, how many originals have you imported, how big are those originals (i.e. there's a heck of a difference in the size of an original from a 20mp camera versus a 50mp camera), have the new imports synced up to the cloud? The only thing I could say with confidence is that a smart preview will typically be between 1 and 2mb in size.



> Which brings me to question 2. How can I find photos on my iPad that Lightroom might be storing locally on the iPad?



Not easily. There's no global query in LrMobile to identify how many originals are currently stored locally, so really all you can do is manage the amount od space being used. Personally, I have the "Only Download Smart Previews" option enabled in the Settings>Cloud Storage & Sync tab, so that any image I wish to view or edit on the iDevice only needs the much smaller SP (at any time I can download the original if I think I need it). In theory, with that setting enabled, any originals imported directly to the iDevice should become eligible for automatic removal once the sync upload has completed....that can be expedited by the user by using the global Clear Cache command, which should remove any already-synced originals.


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## David Horne (Dec 28, 2020)

clee01l said:


> My Lightroom/Lightroom Classic workflow is similar.  Lightroom on My iPadPro (512GB) is consuming 3.65GB. It sounds like you have not cleared the Lightroom Cache in Lightroom preferences {Local Storage} I have a Lightroom inventory of about 7000 images mostly in the cloud. I have disabled iCloud storage of iPhotos and do not use the Photos app locally. IOW all of my iPadPro Photos go directly to Lightroom and from there to the Adobe cloud. There is no duplication between Lightroom Storage and Photos app store age.
> The Adobe cloud sync’s everything down to my Lightroom Classic on my iMac.
> I import from my camera card into Lightroom on the iPadPro and thence sync’d to the cloud and my LrC catalog. After I import a camera card into Lightroom on the iPadPro, I make a second copy to a 1TB EHD that I carry when I travel and might be in an unreachable internet or a slow internet transfer to my iMac at home
> 
> ...


Thanks very much for your response.  It provides me with some good food for thought! I did clear the cache prior to transferring the data and apps from my old ipad Pro to my new iPad Pro yesterday.

I can definitely see, based on your description of the Photos app, where I might have some issues. I will do some research into my usage of Photos app.  So just to clarify, when/if you take a photo with your "smartphone" the photos then go directly into Lightroom instead of the Photos app on the iPad?   And then to Adobe Cloud.  I do tend to take quite a few photos with my iPhone XS, especially with location scouting and in use as a sort of sketch book for future image ideas.  I do have the photos app photos going to iCloud with Optimize iPad Storage checked. 

In regard to Lightroom, I have "Only Download Smart Previews" enabled. Under the "Import" tab in Lightroom settings I have "Auto Add From Camera Roll" "Photos" and "Videos" enabled.  So that could and might possibly be the culprit, I will investigate that further.  I think somewhere along the line I fell prey to a post on a KO forum that suggested turning "add photos from camera roll to LR on " and at the same time "turning off" the iCloud feature which I neglected to do. 

Thanks again for your response.


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## Jim Wilde (Dec 28, 2020)

David Horne said:


> So just to clarify, when/if you take a photo with your "smartphone" the photos then go directly into Lightroom instead of the Photos app on the iPad?   And then to Adobe Cloud.  I do tend to take quite a few photos with my iPhone XS, especially with location scouting and in use as a sort of sketch book for future image ideas.  I do have the photos app photos going to iCloud with Optimize iPad Storage checked.


It depends of course on which camera you use. If you use the native iOS camera, and you have auto-add enabled then you'll have an immediate duplication as the Lr app imports a copy of the image that's still stored in the camera roll. Throw iCloud into the mix and you have the potential for even more duplication.  The Lr app cannot delete the original camera roll images, so that's down to the user to manage the camera roll storage.

If you use the Lr camera however, which I prefer to do as it can capture raw (DNG) images, those captures are only stored in the Lr app's space, i.e. the camera roll is not involved, so no duplication.


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## David Horne (Dec 28, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> How long is a piece of string? It's impossible to even ballpark the amount of storage that the app will take up, as it depends on so many factors: how many images in your catalog, how many smart previews have you downloaded, do you download smart previews for offline use, how many originals have you imported, how big are those originals (i.e. there's a heck of a difference in the size of an original from a 20mp camera versus a 50mp camera), have the new imports synced up to the cloud? The only thing I could say with confidence is that a smart preview will typically be between 1 and 2mb in size.
> 
> 
> 
> Not easily. There's no global query in LrMobile to identify how many originals are currently stored locally, so really all you can do is manage the amount od space being used. Personally, I have the "Only Download Smart Previews" option enabled in the Settings>Cloud Storage & Sync tab, so that any image I wish to view or edit on the iDevice only needs the much smaller SP (at any time I can download the original if I think I need it). In theory, with that setting enabled, any originals imported directly to the iDevice should become eligible for automatic removal once the sync upload has completed....that can be expedited by the user by using the global Clear Cache command, which should remove any already-synced originals.


Hi Jim,

Thanks for your response.  I do only download "smart" previews no originals have ever been downloaded to my iPad Pro.  I shoot Sony and Fuji so my files are between 24Mp and 42mps. 

I cleared the cache yesterday which I did before transferring data and apps to the new ipad pro. I'm going to spend some time investigating my usage of the Photo app it seems I may be getting some duplication there.  I never import any originals from my pro cameras into the Photos app on the ipad or iphone, they all get imported directly into LR and then bounced to the Adobe Cloud from there.  Before the update to LR that allowed us to import directly into LR all my photos did go into the photos app, then imported into LR, then deleted right away from the Photos app.  

I intend to analyze how exactly I'm using Photos with regard to LR.

Thanks again for your response. You're very kind.


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## clee01l (Dec 28, 2020)

David Horne said:


> So just to clarify, when/if you take a photo with your "smartphone" the photos then go directly into Lightroom instead of the Photos app on the iPad?



I only take photos using the Camera in Lightroom. I do not use the photos app or the IPhone camera. This eliminates the any iPhone Photo app generated photos or and duplication between the camera roll and Lightroom storage. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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