# iPadOS - uploading from a card



## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Now iPadOS has launched, it's possible for the Files app to read from a card reader via the USB-C port. 

I was hoping that Lr Cloud would be able to directly import photos from a card this way, but it appears it can only see the camera roll

I guess I could move the photos from the card to the stock Photos app and then import that way, but that feels circuitous and probably involves extra data usage.

Is it possible to import directly? And/or do we know if Adobe might be enabling this any time soon


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 25, 2019)

I'll update tonight (I need my iPad this morning!) and let you know what I find out, unless someone else beats me to it. I have noted a difference in the past, that the + button in the main Organize view allowed import from Files as well as Camera Roll, whereas the + button in albums only allowed Camera Roll or existing photos. You could test that theory in the meantime.


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Thanks Victoria. I just tried this, but I couldn't see a Files import option. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 25, 2019)

I assume that Lightroom for iPad needs to get an update for that.


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Yes, I'm guessing that too

As part of that, I'd welcome finer controls on data upload. 

My use case is taking the iPad on a trip and uploading cards directly to it. But if I haven't got wifi, I don't want Lr trying to upload 30 gigs of raw photos over cellular


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 25, 2019)

carlosfandango said:


> Thanks Victoria. I just tried this, but I couldn't see a Files import option. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.


Sorry, I got that the wrong way round. If you're in an *album*, the "from camera roll" button offers From Camera Roll, From All Photos or From Files. That's checked on iOS12, but I'll confirm later when I update to iOS13.


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Partial success

by going into an _album_ I can see the add from files option

But... the card reader USB device doesn't show up as an import option

Yet... if I go directly to the Files app (ignoring Lr), then the USB device _does_ show up


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 25, 2019)

Thanks for testing. In that case, I suspect Adobe will need to make some changes to integrate the new features.


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Using the Files app, I copied three raw photos to the iPad (Readdle's Documents app)

Then, in Lr,  tapping the three dots / ellipsis next to an album, I could see "import from Files" option. 

This worked, *but* I seem only able to import one file at a time


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Thanks for testing. In that case, I suspect Adobe will need to make some changes to integrate the new features.


Yes, I agree. Unless I'm missing something, it's a clunky solution at the moment


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## clee01l (Sep 25, 2019)

carlosfandango said:


> Yes, I'm guessing that too
> 
> As part of that, I'd welcome finer controls on data upload.
> 
> My use case is taking the iPad on a trip and uploading cards directly to it. But if I haven't got wifi, I don't want Lr trying to upload 30 gigs of raw photos over cellular



In cellular preferences, you can block any app including LR from using cellular data. I don’t have a cellular plan with my iPadPro, so this isn’t an issue. But I do have cellular data turned off for LR on my iPhone 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

clee01l said:


> In cellular preferences, you can block any app including LR from using cellular data. I don’t have a cellular plan with my iPadPro, so this isn’t an issue. But I do have cellular data turned off for LR on my iPhone


Yes, good point. If I'm in the position of uploading a large quantity of files, I'll turn off cellular access. Normally, I'm happy to have it switched on as I (presume)  the smart previews of photos I've uploaded elsewhere are pretty small to sync to my iPad


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## Denis Pagé (Sep 25, 2019)

As I said in another thread, you can bypass Apple's Photo app...

Here is what I do:

I open two instances of Apple's File application side by side.
On first instance I go to the root and choose "On my iPad", drag down to have the option to add a folder that I called "From SD" and open it.
On second instance, I navigate to the folder where are the photos on the SD card (NIKON D610/DCIM/100ND610 in my case) and select files.
I drag and drop the selection from the second to the first instance
I open Lightroom
Tap the three dots at the upper right
Choose "Add Photos"
Select "From Files"
Navigate to the folder created above and select
Import
Optional: Keep the folder used for the transfer empty (Named "From SD" in my case). Either by erasing or better: In the second instance of Files above, navigate to a backup folder on an external HD and move the photos there.

Have fun while waiting for third party software companies to update (Adobe is not alone here).


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## Martin Owen (Sep 27, 2019)

Thanks for that Denis.  I do find it disappointing that having known of Apple’s move to allow the iPad to use external drives, and having had access to the Beta software for a long time, they are still not ready to use the system.

It’s a bit like the the length of time since we were promised a full mobile version of Photoshop for iOS and it’s still ‘coming soon’!


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 27, 2019)

Martin Owen said:


> Thanks for that Denis.  I do find it disappointing that having known of Apple’s move to allow the iPad to use external drives, and having had access to the Beta software for a long time, they are still not ready to use the system.


iPadOS was only released earlier this week...


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## Martin Owen (Sep 27, 2019)

Very true Johan, but the beta has been out all summer and other software companies had their revised apps ready to go at launch.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 27, 2019)

Doing a little further research, courtesy of Google (because Adobe won't place the blame on other companies), it appears that Adobe may be waiting on Apple to release additional API's.

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/119529Image Capture API
The Image Capture API allows developers to leverage the Camera Connection Kit to import photos directly into their apps.

https://www.macstories.net/news/app...for-os-updates-new-iphones-and-apple-watch-2/Features Coming Later This Fall After iOS and iPadOS 13.1: [...] Image Capture API


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## Martin Owen (Sep 27, 2019)

Thanks Victoria.

Great info.  Can’t wait!

M


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## clee01l (Sep 27, 2019)

Denis Pagé said:


> As I said in another thread, you can bypass Apple's Photo app...
> 
> Here is what I do:
> 
> ...




Denis, I’m working on iPadOS13. And I followed your instructions to set up the local folder for receiving the cameras card contents. 
I open LR and choose the “Add Photos” option as you described.
I navigate to the folder containing my RAW image files. If I double tap a photo, the file dialog closes and a single photo is added to Lightroom. If instead I choose Select I can select several individual images and have a Choice to OPEN. If I click on OPEN, the selected images are deselected and the Select menu item returns. If I click on DONE, the selected files are deselected and I am back where I started. 
If instead of selecting a few images, I choose SELECT ALL, all of the images get selected but OPEN or DONE deselected and nothing happens. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Denis Pagé (Sep 28, 2019)

Cletus,

This is what seem to happen at first. But if you wait, they get imported. The keypoint here is WAIT 

So: Lightroom/.../Add Photos/From Files/Make selection/Open/WAIT. Selected icons become gray a moment, still wait the selection window close and they finally get imported. I too wish something faster but this is while waiting for an update...

By the way, this is iPadOS 13.1


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## clee01l (Sep 28, 2019)

Denis Pagé said:


> Cletus,
> 
> This is what seem to happen at first. But if you wait, they get imported. The keypoint here is WAIT
> 
> So: Lightroom/.../Add Photos/From Files/Make selection/Open/WAIT. Selected icons become gray a moment, still wait the selection window close and they finally get imported. I too wish something faster but this is while waiting for an update...



I do eventually find this way to import a limited number of Raw Images. If I select more than about 10 RAW NEFs, the process never made it to the end. And the “watching Paint dry” import is glacial. I don’t know if this is an iPadOS issue or a Lightroom 4.4.1 issue. Since there is no feedback to the user during the wait, this is a bug. Either an iPadOS bug or a Lightroom bug. There should be a message to the user from Lightroom to the effect “Lightroom is importing ‘nnn’ images” 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Denis Pagé (Sep 28, 2019)

My first trials were below 10. I just did 14 photos and they came in OK. And yes, the wait was longer. Then I did 39 (24 megapixels images) in one shot and they all came in but this time, the wait with gray icons was about 5 minutes  

You are right that the implementation is not very good.


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## clee01l (Sep 28, 2019)

I’m going to document some large file (48GB) large number of images real time test and fill a bug report. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## BoomerM3 (Oct 3, 2019)

*There are other issues when trying to import images for Lightroom*. 

In my testing of iOS13, I discovered several which don't appear to be Adobe problems, but rather Apple file handling problems. These are some of the issues when sharing files from external device.

1. It is not possible to select (to share) a folder on an SD card attached to the iPad. Each folder must be opened and all files selected before sharing. This must be done for each folder. It should be possible to select the folder and share it!

2. When a large number of files (400 for test) are selected (via 'select all') there is a long delay and the app appears frozen before it is possible to proceed.

3. There is a 30 second delay after selecting 'share'.

4. There is a 20 second delay after selecting 'save to'.

These delays add up to almost the same amount of time as the actual copying process. I have not found any way around these issues. If you have, please let us know.


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## jemostrom (Oct 9, 2019)

FWIW ... using a simple two-step Shortcut it's possible to select photos from the card and import them into LR. Bad news: I'm only able to import small batches of 4-6 images this way before getting a time-out error.


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## carlosfandango (Sep 25, 2019)

Now iPadOS has launched, it's possible for the Files app to read from a card reader via the USB-C port. 

I was hoping that Lr Cloud would be able to directly import photos from a card this way, but it appears it can only see the camera roll

I guess I could move the photos from the card to the stock Photos app and then import that way, but that feels circuitous and probably involves extra data usage.

Is it possible to import directly? And/or do we know if Adobe might be enabling this any time soon


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## Rick_B (Oct 21, 2019)

Just travelled from the USA to London with my 11" iPad Pro for the first time, and at present, the experience working with Photos/Lightroom is dramatically worse in iPadOS 13.1 than in earlier versions of iOS. I'm glad that Apple is committed to making iPad a truly professional tool that can replace a laptop (since I always travel with an iPad for reading, etc), but they've really dropped the ball so far this year - they appear to have tried to do too much, and left many things half-finished. I knew about the absence of the Image Capture API beforehand, so that wasn't a surprise, but the whole system now seems broken, no matter what path I chose.

The old way of working - import into Photos, import from there into Lightroom, delete the files in Photos - was clunky, but it mostly worked reliably (though it unfortunately made it too easy to unintentionally delete files you didn't want to). I decided to try bypassing Photos this time, and just import into Files, then import from there into Lightroom. After much experimentation and frustration, I hit on the same solution as @Denis Pagé, and opened two instances of Files, side-by-side - this finally let me drag-and-drop from my card to a folder "On My iPad". I could not get this to work reliably copying to external storage (a USB SSD attached to the OWC USB-C Travel Hub that was acting as my card reader), and eventually used Select All > Copy > Paste between Files windows to create a backup to the USB drive.

Unfortunately, that was the extent of my meaningful successes. I had hoped to import from Files into Lightroom while in Airplane Mode (to prevent syncing), go through everything on my 8-hour flight to flag my favorites, turn Airplane Mode off when I got home and let it sync overnight, then start working in Classic from there. The closest I got to success was getting 20 Sony raw files (from my 20MP RX10 IV, so not huge) imported this way, but any attempt to import more files just failed silently, even after restarting the iPad and trying again immediately after.

At some point in the process, I decided to just do things the Old Way, and imported from Files into Photos, then tried to import from there into Lightroom. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, this would also end (at best) with the unhelpful message that "XX files failed to import" in Lightroom (tried several times, with varying numbers of images), with no explanation for why. Lightroom has full access to Photos, but would not import anything from Photos - no clue as to why.

So, in the end, I resorted to importing the photos to my Mac from the USB SSD I used as a backup on the trip, having been unable to do anything meaningful with the shots before getting home. Not for the first time, I considered grabbing a MacBook Air just to use for this purpose, but that still seems wasteful for something that Apple is (hopefully) going to solve in the not-too-distant future. They sure haven't solved it so far, though.


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 22, 2019)

I'm still recommending "the old way" of importing into Photos first, and then directly into Lightroom. It's too early since iPadOS's release for Lightroom to have been updated and tested for other workflows, and as you note, they're still waiting on Apple releasing bits they need. It's called the cutting edge for good reason!


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## GR37 (Nov 6, 2019)

Quick note to say that, while Adobe did not list it the change log, the latest version on iPadOS (version 5.0.0 released a couple days ago) allows to import directly from a SD card, that is, you can now see the card when you choose Add Photos/From Files in Lightroom. I have tried it with a dozen 20 megapixels RAW files, and it worked as it's supposed to.

On a side note, using the Lightroom action "Import to Lightroom" in a Siri shortcut, works quite well too. The best use, in my opinion, is to add the shortcut to the share sheet. That way, you can select a few images from another app (e.g. Files, if you just want to browse your card, or say photoshop, since it's now a thing on iPad), share, select the shortcut, and your files will be imported in Lightroom. The Lightroom shortcut action even has an option to apply a preset to files exported to Lightroom (although, user presets don't seem to be available). In any case, using Shortcuts opens possibilities that the (now working) import from card in Lightroom doesn't offer.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 7, 2019)

Hi GR37, welcome to the forum! Yeah, it's still a bit buggy at the moment, especially with larger numbers, so they're not shouting about it until they've got it working smoothly.


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## clee01l (Nov 7, 2019)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi GR37, welcome to the forum! Yeah, it's still a bit buggy at the moment, especially with larger numbers, so they're not shouting about it until they've got it working smoothly.



What seems to be buggy is the whole import process which for some reason (iOS API perhaps) you have to click on a button that reads “Open” instead of something that is logical like “Import” or even “Copy”. At least one file will import but you can never count on everything selected to get copied to LR. There is no user feed back that anything is happening when you attempt to load a camera card worth of images. If you are patient the process will highlight these files but that does not mean everything selected will get imported.

At least now, it is no longer necessary to copy the files from the camera card to the internal file storage location before LR can see them.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## GR37 (Nov 8, 2019)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi GR37, welcome to the forum! Yeah, it's still a bit buggy at the moment, especially with larger numbers, so they're not shouting about it until they've got it working smoothly.



I don't know, on my end the last batch I imported was 82 RAWs including a couple 50 megapixels ones. I should say though that I have one of those newer iPad pros, so beefy it might help with the process. Also the card is UHS II, although I don't believe my SD card reader (on USB C) supports that.


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## carlosfandango (Nov 13, 2019)

It's official - streamlined upload from card coming before the end of the year Adobe Previews Direct Photo Import from External Storage Coming to Lightroom for iPad


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## Martin Owen (Dec 10, 2019)

It’s arrived!  The app update today includes - amongst other things (exporting etc) - Directeur imparting from a connected camera or card.   Initial attempts indicates that it’s fast and easy.


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 10, 2019)

Martin Owen said:


> It’s arrived!  The app update today includes - amongst other things (exporting etc) - Directeur imparting from a connected camera or card.   Initial attempts indicates that it’s fast and easy.


   Book update will be available later today after the press embargo ends.


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