The iPad Pro has tempted photographers for years with its portability and touchscreen display, but most people who try it for serious editing eventually drift back to their laptops. Evan Ranft spent six months with the M5 iPad Pro figuring out exactly why that happens and what to do instead.
Coming to you from Evan Ranft, this practical video makes a sharp case for rethinking how the M5 iPad Pro fits into a real photography workflow. Ranft's core argument is simple: if you treat the iPad as a MacBook replacement, you'll be disappointed every time. The MacBook wins on raw editing power, file management, and access to the full desktop versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. But that's not the right comparison to make. Once Ranft stopped measuring the iPad against the MacBook and started treating it as a bridge between the MacBook and his iPhone, everything clicked. The iPad became the device where wireless file transfers happen from his camera, where initial edits get done on a screen large enough to actually care about, and where he can work without the distractions of social media or email.
That last point is worth sitting with. Ranft deliberately stripped the iPad down to a focused workspace. No social media apps, no email. Messaging notifications show up, but he can only respond from his iPhone. The result is a three-device system with clearly defined roles: the MacBook handles serious editing and cataloging, the iPhone handles personal life and social media, and the iPad sits in the middle doing the work neither device handles as well. He walks through a real batch of photos from a Fujifilm X100VI shoot at a Braves game, edited on the iPad in about 30 minutes using a set of film-inspired presets he built himself.
One of the more useful parts of the video covers retouching. His argument for doing retouching on the iPad rather than on a desktop is straightforward: a touchscreen tablet gives you precise, intuitive control that a mouse and trackpad simply can't match. For any image that turns out to be a genuine keeper, he takes the edit back to the MacBook to refine it further in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, but the retouching stays on the iPad regardless. He also covers how he organizes completed images, raw files, and short-form video content in separate folders so the iPad stays clean and easy to navigate over time. There's more detail in the video about the specific apps he uses for wireless file transfer and how he handles the occasional headaches that come with camera companion apps. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Ranft.
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