If there is one thing about owning your own business that is true above all else, it's that you need to manage your time wisely. If you don't have a solid workflow then your valuable time is undoubtedly withering away before your eyes. There are a lot of productivity apps out there that can help with this but most are not truly geared toward photographers. Photosmith is. The developers of this app understand that proper cataloging and organization can change a photographer's life. Photosmith allows you to sort through your images via your iPad and then sync what you've done with Lightroom. It's raw editing capabilities are limited but, that's not the real purpose for the app anyway.
Key Features:
- Apply and filter by star ratings, colour labels and Select/Reject tags
- Add captions, keywords and IPTC metadata
- Group into user collections
- Sync all of the above with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
- Uploads to Dropbox, Facebook and Flickr
The full review of Photosmith is available from the fine folks at DPreview. Rather than repeat what they've said I highly recommend that you go read what they had to say. Personally I haven't decided if the $20 price tag is worth it, but I'm definitely considering it for when I'm stuck on a plane with nothing to do to ease my workload.
Original Review at DPReview
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Project back links!!
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Product seems amazing, I've been dying to get my hands on something like this.
However when I read the review on DPrev, it appears that importing photos onto the iPad is extremely cumbersome, unfortunately.
There should be some way to read a folder in Dropbox that contains med-res JPGs of the RAW-files you're culling. Ratings of these JPGs should then be synced to the RAW files on your main computer.
I agree ... Importing high quality photo's on an ipad could get difficult. Doesn't take away the fact that this app is going into the right direction
This is actually how Photosmith works. Small jpeg previews (already rendered by Lightroom) are pushed to Photosmith on the iPad (via WiFi) for tagging, rating, etc. When you sync back to LR it just pushed the metadata back to the original RAW files. There is not need to push the originals back and forth and it doesn't do that.
Android version or similar products would be nice and make this less of an ad.
I assure you, this is not an advert.
Im sorry but I do not see the story or helpful information in this article. I do see all sorts of adverts and a few words that do not even lead to a proper conclusion.
Sorry, should have introduced myself - I help manage the advertising at Photosmith. We haven't paid a dime to this site (or the linked article) for any kind of blog posts promoting our app.
We actually see this quite frequently; blog posts where a writer/photographer "gets it" and understands how adding and editing keywords and other metadata to photos in their Lightroom catalog on their iPad can open up a lot of interesting workflow possibilities. We're the *only* solution for syncing metadata with Lightroom on iPad.
We are continuing to evaluate Android-based solutions, but right now, we feel iPad offers the best user experience.
Oh I get it alright, ipad best user expierence? Let me introduce myself, 20 yrs in the I.T. industry and 10 yrs in media. The ipad offers more sales and that is the only reason the product was developed there 1st. The fact you did not pay for it does not exclude the article from being an advert, it simply is not a legitimate piece of news. I have known about your product for about 1 year, from the guys over at kelbytv and look forward to hearing more about its development. The actual article which is linked at the bottom of this posting we are discussing has information and does justice to the term story but you can not really sit there and tell me this has any useful information ie: comparison, real world usage or even an opinion. He had not even decided if its worth $20! Obviously my issue is not with the product or company, its the lack of anything useful from the writer outside of a link to a real article of news. Sorry to take this as far as we have, I just have interest in your product and an unfair expectation from fstoppers.
I am not convinced that $20 is worth it for this app. A major drawback is the entire import process. If I am on a photo shoot and want to look at all of my images, with today's cameras, I can easily shoot more than 64gb in a 3 day photo shoot (landscape/wild life) at which point, I can't look at all of the pictures. What they need is an ability to import from Lightroom all of the preview images that lightroom creates based on its catalogue. The workflow would be to import to lightroom, and then publish to the app using much smaller file sizes. There is no reason to look at a 20 megapixel image on the iPad for the purpose of cataloging and filtering. They could easily create an app that would wirelessly transfer the images to the iPad using Lightroom's publishing services.
If you shoot 64gb in 3 days, I would recommend giving yourself an exercise. Go out and limit yourself to 36 shots (not on assignment, of course). Treat your digital cam like it's film. You will force yourself to be more selective with your shots in the future.
There seem to be some serious misconceptions about how the latest version of this app works.
Your description is exactly how Photosmith works. It uses the LR previews and you can configure the resolution.
Your described workflow is probably the most common workflow in Photosmith and is how I use the app. I refer to it as "coach culling".
A plugin for LR communicates with Photosmith wirelessly. Publish collections are used to push and sync photos and metadata to and from the iPad. It's really slick and the new version has gotten rid of all the problems with the iPad photo library. You store and manage the photos directly within photosmith itself.
I highly recommend checking out the information on the website.
I've also been thinking of a way to cull photos on the go. Instead of this app though, I was thinking of using exported smart preview catalogs from lightroom and using the catalogs on a surface pro
Any comments by Photo Mechanic users?
Aha, after dealing with hundreds and thousands of images for one shoot, I have decided to go Old-Skool and follow in the footsteps of Yousef Karsh.... 3, max 10 shots, good bye. HA!
Sounds awesome but as others pointed out I could never store my raw files on my iPad. A recent multi-day location shoot yielded 52GB of raw images and video (ok, more than normal but you get the idea). When someone releases a drive with a built-in auto-downloading multi-card reader that connects to the iPad (come on inventors you can do it) then this app would be its' perfect companion. Until then, unfortunately, the laptop comes with me on shoots.
You don't need to deal with the RAWs, just small jpeg representations, and that's what Photosmith does.
I was going to respond to your comment in a different way, but I clicked through the dpreview article and got a different view (i have already used an eye-fi in the way described, though with problems with them disconnecting between looks). I would still like to see a solution like I suggested above, combining this app with hardware to let me travel without a laptop, but even without that suggestion this app is probably worth my $20 - at the very least to be passing around an ipad over dinner with the team instead of a whole laptop...
Ok everyone. Here's the deal with photsmith. I've been using it for over a year now. It is good only for importing jpegs. If you intend on importing RAW images, go make a sandwich, take a shower, and walk your dog. By the time you get back, it would have imported a few RAW files. I shoot with the Nikon D7000. It has 2 slots for memory cards. So on one I shoot RAW, and on the other, it stores the JPEG versions. I only import the jpeg to the ipad and photosmith. Once in light room, I can determine which RAW files i want to import. That is ALL that photosmith is good for. Is it worth $20? It def has the potential to be (color labeling, metadata, keywords, etc.). But for now, I rate it as a $10 app.
Hey Tristan - how are you importing camera raw files, via Camera Connection Kit or wireless via Eye-Fi or FTP? To be sure, Proxy JPG Workflow is ideal, but not everyone has a camera with two card slots. Camera raw files shouldn't take longer than 5-10 seconds each. The next version of Photosmith will make camera raw rendering even better, with faster rendering and a much wider range of camera support.
Funny how I'm just seeing this message so forgive the late reply. I'm importing using the Camera Connection Kit to the iPad. I'm looking forward to the next version of Photosmith if it has already come out.