Editing photos professionally on an iPad is now practical, thanks to Lightroom's advanced capabilities. Here's how to streamline your workflow, allowing you to spend less time managing files and more time creating compelling images.
Coming to you from Andrew Lanxon Photography, this informative video walks you through the complete Lightroom editing workflow on an iPad, from importing images off your SD card to exporting the final edits. Lanxon uses a Kingston USB-C dock, typically meant for laptops, to demonstrate how you can easily transfer files directly to the iPad. He explains the advantage of Lightroom’s automatic upload to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, which clears space on your device by removing local copies after syncing. This feature is especially beneficial if you're working on a lower-capacity iPad. Lanxon also emphasizes using albums for effective organization, avoiding the chaos of a disorganized photo library.
The culling process is another essential step highlighted by Lanxon. He recommends efficiently navigating through photos using keyboard shortcuts to assign star ratings and rejection flags. His approach—giving five stars to promising images and marking poor ones as rejected—streamlines selecting images for deeper editing. Additionally, Lanxon offers practical advice on handling raw and JPEG files, particularly when shooting with cameras like his Leica that offer attractive built-in color profiles. He shares his process of comparing raw and JPEG images side-by-side to determine the best editing approach, suggesting when you might choose to keep the JPEG’s baked-in colors or switch to raw for more flexibility.
Further into the video, Lanxon introduces editing techniques specifically suited to iPad Lightroom users. He covers cropping to improve composition and provides insights into leveraging Lightroom's masking tools and generative AI for precise adjustments. His practical demonstrations on using radial gradients and subtle exposure tweaks emphasize his minimalist yet highly effective editing philosophy. Lanxon also discusses how film-inspired presets can significantly enhance images, giving a quick guide on applying and customizing these presets to achieve distinctive looks. He candidly addresses the limitations of JPEG edits versus raw, reinforcing why understanding your file types matters.
Lanxon completes his workflow with a straightforward yet effective export strategy, detailing settings appropriate for sharing images directly from your iPad to various platforms or devices. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Lanxon.
IMO, After watching this video for 5 minutes of syncing to the cloud, I quit.
One of the main challenges I face is the reliance on iPad cloud syncing. After a few minutes of waiting for the sync to complete, I often find it discouraging. If there were an option to disable cloud syncing, I would be more inclined to use Lightroom on my iPad regularly. This was particularly evident during my travels in Europe last summer, where connectivity was at best, inconsistent. Once I turned off Wi-Fi and relied solely on my iPad’s local storage, my editing experience significantly improved.
Additionally, I really enjoy adding descriptions to my final images—detailing what the image represents, where it was taken, and the story behind it. Unfortunately, I do not see that capability in Lightroom for iPad, and it doesn’t seem to support annotations in the same way Lightroom Classic does.
I’m using an M4 iPad with a terabyte of storage, which is exceptionally powerful. It handles applications like Final Cut for video editing with ease. It would be fantastic if Adobe could consider bringing Lightroom Classic to the iPad, along with the option to bypass cloud storage. This change would greatly enhance the usability and flexibility of the app for users like myself.