Pro Photo Editing Secrets for Lightroom and Photoshop on iPad

🚨 NEW COURSE: Lightroom Everywhere is now available!
www.matiash.com/lightroomever...
Adobe has been blurring the lines between power editing photos on the desktop and iPad (+ iPhone) for a while now. I'm going to show you how you can apply powerful edits to a landscape photo using Lightroom AND do focus stacking using Photoshop... all on the iPad Pro.
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Video Chapters:
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00:00 - Photo editing on the iPad is SO powerful
01:12 - Smart Previews vs. Original photos in Lightroom
02:58 - Editing a landscape photo with Lightroom on the iPad
07:13 - Copying edit settings from one photo to another
08:23 - Learn how to use Lightroom Everywhere
10:18 - Sending photos to Photoshop on the iPad for focus stacking
11:49 - Working in Photoshop on the iPad
16:10 - Sending the focus stacked image back to Lightroom on the iPad
#lightroommobile #photoshop #mobilephotography

[@brianmatiash]

*Did you ever think that you could do basic focus stacking with your iPad??*

[@stewartlogie]

Affinity Photo for iPad does it

[@gcr8129]

After watching a couple of your videos, I have to say how impressive your presentations are. You don’t rush, as most do, your tips are clear cut and comprehensive. You are, now, my go to guy for advice and tips for Lightroom and iPad! Thanks so much.

[@brianmatiash]

Thank you so much for those kind words and for watching my videos! I am grateful that you've found my videos helpful and I promise to keep creating new content that'll help you get even more out of Lightroom!

[@antonio-romano]

Thanks a lot for this insight about the different in resolution between local and cloud. 🙏

[@RayDDavid]

Great video. I'm not a huge PS user, so it pretty much does what I need it to do for now. I was amazed how well I was able to put together a 14 layer lunar eclipse photo that I had done a few years ago in ON1 Photo RAW on the desktop. Looking forward to more PS on the iPad videos as well as your LR mobile course.

[@sailslikeagirl3154]

Thought I was quite good with Lightroom on the iPad but you taught me two or three new things thank you.

[@brianmatiash]

Glad the video helped you pick up a few new tricks! Thanks for watching!

[@TheSmartWoodshop]

LR is making progress, but it's not quite right for me yet. If they keep the professional user in mind as they roll out LR features to match LRC and provide other storage options besides just renting more space from Adobe, then I will take a closer look. I really want to enjoy and utilize a complete end-to-end mobile solution. Imagine shooting ProRaw & ProRes with my iPhone 15 Ultra, offloading massive files to a portable Thunderbolt SSD, plugging that into an iPad, and using FCP and LR/PS to perform professional-level edits while sitting in a local cafe. Both Apple with FCP and Adobe with LR have yet to offer a full professional toolkit. My question for them is whether the absence of the powerful tools they (Apple & Adobe) already offer in FCP and LRC is an issue with iPad/iPhone OS vs. Mac OS, or if they are targeting the mass market where the majority of the money lies. Why invest a bunch of development resources into features like pano/HDR/focus stacking/smart-objects, etc.., when it's only a small group of professionals and advanced users? Here is hoping they don't Google it up..

[@brianmatiash]

I suspect the answer to your question lies somewhere in the middle, Ron. First, there is the Apple platform limitation where mobile apps can't actively read and write data from an external drive. I don't know why Apple keeps treating external drives as a second-class citizen, especially considering that they keep pushing the value prop that the iPad can replace your laptop. I suspect this functionality is a "when, not an if" scenario. I hope we see developments in this area at next year's WWDC. But, I won't hold my breath. The other side of the equation is the market. There are wayyyyyyyyyyy more photo hobbyists and enthusiasts who are mobile-first than there are legacy pros (like you and me), who demand full flexibility. If I was Adobe, I'd focus my efforts on capturing as many of those enthusiasts who decide that they've hit a wall with using Apple Photos to edit images and want something more robust while still offering a cloud-based sync and backup ecosystem, because they'd already be very familiar and comfortable with that concept (they're already syncing and backup up all their mobile photos regardless of whether it's Apple or Android). So yeah, this all makes sense from a business perspective. It's not a fun thing to hear from our side of things, but I'd likely do the exact same thing if I were a VP or an executive at either of these companies.

[@valleyfella]

Thanks for another great video Brian. I picked up some hugely valuable tips (especially exporting from LR and aligning layers) that I really wish I knew sooner. One observation from when I repeated the process with my own photos this morning…. When I exported the images back to Lightroom, the colour cast((?) in TIFF and PNG formats was awful. Exporting in PSD format kept it the same colour tones as when it was in Photoshop. Have you noticed this? I chose the PNG format to keep the file size relatively low i.e. 100 vs 600MB.

[@brianmatiash]

I'm so glad that you found the video helpful! Thanks for watching and comments. Hmmmm.... I haven't done extensive tests between exporting PSD vs TIFF/PNG on the iPad, but now that you've brought it up, I'm definitely going to look into it. That'd be a very interesting find, and a concerning one. I appreciate the heads up!

[@billsteen7563]

Brian how much do you use the iPhone for capture?

[@jonathanshribman4813]

I would be really interested to see how you can use LR mobile and photoshop on iPadpro to edit my astrophotography images. I accept stacking and pano creation needs to be done on the desktop. Would you ever see a time when this can all be done on a tablet?

[@jochemst]

Great video, is generative AI also avaible on the every Ipad?

[@user-bx8cw8vi5o]

Would all this work on a I pad pro 9.7 2016 I might be picking one up tomorrow

[@TonySmith-kp5wu]

Thanks. I really enjoyed this and your delivery style. I'm on a journey from LrC to Lr on my Mac, big iPad and iPhone . I'm getting there but I cannot find any information on printing from my iPad. Do you have a tutorial on printing? Is it covered in your course Lr Everywhere? Tony

[@brianmatiash]

Thanks so much, Tony! LR doesn’t have printing support, so there isn’t anything to cover in my course about that. The only option would be to export the image and use your printer manufacturer’s software.

[@TonySmith-kp5wu]

@@brianmatiash Thanks. I have tried using the Epson IOS app but it hasn’t worked. I had hoped I could keep everything on the iPad but must print from the desktop.

[@danfarmer_photo]

Great video. Thank you. However, I do have a question. I opened a file from my Lightroom (iPad) and made some edits in photoshop, and saved it back to my iPad. Great. However, now the original file and the edited file have the green tick, and is staying local on my iPad. It has clearly done the upload because checking Lightroom could on my Mac, the psd file and raw are there. But, it clearly hasn't done it properly as none of the files have made it to Lightroom classic like normal, and again, the really large psd is still sitting on my iPad storage. Any assistance would be great.

[@1stites]

I’m headed on a road trip and want to use LR on my iPad to edit phots. Questions is, after I upload photos, where are they? I’ll want the RAW files on a external drive at home, so do I have to avoid erasing my SD card until I get home, or are the full sized Raws in the cloud and accessible. Or on the IPad? Sorry this is so basic, it’s always been a pint of co fusion for me.

[@brianmatiash]

Funny enough, I was *just* recording the videos covering this topic for my Lightroom Everywhere course earlier today. The truth is that there are a lot of moving parts to what you're asking. First, you can definitely copy the original RAW files from your SD card to an external drive using the Files app and a USB-C card reader/dock. So, there's your first backup. You can also import your RAW files into Lightroom even if you have syncing paused in the app. It'll store the RAW files locally until you unpause cloud sync when you have internet connectivity. Just know that you'll need enough onboard iPad storage to facilitate the images you plan to import on your trip. But, you'll be able to edit them to your heart's content. That's your second backup source. And, of course, if you don't wipe the SD cards during the trip, you'll have a third backup source. Not too shabby if you ask me.

[@Jonathantuba]

Is it the lack of denoise software on the iPad which stops me using it for my photo editing

[@brianmatiash]

To be fair, Lightroom does have a noise reduction tool on the iPad... it's just not very good. I do hope to see the new AI denoise tool on mobile eventually, though.

[@graham_T]

It makes complete sense for Adobe to be going gangbusters on developing this a) folk will need to buy their cloud storage …EXPENSIVE b ) they will get LOADS of cloud images to populate their Ai components . Whilst editing on ipad is good it is not for me because of the cost of Adobe Cloud storage

[@brianmatiash]

Hey Graham, you're absolutely correct that Adobe will focus on doing what it can to secure recurring revenue that has the potential to grow as users decide to upgrade their total storage to meet their needs. With that said, I don't necessarily agree that this is expensive when you factor in what you're getting. For example, the $20 Photography Plan doesn't just give you 1 TB of cloud storage. It also gives you access to two of the most powerful image editing apps ever created: Lightroom and Photoshop (and Lightroom Classic). Of course, you can cut that monthly cost in half if you want the 1 TB storage, but don't need Photoshop. Regarding using synced photos to train "AI components," I'm not sure what you're specifically referring to. If you're implying that they'd use my photos to populate images using Adobe Firefly's Generative Fill technology, then that simply isn't the case. In fact, Adobe clearly states this: "Firefly’s first model is trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and public domain content where copyright has expired. Enterprise businesses will be able to train Firefly with their own creative collateral in order to generate content in the company’s brand language." (Source: news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-Firefly-Delivers-Creator-Focused-and-Commercially-Viable-Generative-AI-to-Millions-) If you're implying that Adobe may use my photos to make their AI tools, like the new Denoise AI, produce better results, then why wouldn't I want to help with that? If my photos can help Adobe produce features that make my editing workflow faster, better, or more effective, isn't that a good thing?

[@graham_T]

Yes and I have the photographer plan …but folk who have many terabytes will pay a lot . It doesn’t bother me Adobe using my images but I’m not gonna use their cloud storage beyond the basic plan .

[@brianmatiash]

@graham_T It’s true that many photographers have more than 1 TB of photos, and while the Adobe LR Cloud value proposition is that you can sync and backup your full-resolution photos, it doesn’t necessitate you having to sync and backup *your entire library*. When I look at my own library, I can guarantee you that I don’t have “that many” photos that I need backed up. And that’s a big component of the course I’m building. People need to remember that it’s ok to either delete photos or curate which collections of photos should be stored in Adobe Cloud and which can be kept on local HD. I won’t pretend that it’s a perfect system, but I also understand that cloud storage and computing isn’t cheap (although, it does get less expensive over time). The point is that this LR cloud workflow is exceptionally flexible and powerful if you’re willing to work within its confines.

[@jaredmeche6325]

M1 and M2 ipad pro being forced to use watered down Lr and Ps makes no sense at this point. So much wasted potential.

[@brianmatiash]

LR for iPad is watered down? How so? Yes, it’s missing a few key features like photo merge, stacking, a few masking tools, and the new denoise AI tool, but calling it watered down is unfair in my book. It’s a beastly photo editor that has virtually every tool you could ask for, including several powerful adaptive mask modes. I do agree that PS is much more “slimmed down” on the iPad, but it still has great potential, and I do expect Adobe to add more functionality to it (and LR) as time goes on.

[@jaredmeche6325]

@@brianmatiash Architecture / Interior design and Real Estate photography are a good chunk of my clients. Missing photo merge and stacking are huge for me. I'm not saying ipad LR/PS are useless. I'm saying Ipad Pro with M1 to upcoming M3 shouldn't be limited to same version as apps made for models with far less power. I love using my ipad and apple pencil to edit, and not being confined to my office.

[@brianmatiash]

@@jaredmeche6325 I'm not sure how Adobe determines which features make it to Lightroom Mobile. Things like stacking and geotag metadata support make no sense to me, especially because Lightroom Mobile already has a multi-image selection mode, and it has the Info view, which shows metadata. As far as Photo Merge and Denoise AI, I suppose it used to make sense why we didn't see it. The processing power to do, say, a five-image tone-map or a 12-image pano stitch, all RAW, could be taxing. However, as you mentioned, the current Apple-silicon iPads are extremely powerful. Also, Adobe could easily say that photo merge would be limited to photos that are synced to the cloud so that they could do the merging there instead of on the device. Don't get me wrong. I still love Lightroom Mobile and use it daily. I just hope we see some more meaningful feature parity with Desktop soon.