# iPad Pro workflow



## gigabellone (Jun 11, 2017)

I have sadly given up the idea of having a proper workstation, as i'm forced to move often, and will be so for at least a couple more years. Keep in mind i'm not a professional, and for me taking photos is just a way to spend time in a meaningful and creative way. Given these conditions, the new 13" iPad Pro seems like an acceptable compromise to me.

I have been impressed by Affinity Photo for desktop, and was planning to make it my go-to editor once i get the iPad Pro. What's still not clear to me is how to the import and store photos. Affinity for iPad offers two importing tools: Import from Cloud and Import from Photos. Import from Photos doesn't look like a viable solution because, if i understand correctly, the app just extracts a jpg out of the raw file. If this is the case, i'm stuck importing from the cloud. But how do i import photos from the camera to the cloud without a computer? Would it be possible to use the companion app of NAS as a means of importing raws into Affinity?
If i'm forced to pay for cloud storage, would rather consider subscribing to Adobe CC.


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## zim (Jun 11, 2017)

Why not just use a laptop?


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## gigabellone (Jun 11, 2017)

There is no room for a desk in my current room, and i don't want to use other shared spaces over the house for this. Moving again is also not an option. ;D


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## kennethsson (Jun 11, 2017)

Apple Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJYT2AM/A/lightning-to-sd-card-camera-reader?fnode=91


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## JMZawodny (Jun 11, 2017)

... or just wait for iOS 11 and its new multitasking and file system features.


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## c.d.embrey (Jun 11, 2017)

zim said:


> Why not just use a laptop?



Have you ever tried to hold a laptop with one hand ??? An iPad is like an artists sketch pad, not a computer.


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## c.d.embrey (Jun 11, 2017)

If you have access to a WiFi network, you can use DropBox, Amazon, whatever—Apple does not force yo to use iCloud


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## dppaskewitz (Jun 11, 2017)

I don't know about Affinity. I use my IPad Pro while traveling. I shoot Raw only. I download to Photos using the Apple card reader. I then import into Lightroom Mobile. From there I can edit in various ways in Lightroom Mobile. Lightroom Mobile synchs with my Adobe cloud (apparently). When I get home, Adobe cloud synchs the photos, including whatever edits I have made in Mobile, to my home computer Lightroom. Once in Lightroom on the home computer, I can view the photo with the Lightroom Mobile edits or go back to the original raw and re-edit. When everything has uploaded to the cloud and back to my home computer with backup, I delete the photos from Photos to save space on the Apple cloud (I think their cloud storage is fairly pricey). I hope that helps.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 11, 2017)

If I were editing photos on a tablet, my first choice would be a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 or later tablet. They have the power of a laptop but form factor of a tablet. They run standard editing software, anything that runs on Windows. I had a Apple Ipad, while its nice, its not a practical raw photo editing tool. I have a Android Tablet as well, but not for photo editing.


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## lion rock (Jun 12, 2017)

For serious editing, I'd defer to RAW and whatever the preferred software, be it LR or PS plain or with add-on. All done on proper computer or laptop.
For travel, I use iPAD and edit jpeg with PhotoGene. Gives me enough profiling on jpeg with a less powerful machine.
-r


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## sanj (Jun 12, 2017)

Just don't understand why a 13" laptop is not an option.


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## Valvebounce (Jun 12, 2017)

Hi Gigabellone. 
If you already have the iPad I can't help with the workflow, but if you don't have it yet, I would heartily second this recommendation from Mt Spokane, I use a Surface Pro4 and find it brilliant. It works nicely as a tablet with a pen for fine selection, and in a blink you can have a laptop just by clicking on the keyboard. 
I tried PhotoRaw lite, on my iPad Air, it does work with the raw but is not intuitive to me, I think I did one photo with it, the free lite version seems to have gone now. 

Cheers, Graham. 



Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If I were editing photos on a tablet, my first choice would be a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 or later tablet. They have the power of a laptop but form factor of a tablet. They run standard editing software, anything that runs on Windows. I had a Apple Ipad, while its nice, its not a practical raw photo editing tool. I have a Android Tablet as well, but not for photo editing.


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## tomscott (Jun 12, 2017)

The iPad pro is still a tablet pretending to be a computer and as great as they are they are limiting for the time being.

The larger ipad pro is impossible to use with one hand you have to prop it up on your lap or some other way because its just too heavy to use comfortably. Its as much as a good laptop and even in IOS11 the file system is a pretty poor implementation. You need the pencil too, using touch screens for sliders isnt very accurate I find, using a mouse is a lot easier. The nice thing is you can make loacl adjustments with more accuracy with the pencil.

TBH its the same size as a laptop and bigger than a lot too. A laptop is a fully functional machine and you would have no problems with the above. You dont need a desk to use a laptop you can use it in the same way and have fully fledged applications.

I took an ipad mini traveling for 6 months although it was 2 years ago so things have moved on but it wasnt a fun experience.

So for me the cost, size, usability, file system just doesn't make sense for any type of workflow. The new macbook for example is smaller, even the base M3 processor is bench marking at 3500 single core which is faster than my 6 core mac pro workstation, it has a retina display and you can get 16gb of ram. It is tiny lightweight and the best bit is the screen, images look incredible. As a travel machine it doesn't get much better, although again its not cheap and dongle life can be a pain but now I have an adapter and converted my usb 3 cables to usb C i dont have to use the dongle all the time.

Im sure the M5 and M7 will be knocking on the door of 4000 single core which is amazing for a machine with no fans. It has some serious grunt now. I have the 2015 base model and I love it. Its not a power house compared to the newer ones but is a great all rounder and is so dam small, its 12" but 60% the footprint of the 13" air.
Its also so smooth in lightroom, my mac pro is so choppy in comparison.

With applications optimised for it like Final Cut it outperforms i7 windows laptops using premier (mostly because premier is so badly optimised) But for most people its 90% the machine you will ever need.

That would be my go to. 

I traveled again for 6 months with my 11" macbook air and loved it.


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## zim (Jun 12, 2017)

c.d.embrey said:


> zim said:
> 
> 
> > Why not just use a laptop?
> ...



I guess I'm lucky to have two hands


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## zim (Jun 12, 2017)

sanj said:


> Just don't understand why a 13" laptop is not an option.



+1


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## CSD (Jun 12, 2017)

Personally I'd go with the Surface Pro, unless you're tied into the Apple eco-system. Spec wise and also ability wise Surface Pro just out-guns the iPad for most day-to-day tasks and I've compared a SP4 with a iPad Pro and battery life was pretty much a wash when you start adding dongles. With the latest version of both the SP and the iPad Pro the pen is pretty much equal, although I'd wait out for a review on the new SP.

I use a Surface Pro for tethered work and also editing on the move. I also have the dock for when I have access to monitors or TVs (although a Mini DP works just as well I prefer the extra ports).

Also Affinity is now available on Windows.


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## ethanz (Jun 12, 2017)

The 12" MacBook sounds like a good option. They are super lightweight and small. The new ones are probably powerful enough for simple photo editing.


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## c.d.embrey (Jun 12, 2017)

zim said:


> c.d.embrey said:
> 
> 
> > zim said:
> ...



The OP has two hands, but no table to set a laptop on. Don't you ever read replies ???

Re: iPad Pro workflow
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2017, 06:27:11 AM »
Quote
There is no room for a desk in my current room, and i don't want to use other shared spaces over the house for this. Moving again is also not an option. ;D


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## sanj (Jun 12, 2017)

There are lots of people who use laptops who do not have a proper desk. Fact.


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## tomscott (Jun 12, 2017)

I seriously looked at the Surface pro line because I use 100% windows 10 for the agency I work for but mac running my photography business. So i use both on a day to day basis.

They are super things I love the concept. I just dont think they are quite there maybe a couple more generations will crack it. Once you spec the machine up with some decent storage and cpu add the pen and the keyboard you are well into the apple tax bracket. Unless you get the base line models or the core M but again they are so poorly optimised they dont run anywhere near as fast as the macbook for certain tasks. Specs on paper look amazing tho, not keen on the detachable keyboards they arent that comfortable to type on.

The tablet/laptop thing... I dont think it works. For example the surface pro isnt a very nice machine to hold as a tablet. Its quite heavy, thick and angular and the kick stand isnt much use unless you have a table to set it on. Its not stable on your lap just like an ipad and smart cover. Other than that I really liked it just didnt want to pay that for a windows machine. Unlike the apple products they dont hold their value in the same way, so if your like me and upgrade every 2-3 years you might need a little more to upgrade.

Onto the surface book, the hinge is cool but a stupid design. Have you tried using the touch screen while docked? The screen wobbles back and forward you certainly cant use it with a pen while attached to the keyboard then you loose all the battery and power option. Then theres the price of these things, crazy.

The new ipad pro with its 2x 3 core processors is also faster than all we have spoke about it outguns even i7s you just cant use it in the same way as pro apps dont exist. Maybe next generation of IOS apple might start to make the ipad more of a computer. It needs a new OS specific to the ipad instead of a sharing the same thing with the iPhone.

TBH there isnt really a perfect hybrid yet but I feel its coming. But there are hundreds of good laptops that have a very small footprint but pack a punch. The dell XPS is also a great laptop you can buy it in lots of sizes and has the touch screen option with a much better hinge.


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## CSD (Jun 12, 2017)

tomscott said:


> I seriously looked at the Surface pro line because I use 100% windows 10 for the agency I work for but mac running my photography business. So i use both on a day to day basis.



Here's the latest specs between the two latest tablets:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/ipad/ipad-pro-129-vs-surface-pro-5-3659485/

There's very little difference in size/weight. So it really comes down to which version of the Surface Pro you're using, I use the SP4 with no issues with regards to weight/size and have used it in location on my lap to type up/write documents and tag images whilst tethering. The newer keyboards are pretty good since SP4 gen and on par with the Logitech/Apple keyboards with people preferring the MS SP keyboards in many cases and if you didn't like them you can use a normal keyboard at a desk.

There's no way an ARM CPU is faster than a full fat i7 processor except when you run specialist tasks that utilises the specialist cores in the A series CPU. The latest Surface Pro uses full mobile i5/i7s in the device not the special low-power except in the entry level M3. Geekbench marks aren't x-platform comparable which is what most people show. Also the A series CPU isn't really designed for heavy duty multi-tasking nor does the iPad come with sufficient RAM to do so (yes it can, but it's limited compared to the SP series).


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## tomscott (Jun 12, 2017)

CSD said:


> tomscott said:
> 
> 
> > I seriously looked at the Surface pro line because I use 100% windows 10 for the agency I work for but mac running my photography business. So i use both on a day to day basis.
> ...



Have a look at the benchmarks think you underestimate its power. Its just you can't utilise it in anything high end creative on the iPad.

Heres a snippet from this review

"The result is a tablet that beats most Windows laptops on the Geekbench 4 benchmark, which measures overall performance. The iPad Pro scored a crazy-high 9,233 on the multi-core portion of the test. That's more than double the Galaxy Tab S3 tablet with a Snapdragon 820 chip. More impressive, the iPad Pro's mark is whopping 42 percent faster than the Dell XPS 13 notebook with a 7th-generation Core i5 processor (6,498) and 17 percent faster than a Core i7-powered HP Spectre (7,888)."

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/tablets/apple-ipad-pro-10-5

That is seriously impressive. 9k on a multicore is faster than the 2008 Octo core mac pro.

The 6 core CPU and 12 core GPU combines to create the performance. Granted its not the same as a full desktop OS but you have to admit that is impressive for an iPad...

Thing is non of the adobe products are that well optimised either. Regardless of the spec of your computer lightroom still doesn't run particularly well because its just not well optimised.


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## ethanz (Jun 13, 2017)

Spot on Tom with your latest post. Although I would still suggest looking at a surface pro, just to see if it meets the OPs needs. 

And laptops are called laptops for a reason. They don't necessarily need a table. I'm using my 15" rMBP laptop right now on my lap on the couch. If you were using a 12" Macbook you would hardly feel the weight. They are seriously small. If you sprang for the i7 I'm sure the power would be fine. I've never owned one, only tested one so I can't speak too much about it.

Whether you get a SP, MB, or iPad Pro, you'll be spending a lot of money. (Don't buy the lowest CPU option...)


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## gigabellone (Jun 13, 2017)

Thank you all for the answers, i really appreciate your feedback. This moving around a lot has really got on my nerve. I went from a desktop with 24" color calibrated monitor to moving 4 places in 3 months. This sucks big time. I'll have a look into the macbook as well, but i still think that from a usability point of view, the tablet+pencil beats the laptop with trackpad, if no desk is available. From the software point of view, there is no doubt that a proper computer is going to be better. Decisions, decisions.....

Edit: also found out that a laptop costs almost twice as much as an iPad Pro. No doubt it's a better machine, but 1600€ is starting to be a bit steep for the intended purpose....


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## ethanz (Jun 13, 2017)

Giga, if you do go the iPad pro route, get a new one (they launch today). Then when iOS 11 comes out you will be ready for it with the latest hardware. Read up on iOS 11, it is supposed to make the ipad more like a computer. https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/ios-11/ Especially with files and multitasking.

Affinity for ipad looks nice. With the aforementioned adapter: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJYT2AM/A/lightning-to-sd-card-camera-reader?fnode=91 you should be able to get your SD card images onto the ipad. While I've never used Affinity, I would think it could import photos from many places.


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## CSD (Jun 16, 2017)

tomscott said:


> Have a look at the benchmarks think you underestimate its power. Its just you can't utilise it in anything high end creative on the iPad.



And most people buy into the Apple hype, here's why the results aren't comparable:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006268/tablets/tested-why-the-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html

Yes it's for the A9x but the A10 was an incremental update to the processor. In realistic terms it's no match for a core i5 or i7 found in the Surface Pro, and the Surface Pro can handle Hassleblad and PhaseOne XF100 images with aplomb. I know I've edited on them on a Surface, can the iPad claim to do as much and if it can, how much dongles or jiggery pokery will you need to do to make it work?


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## zim (Jun 18, 2017)

sanj said:


> There are lots of people who use laptops who do not have a proper desk. Fact.



+1
Clues in the name, unbelievable :


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## Quirkz (Jun 19, 2017)

I have both the iPad pro 12.9" and the 12" MacBook - 

I can attest that the 12" MacBook is a lot better than it's specs suggest, and I've done some casual lightroom on it without a problem while on vacation and travelling. It's more than speedy enough, though if you're going through 100's of images then you might find it too slow. The generation just released this month now comes with a 16GB ram option to really future proof it too - But even the older 8GB version I have had no problem with lightroom.

It's also very light and small - More so than the 12" iPad pro, especially if you attach the keyboard case to the pro. It's easy to carry around, and sit at a cafe, outside, or whatever.
You can use the MacBook on your lap, but the small screen size and lap positioning mean that the screen can be a little distant and small. In this case the slightly larger screen of the 12.9" iPad pro being held one handed closer to your face has a distinct advantage if you're mostly using the pen and touchscreen rather than typing. The iPad pro might be too big and unwieldy to hold one handed for longer periods for some people. I'm fine, other would not be.

As for the iPad pro for imagine manipulation - I've not done a huge amount, but I HAVE done some playing around with lightroom mobile synced from my desktop. It's very, very slick, speedy and capable, BUT it seems that it syncs a inferior version of the image called a 'smart preview'. It loses dynamic range and resolution. More than enough for casual edits and a feel for detail, but if you want to crop tight and get a good idea of detail, or if you want to push shadows more than a stop or two, it will completely fall apart. The flip side is that because of these compromises, the sheer performance of previewing and editing images vastly outstrips my 4GHz quad core iMac desktop... soooo, take it as you will.
There doesn't seem to be a way (that I could find) to use adobe cloud to sync full RAW from desktop to mobile - You'll need to manually import the RAW photos in to your iPad photo library using other tools or dongles, and go from there. Once you have a RAW on the iPad, Lightroom mobile will edit it - I just haven't done so, so I can't speak for performance yet. (but I will soon just to satisfy my own curiosity.)


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## Quirkz (Jun 19, 2017)

Wow. Affinity rocks editing RAW on the iPad Pro. It's very fast, with none of the lightroom limitations on detail and dynamic range. I did not expect it to be quite so zippy. After a few seconds to load an image, it's great. Not great for library management as it takes a while to load each photo, but when it's loaded, it's very fast to edit and see changes live as they occur.

I'm pretty impressed. Haven't played enough to see how good a product Affinity is in general, but all the basic tools that I use 90% of the time are there (YMMV).


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