This post is really just a re-write of an earlier post (here) and to be honest this part of the workflow has not changed much although I will add a few more notes.

Having imported the images into a separate folder (as covered in the last post here) , I set a filter to show only the unflagged photos.

This means that once I have finished with an image (at this stage) it disappears from view. The shortcut keys X & P work the same on the iPad / Lightroom Mobile as they do on the desktop (reject & pick) so hitting X means I am straight on to the next image. If the image is a pick, I complete the edit first before labelling it as a picked image (this is where having a keyboard on the iPad makes a huge difference).

Note: There is no need to switch into any other view or mode, the X & P keys work in the edit screen (shown below)

One of the key features of editing in Lightroom are the develop presets. My mobile presets mimic my desktop (Lightroom Classic) presets. However getting these presets from your desktop to iPad is not the simplest procedure. There are basically 2 options.

Use an image (or number of images) that are synchronised between the devices:

• In LR Classic (desktop), apply the preset to transfer to an image.
• Wait for that image edit to synchronise onto the iPad.
• On the iPad, select the image & Create preset using the current settings

Use Lightroom CC on the desktop to import develop presets

• The Adobe Photography plan includes the Lightroom CC version
• Download this to your desktop/laptop in addition to the Classic version
• Open Lightroom Classic and view the Presets Settings in the preferences to show the presets folder. (Once you have the folder you can close this application).
• Open Lightroom CC, From the file menu Import Profiles & Presets
• Select the presets from the folder found above.
• The presets will synchronise.

I always start and edit with one of my standard presets then tweak it. Another shortcut here is the cmd-c / cmd-v (copy/paste) which works for develop settings again, as on the desktop. So once I have the image as I like it, I cmd-c copy the develop settings (a window displays confirming which settings I wish to copy).

Cmd-v asks no such questions and just pastes those settings on to the current image

One of the things I don’t understand is that Adobe have implemented some of the keyboard shortcuts but not all of them. I.e. why is cmd-z for undo not implemented? Or R for resize. See this post in the support community.

Depending on the specific job, I either add a title in the metadata now, before selecting pick or I pick and run through all of the images once I have edited them all, adding the title to the metadata. To edit the metadata, select the I icon at the lower right.

Once the title is added, I select P to pick before moving on to the next image. Repeat until all of the images have been viewed.

The full range of Lightroom edit controls are available (Geometry, Noise Reduction, Sharpening etc) so these is no reason that the editing process should be any different to how it is on a desktop. For those of you that are worried about the speed of editing, my M1 iPad Pro is way more responsive editing the 50MP Raw files produced by my GFX than my 2019 15” MBP.

If there is anything else you want to do to the image(s) which you cannot do in Lightroom (for example montaging images together), the share button has an edit in photoshop tool. Photoshop on the iPad is a tool that is developing quickly, it in no way matches its desktop version yet but it does feature layers, layer masks and adjustment layers, working well with lightroom.

This sums up my image selection and editing process. The next stage is to export the images (accessed from the share button) – which will be the subject of the next post (scheduled for Monday next week)

In the meantime, if you have any questions or would just like to comment , would love to hear your thoughts, especially if you have another way of doing this.

Until Monday ..