Tip tap tappy – Writing on the iPad

So much of my writing on here has been about my iPad workflow and software (apps). This is a very quick post about my latest additions to my iPad and they are actually not apps!

Since I got the M1 based iPad Pro I had been using a Gold and Cherry keyboard along with my older series 1 Magic Mouse. The keys on the Gold and Cherry were quite good (I would say on a par with most apple keyboards) but the trackpad had a few annoying issues which swapped apps or called up the task window if scrolling near the top of the pad.

This trip I have updated to a Brydge Max+ keyboard and Magic Mouse 2

The upgrade is a revelation!

I would go so far as saying this is the best keyboard that i have used on any apple based device – be that a desktop, laptop or iPad. The keys have a lovely tactile surface and a really good amount of travel. The trackpad is large and very smooth.

The keyboard starts up he connects to the iPad almost instantly (unlike the gold and cherry) and with Face ID enabled the iPad unlocks as soon as the home key is pressed.

Being made of Aluminium the keyboard adds a lot of weight to the iPad but it does mean it is more balanced on the lap or table when in use.

The trackpad is a lovely size, smooth and with tap to click enabled, a joy to use with many of the iPad gestures available on the pad. The only issue I have suffered so far is my palm moving the cursor once or twice as I typed, but then I used to suffer that on my Macbook Pro when I first got it also.

I have mentioned the Magic Mouse 2 here as this also offers improvements with the iPad over the Magic Mouse 1. Firstly it is smoother but most importantly, the scroll function of the mouse works (which it does not on the series 1).

Looking at the image above it takes a double take to see that this is an iPad and not a laptop. With it set up this way it begs the question “why stick with the less functional iPad over a Macbook, say a Macbook Air?”

Well, first of all I like the simplicity – I am less likely to go down a “rabbit hole” playing with different softwares and configurations.

Secondly, I like the versatility – on a train or in another tight space I can lift the iPad off of the keyboard and work with just a mouse.

Thirdly, the apps (software) are getting more and more versatile and powerful every day. Working with Photoshop (which is developing rapidly) using the Apple Pencil directly on the image is a joy. I also use affinity Photo and Publisher in this way.

Finally, it is just a lot less fiddly. My iPad is on a contract, I get upgrades, it’s on a mobile network 24/7 meaning I can send directly from it without worrying about tethering and cables etc.

With the M1 chip, high speed thunderbolt connection & direct internet its just a great platform when on the road.

Syncing to Lightroom Classic. Workflow pt.8

Pt 7 left us copying images from shuttersnitch via finder to the desktop machine which I mentioned, i just archive and do not store in my Lightroom library. I prefer to synchronise the images from the mobile platform to the library using the Adobe sync mechanism.

All of my images are synced to a single folder (on a drive that is backed up every 6 hours). I prefer not to use the date formatted sub folders as this leads to an awful lot of folders containing my iPhone images (as I use the Lightroom app on my phone to take selfies, snaps and stock images).

The images are synchronised in to collections that match the name of the album that was created on the iPad. I then use this collection as the name of a folder I create manually and move the images to that folder.

As you would expect from the earlier posts, with the synchronised images only containing the title field in the metadata, I always complete the rest of the information so I can locate any image in the future. I use two plugins in my lightroom to help me manage the metadata.

Although the latest version of Lightroom allows the display of the metadata panel to be customised, I still prefer to use the Metadata preset builder from Jeffrey Friedl. My custom view is shown below. the key is it allows easy creation of a view with larger fields so the whole caption can be read.

The first stage is to select all of the images in the collection. All of the following tasks are supplied to all the images. First I apply my copyright preset. Presets can be configured to only affect specific fields. See Below.

Only ticked fields are added to the image

Once the copyright is added. I ensure auto-sync is enabled (in grid view) and add the data into all of the fields in the panel (hence the custom view) except the caption. This is because the caption varies according to the title.

Now I use another plugin; J B Search and Replace . This plugin has a powerful Caption Builder that is very similar to the way Photomechanic works.

The key is to build up the caption using a combination of free text and other metadata fields from the image(s)

A basic preset which builds the caption from the title, event name, location and date.

With all the images selected the Write Caption Field button runs through each of the images building the relevant caption. Photomechanic without doubt is one of the fastest captioning tools on the desktop if setup correctly. Using this tool is very similar, helping to caption images in Lightroom post event.

The final metadata task is to add the Keywords . I use a combination of Structured Keywords for common items plus a set I have devised myself for the sort of events I photograph. I have created Keyword Sets to speed this up.

The next post (the final post of this workflow series) will cover how I manage to keep on top of which images I have not yet edited or captioned… (with yet another plugin)

I look forward to your comments on this post as there are probably quite a few lightroom users are unaware of help that plugins can provide to this already powerful system.

Until the next post…..

J x

Putting it all together (Workflow pt. 6)

Camera, Images, Action !!

To paraphrase a well known saying. If you have followed these last few posts you will know that we are sending images from Lightroom Mobile to ShutterSnitch where we have configured Metadata & FTP locations to send the images to. Now lets tie it all together.

Accessing the gear icon for the actions.

The sliding arrow points to the action that will be applied to each image as it arrives in the application. So what does this particular action do?

That action on my system, changes the file name to suit the destination (I wont break this down – it should be self evident once you add this task to your action) then it applies one of the Metadata presets (as I showed a few posts back). Finally it exports to the FTP location.

The clever bit being that if the send to the location is a success , the action “Sent Alamy” is also run. What does that do?

It applies another Metadata Preset (one that only sets the rating and label).

Then it moves the image to another collection “ALL SENT”

This (hopefully) leaves the initial collection empty as all the images move out of it as they are sent. Any that do remain need re-sending.

The final 2 images of this post show Lightroom and ShutterSnitch sitting side by side on the iPad screen (use the 3 dots to set up split screen view) allowing editing to continue as ShutterSnitch sends.

This post ends the workflow as it is on the iPad itself. The next post will start to look at how I work on the desktop, moving the images off of the iPad, consolidating the images in the main library and other processes that have really advanced my workflow. (Beware – Lightroom plugin’s ahoy!)

Any comment or questions – get in touch!

Quick FTP Setup of ShutterSnitch (Workflow pt 4.5)

This post is just going to be a very quick How To configure sending images to an FTP server.,

I mentioned previously that the key to this app are the Actions and this is where we need to head to configure sending. Use the gear icon in the collection to access then click Edit.

Create a new task

Name it then click + at add a task

The only task we are going to add (at this stage) is to Export to a Location

Next the list of available locations are listed. (So we can define a number of locations – have listed a number of agencies, folders etc). Click Edit to create a new one and the green + next to FTP.

Enter the FTP details required (probably provided by the agency, client etc).

Note we can configure particular processes to happen as part of the sending task for example sending a re-sized version of the image or kicking off additional tasks if the send was successful.

The next post will put the metadata and sending posts into an action that handles the image as it arrives in ShutterSnitch.

I look forward to your comments.

Have You Meta data ? (iPad Workflow pt 4)

This post is a duplicate from one a few years ago but with some additional ideas for using collection names with a few more examples showing how flexible the system is.

From our last post we are at a point where we have exporting images from Lightroom to a collection of images in ShutterSnitch with key information (main image description) in the title field.

Note: I have totally skipped actions which ShutterSnitch may apply to arriving images at this point – if you have actions defined, for the sake of setting up the MetaData, ensure “Do Nothing” is selected. This will make sense later.

The first issue is, where do we start with our data? Can we start with Photomechanic? The answer to this is yes we can. I export the XMP from PM into Dropbox and then on the iPAD, export the file into ShutterSnitch.

Note: If starting from a Photomechanic template, the variables will need replacing as the syntax is different.

Select file in DropBox / Export / Copy to Shutter / Create a Preset

The i Icon on the top toolbar switches ShutterSnitch to the Metadata Editor.

As shown in the above images there are a number of options along the lower screen. The left-most tool is the Preset Editor

The choices are just to select a preset or use the Edit button to edit the presets available (the usual iOS left swipe to delete) or click to edit. Hold down to duplicate an existing preset.

First a basic preset of mine (from a Kermode 3D show) where the caption is automatically built from the Title (as added in Lightroom) and a number of other fields. For this show I know the location and all the other details. The only things that change are the subject/person. In the image (Title) and the Date.

The blue circle tick to the right indicates wether the field is applied in the preset, so as we are using the title field from Lightroom this is unticked next to the Title/Object. Notice the %%titleObject%% – this is a variable .

There are far fewer in ShutterSnitch. They may be accessed from the tool hi-lighted above. Below is a typical preset driven by the Title/Object Name field with the date automatically added also.

Headline, Caption, Keywords and other metadata in the preset.

And the next example is the template I used at Glastonbury this year. Note. That I have brought the %%colname%% variable into play (Collection name). This gave me the simple solution for ever changing locations (or events), multiple image collections, one for each stage or location, sending images from Lightroom direct into the correct collection building a complex caption.

Hint: As we are driving the Title / Object Name from Lightroom, all of the above preset(s) could be applied to all images when selected and a quick check as you flick through will reveal all of the fields set. Alternatively they could be applied through an action automatically as the image(s) arrive from Lightroom (hint!)

Once the preset is created, other tools are available in the editor. Quick select strings (which are field sensitive, so create them in the Title field if that is where you plan to insert them) may be created and selected.

This enables a list to be built, maybe copying and pasting from a website before the event

Use *Split* *Screen* on the iPAD to *Copy/Paste* into *Quick Select* Strings

The final options are Shortcodes.

Press and hold to edit the available lists. Creating new Sets and editing are fairly straightforward.

In use Shortcodes are slightly less usable than in Photomechanic as after entering the code (however many letters you use), the Icon (tee-shirt) needs a quick click for the software to expand the code to it’s full length. Shortcodes do, however save on spelling errors and incorrectly titled subjects.

Once the metadata is added the images can be sent (most likely using FTP ). The next post will look at configuring the FTP before we start putting it all together in an action that automates the whole process.

More Soon. As ever – let me know what you think.

iPad Workflow Part 3 : Exporting

This post is a much shorter post than the previous one, just looking at the options for getting the edited and titled images from part 2 out of Lightroom mobile and on to somewhere else.

Although commonly known as the share icon in iPad parlance this icon in the top right of the screen essentially provides the export functions of Lightroom (but with far more limited options).

Each of the 4 destinations I have hi-lighted above have pre-set settings that are independent from one another.

First lets look at my Export to Camera Roll settings, you can see i write a jpg with the size limited to 1500px on the longest edge. If you know Lightroom well you will know you rarely need to export images at 100% quality. The Camera Roll exports also include my text watermark (nothing fancy, settings shown below).

The thing about the watermark is that unlike the desktop version of the application, this watermark is shared across all of the export options in all of the cloud based applications. It can be disabled in some exports and enabled in others but when it is enabled, it will always point to the same single watermark.

The final set of options are as follows , providing the final set of expected controls for an exported image. In all exports I expect we would all include all metadata and as far as File Naming is concerned, I felt a combination of the date along with the original file name (that from the camera) is the safest option for a unique name.

My Exports to Camera Roll are only really used for my posts to social media. When sending images out to press or clients, the Share To option is the one is use with settings that corresponds to this use.

Obviously larger files and no watermark. (My Export to Files settings mimic these options just in case I which to use iCloud, Dropbox or my ZoHo WorkDrive to deliver images to a client, all of which are accessible from the iPad Files app).

Finally if editing in another application, the full image size and quality should be used.

Having set the options up, the best way to export a number of images in one go is to be in Grid View (as with the desktop app, use the G shortcut) and long select (press and hold) a single image. The app will switch to multi-select mode. Tap each image to send or, select all of the images by using the icon in the upper left (circled in red). Note in this mode, the Share (Export) icon has moved to the bottoms of the screen.

Selecting the Share To option following the export, the following options appear (on my iPad, your apps and settings may differ)

If your required option for the image is not listed (or is too far down the order), scroll to the bottom of the list and Edit Actions to control the standard list that always appears.

The key here for the next step is the Copy to ShutterSnitch as this is the action that sends a group of images as opposed to a single image to the tool I use to complete the caption/metadata and send on to the client/papers.

That however is the subject of the next post or two..

I hope you found this post on exporting images from Lightroom useful. please let me know your comments, thoughts or questions.

Until next time…

iPad Workflow Part 2

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)

My Presets – replicates my Lightroom Classic

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.

*Note: I only add the title. The caption is generated at a later step.*

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 ..

Glastonbury and iPad Workflow (pt1)

I’m sitting here writing this the Thursday after Glastonbury and (just about) starting to get over COVID (It hit me hard on the Tuesday evening after testing negative on the Monday, I tested positive on the Wednesday morning).

We had arrived at Glastonbury a week ago to this wonderful (not) notice.

Closed pits for all headliners as displayed in the press tent

This was a first and to be honest, although we expected a couple of closed headliner pits, we did not expect all of them to be closed. I think this tainted my experience of the whole weekend.

The wording there is fairly specific “closed pit” not “no photography” so my colleague and I headed out into the crowd at the end of Sam Fender’s set and took up a position. The Fuji’s with the 100-400 are quite easy when working in a crowd, being smaller but of course do slightly suffer with resolving power and focusing (X-T3) compared to full frame bodies and faster 400mm lenses. We stayed long enough to ensure we got a reasonably varied set of images before fighting our way out of the crowd and filing.

The strategy worked….

Billie Eilish images images on the 3 UK “broadsheet” websites.

So what was the workflow here? As I mentioned in my last post it followed my basic routine:

Create Collection in Lightroom for job
Import from memory cards direct into collection
Select and edit photos in lightroom
Add titles
Create a collection in ShutterSnitch for the job
Share images to ShutterSnitch collection which completes the captioning and sends via ftp
Archive the images

Folder and Albums in Lightroom Mobile (showing all 4 days)

You can see from the above image, I created a folder for the whole event and then a separate Album for each day, using my standard naming format.

The Lightroom Mobile tool is basically a web tool, wanting to store all of its images in the cloud. This is a real issue when speed is of the essence (and when you have a slow internet connection – which for some inexplicable reason at Glastonbury this year we had the worst connection at a major event I think I have ever known). There are 2 key steps to managing this.

First, when leaving on a trip I always pause the sync.

The next step is on each folder, I enable the Store Locally option. To do this requires that there is an image in the album so if pre-shooting, I copy an existing image into each of the albums and then the Store Locally switch is available from the three dots options to the right of the album name

Now I am ready to import the images from the camera card into the Album (inserting the card/card reader into the usb-c slot normally displays the import options. If not the import is available in the lower right). The bottom line is the images do not touch the apple photos app at all. They go direct from the card into Lightroom and they may be RAW or JPG with no issues. In fact the Billie Eilish images were all processed from Fuji Raw (RAF) as I thought I might need more shadow & hilight recovery. The only difference between importing RAF and JPG is that in the import window, JPGs are previewed whilst RAF are just shown as empty boxes (no preview).

Importing images into the current folder.

In this post I have covered how I set up the iPad / Lightroom Mobile and import the images. The next post will discuss selecting & editing the images.

As I finish this post I have just had a conversation with my supplier about my first X-H2, apparently I can collect it next week. Well that has cheered me up from my COVID slump..

Until the next post…

Mobile Workflow Overview

I mentioned in my last post that these writings would be more about my workflow, thoughts and practices and less about camera equipment reviews.

The next few posts will revisit my mobile workflow and the use of the iPad as a very serious tool (laptop replacement), starting with this very basic overview.

A very poor iPhone image of my iPad in its keyboard case

My mobile (travel) kit consists of;

IPad Pro M1
Gold and Cherry iPad keyboard case
Apple Pencil
Apple Magic Mouse (Series 2 preferred)
Lightroom Mobile (Adobe photography plan inc. Photoshop)
ShutterSnitch

Lightroom Mobile & ShutterSnitch running in a split screen

One of the key improvements over the last couple of years of using the iPad has been the multitasking (various split screens, slide over etc) and later posts will show how the applications can work together in a similar way to a full blown computer (mac or otherwise).

The workflow outline:

Create Collection in Lightroom for job
Import from memory cards direct into collection
Select and edit photos in lightroom
Add titles
Create a collection in ShutterSnitch for the job
Share images to ShutterSnitch collection which completes the captioning and sends via ftp
Archive the images

Lightroom during the image selection and editing process

The next post will start to detail the intricacies of using Lightroom efficiently and outline some possible pitfalls (there are a few!).

Until then.

ShutterSnitch Metadata Editor – A quick look

The last two posts on mobile workflow have raised a few questions from readers on how I deal with metadata. I thought I had dealt with it in previous posts (admittedly a long while back) but re-reading them it seems I had not covered everything.

Therefore this is just a quick overview. I am actually looking at running a course or two on this mobile workflow in the UK this year in conjunction with theBPPA. If you are interested, please let me know and I will send out booking information if and when…

A quick apology for the image I have used in this post – it was all I had on the iPad at the point I outlined this post.

From our last post we are at a point where there is a collection of images in ShutterSnitch either with or without metadata in the title field.

The i Icon on the top toolbar switches ShutterSnitch to the Metadata Editor.

As shown in the above images there are a number of options along the lower screen. The left-most tool is the Preset Editor

The choices are just to select a preset or use the Edit button to edit the presets available (the usual iOS left swipe to delete) or click to edit. Hold down to duplicate an existing preset.

The blue circle tick to the right indicates wether the field is applied in the preset, so if using the title field from Lightroom this would be unticked next to the Title/Object Name. Notice the %%titleObject%% – this is a variable, much the same as the Photomechanic variables although they are named differently.

If using Photomechanic , the variables will need replacing. There are far fewer in ShutterSnitch. They may be accessed from the tool hi-lighted above. Below is a typical preset driven by the Title/Object Name field with the date automatically added also.

Note: It does not seem possible to add variables into the keywords at the moment.

If driving the Title / Object Name from Lightroom, the above preset could be applied to all images when selected and a quick check as you flick through will reveal all of the fields set.

This enables a list to be built, maybe copying and pasting from a website before the event

The final options are Shortcodes.

Press and hold to edit the available lists. Creating new Sets and editing are fairly straightforward.

All that is left after adding the metadata is to send using FTP or other Actions which are well covered towards the end of this post.

There are many more options are settings but hopefully this will get you moving. As always, please ask any questions in the comments to that others can also learn.