Lightroom workflow between Mac Studio, MacBook and iPad without relying on cloud?

[u/aiacciu87]

I’m trying to simplify my Lightroom workflow.

My idea is to keep all my RAW files on a fast external SSD and use Lightroom in Local mode. I would use the same SSD on my Mac Studio at home and my MacBook when traveling, so I can continue editing the same files without syncing anything.

The problem is the iPad. I’d also like to edit photos on it sometimes while traveling, but I don’t want to rely on Lightroom Cloud because internet connections can be slow or unavailable.

Ideally I’d like:

• RAW files stored on one external SSD
• Edit them on Mac Studio / MacBook directly from the SSD
• Occasionally continue editing on iPad
• Keep edits when moving between devices
• Avoid duplicate files / complicated catalog management

Is there a good Lightroom workflow for this, or is the iPad basically incompatible with a fully local/offline workflow?

[u/imajez]

My iPad Pro and my MacBook Air are pretty much the same size and weight. So my solution would be to just use my MBA for photo work and the iPad as a second screen. Either use your normal home catalogue on your MacBook or make a new one to then simply import to home catalogue when you get back. The mobile versions of LR are too crippled for my liking with really basic functionality like syncing ratings/keywords not working between the various iterations, so not a road you want to go down. Utterly baffling this was even an issue in first place, let alone so many years later. Not being able to sync LR work directly between two devices because of LR needing internet/cloud is also a serious misstep.
Internet permitting and you do want to use the iPad, what you can do is mark some images in LRc to sync via Creative Cloud. Those selected shots will appear in your iPads LR and will sync back eeery time you reconnect online. Use a curated collection to gather those shots rather than entire folders to minimise file transfers.

I'd always try and back up my files to to cloud as often as I can when travelling, and I always have a minimum of two external drives for duplicating data. That way I have three copies, One on computer and two on external drives - which are all kept separately when not being used. Internet permitting, I also have all my data saving to iCloud. This is in case all my gear gets stolen, lost etc.

[u/bvanant]

There is real pain in getting the colors on three devices to be the same and keeping them the same. I travel about 4 months a year, mostly Indonesia and Philippines for diving. Use a MacBook Air with external ssds. At home import raws back to hard drives attached to a Mac mini. Color management on the mini is for printing. Most edits from the trip need a bit of color tweaking for printing

[u/terryleewhite]

The Lr on iPad part of the workflow is going to be the challenge.
1) You can import images to it and work offline. Once you have a connection, the images and their edits will sync to the cloud and down into LrC.
2) you can export the images to the iPad OS files app/external drive.
3. You can sync what you want to work on to the iPad and then disconnect. Work offline.

[u/PhotosbyRob]

Sorry to hear about your problems with Lightroom - I am a PC / Windows 11 user and I wanted to share what I have learned. I built a monitoring tool that pulls information for HWINFO (a windows tool) to build a list of system bottlenecks. Apple Macs are incredible machines and Adobe seems to keep their software optimized for them - but one of the problems I have seen, especially with masks, is VRAM being filled / exhausted after just a few images. When I am doing heavy work with masks I can watch my 12gb of VRAM get filled and never release. Restarting Lightroom resets it and I have just been repeating that process. I know this is not a solution but if you are like me and are working under tight deadlines this might help.

[u/direwolfs555]

Thanks for the post I was literally going to put one like this out there.

[u/thisissuchajoke]

I travel 4-6 months each year and use an iPP for photography. 1), No issues with internet connections as I turn sync off day 1 and leave it off until I’m back home sitting at my desk. What do you gain by having it on? 2), I’m a Classic user on the desktop: Given the near useless sync capability between LR and LrC, I export DNG’s into Classic. 3), Pre iPP I’d travel with a Macbook running Classic. Once home, exported the new images as a catalog and imported into my desktop. No futzing with external drives. Some food for thought.

[u/Deep_Condition4119]

The Mac part works great, I do basically the same thing. Put the catalog AND the raws on the SSD, open the catalog from the SSD in Lightroom Classic on whichever Mac you're on, and keep both Macs on the same Classic version. Just never open it on both at the same time and always eject properly.

The iPad is the weak spot. It can't open a Classic catalog, period. Offline, the only real option is to copy the few raws you want onto the iPad, edit them in Lightroom mobile, and let them sync back through the cloud when you get wifi again. So you're not editing while depending on the internet, but for the edits to get back to Classic they have to go through the cloud at some point. If you don't want that at all, treat the iPad as a separate little workflow and export the finals from there.

[u/Maffeziono]

Guarda ho creato un sub reddit (iPadPhotograpy) dove condividerò tutte le gioie e dolori di editare solo con iPad.
L’alternativa che ho trovato potrebbe essere su file app in cloud, conservando eventualmente le foto RAW anche sul dispositivo localmente, oppure usare app photo che sincronizza in cloud, con una gestione però più complessa secondo me.
Oppure si, il classico HDD o chiavetta USB, magari portando solo alcuni progetti fino alla loro conclusione. Nel tuo caso sarebbe opportuno trasformare tutto in DNG così hai già le modifiche intrinseche nella foto! Spero di essere stato di aiuto! 👋