Sort And Sync Your Adobe Lightroom Photos On Your iPad!
May 4, 2011
Photosmith ($17.99) by C² Enterprises, Inc gives photographers a great new way to organize their photos right on their iPad! Lighten up your load and leave your computer behind. If you like to work with your photos immediately after a shoot, Photosmith is a great answer solution for the iPad user.
Photosmith is designed for those who want to organize their photos before they import them into Adobe Lightroom for advanced editing. Once your photos are imported to your iPad, you are able to add descriptions, set titles, and organize by star ratings, color labels, flags and more. You can create collections easily with the drag and drop feature. However, you will need a way to import your photos into your iPad. The Apple iPad camera connection kit works quite well for SD cards. This will cost you extra, but if you enjoy photography, it is a must-have in your iPad tool kit.
The Lightroom syncing process is easy once you download the plug-in from the Photosmith app website. Once installed on your computer and added to Lightroom, the computer automatically sees your iPad photos. You can sync all photos, or only specific events. Your computer and iPad need to be on the same Wi-Fi network in order for the sync feature to work.
I found that I could only color code the photos one at a time, which was frustrating. It would be nice to select multiple pictures to tag all at once. I am hoping this will become available in a future update. Also, once you flag a picture, it will not sync over to Lightroom.
Photosmith does not have any editing features, only sorting and organizing. Editing on the iPad is tough anyway, because it can mess up the consistency of your photos. Most photographers color calibrate their computer screen to work with their photos. The iPad may not have the same color settings, which would create differences when printed.
Before you download this awesome new app, you will want to make sure it is compatible with your camera. Canon and Nikon cameras with either RAW or JPEG files work well. Photosmith may work with other cameras so the developer has posted a compatibility list on their website.
The cost for the app is hefty at $17.99. However, for those of us who spend hundreds of dollars on camera equipment, Photosmith is a minimal investment to be able to leave your computer at home. If you use Adobe Lightroom as your main photo software and own an iPad, this app is definitely worth checking out!
