Raw photo management

[Cwbash]

I use my iPad 2 to manage photos when traveling. I'd like full support of raw photos including getting all the EXIF file from the camera. (in specific, I'm using a Canon camera.)

 

[f4780y]

Not possible AFAIK cwbash, sorry. You can transfer the camera raw files through the CCK onto the iPad, but you cannot do anything with them there. It is simply a storage medium / backup device until you get back to a PC. Even then you are usually much faster pulling them back off the camera / card reader to your PC.
I'm a keen amateur photographer myself, but because of the storage limitations on the iPad I don't use it to store my RAW files, even temporarily. Not enough spare storage!
It's great for reviewing JPEGs in the go and great when you are on holiday without your laptop, but it's not (yet) a great device to fully integrate into your photography workflow.
Fingers crossed for the future though! It can only get better...

 

[Tom March]

I don't agree fully with that answer. You can transfer your RAW photos from your camera to your IPad (at least I can on fully my ipad2) using a camera connection kit ( I have an off-brand, inexpensive one) and you can view them on your iPad and there are apps that let you do some adjustment to them.

I use a Canon. It does include exif info and I believe some apps let you modify iota data.

My plan for long trips is to upload those I want to see on the trip but still use my 80 gb iPod to store them all until I get home.

 

[f4780y]

I don't agree fully with that answer. You can transfer your RAW photos from your camera to your IPad (at least I can on fully my ipad2) using a camera connection kit ( I have an off-brand, inexpensive one) and you can view them on your iPad and there are apps that let you do some adjustment to them.

I use a Canon. It does include exif info and I believe some apps let you modify iota data.

My plan for long trips is to upload those I want to see on the trip but still use my 80 gb iPod to store them all until I get home.

OK Tom. Not disagreeing at all. I did say it was "as far as I know", and I only have an iPad1.
As I said clearly, you can transfer RAW file. I've done it. I was just unaware that there was any RAW support at all on the device. My RAW files (Olympus) are not supported AFAIK. Obviously, your's are. What app(s) are you using to view and adjust the Canon RAW files? I'd love to look into it some more.

 

[f4780y]

Well, I stand well and truly corrected. Seems things have moved on considerably since my little iPad1 and I tried to process RAW files recently.

Saw Tom's thread here - http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-2-forum/27406-ipad-2-reads-raw-files.html

And there appears to be some new appage here - piRAWnha for iPad on the iTunes App Store

Need to get my hands on an iPad2 double quick now then... Thanks for the heads up Tom

 

[Tom March]

You can see the RAW files using the native Photos app.

I have Photosmith which is still new but has a lot of promise. (it has a Lightroom plug-in for wireless transfer from your iPad - have not tried this yet.)

Things are changing fast.

I figure I can safely hold 1,000 captures on a trip.

 

[f4780y]

Things are changing fast.

Indeed they are...
No native Photos support for me on iPad1 though. Boooo.
Had a look at photosmith, but only partial Oly support so far. I'll keep an eye on it though as I use Lightroom3, thanks.

 

[donka]

I actually had experience of this over the weekend. I shot a wedding on Saturday and wanted to review the images on my iPad 2 just to see how it coped. I copied over approx 350 Nikon RAW files (NEF) as a test and they are pretty much instantly available in the photo album once imported. Swiping between images and zooming is instant and perfectly smooth. In my opinion, the iPad 2 is a great tool for reviewing images since I could start the import as soon as I got back in my car and headed home. I actually got to give them a once over while watching the final of Britain's Got talent with the missus so it kept her happy too. What is also nice is you can delete out the non keepers on the iPad and when you get home, hook up your iPad to your PC and import the remaining RAW files directly into Lightroom or similar since the iPad is treated as a storage drive in this respect.
Now this is where it could get interesting as I did a quick batch resize and watermarked export on my PC to prepare a disc of JPGs for review. I have been looking at either Photogene or Filterstorm as an app to do some image editing on the iPad and Filterstorm Pro will allow you to do this same batch watermarking and resize export to JPG directly on the iPad. I haven't bought one of these apps yet but in theory I could have done a quick review in the car and then run the batch export as I drove home and essentially had a folder full of processed images to copy over and burn to disc on my PC by the time I got home. I'm genuinely impressed by this prospect and am going to explore it further.
I believe the apps are limited in some respect to the RAW formats that Apple have included support for in IOS although I can't confirm this myself, all I know is that NEF support worked flawlessly for me.

 

[f4780y]

Great feedback, thanks donka.

 

[Tom March]

When I was playing around this weekend, I noticed that the filenames were changed from what the Canon haf given it - something like img_1052.cr2 - to an Apple like name 1000000000011.cr2

I have looked but the old name seems to be gone.

Not a major deal but it will mess up my filing system.

 

[donka]

Weird, all my images retained the same Nikon name - the files were 'untouched' by IOS as the name, filesize etc. was identical to what was on the original card. Very handy.
Did you use any other apps?

 

[Tom March]

1. It is an off-brand connection kit that I plug the sd card into.

2. I was looking at it via Photosmith

3. When I import the shots from the sd card to the computer the real file names are there.

 

[Tom March]

Just went to the Photosmith website and found this note

Not sure it completely answer the question. I am not syncing, exactly

Why are my filenames incorrect?

← Home / Knowledge Base / Managing Photos
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t give any app access to the filenames stored on the iPad. We have tried many methods, including reading the filename from the EXIF data itself, but it’s simply not there (or not reliable), so Photosmith must generate it’s own filename.
There is a workaround- you can use the advanced sync process in Photosmith: Instead of transferring your photos over the WiFi sync, import them directly into Lightroom from the iPad (over the USB cable), and then perform the normal Photosmith sync process over WiFi. Photosmith will detect the existing photos (even with the correct name),

 

[donka]

I have a 3rd party CCK as well. I plugged in the SD cards and then browsed the filenames on the iPad via my laptop when I got home. The filenames remained the same as they were from the camera.
How are you finding Photosmith?? Do you have any experience with Photogene or Filterstorm? I'm thinking Filterstorm will work fine for my needs but finding it hard to spend £9 on the Pro version which is what I would prefer since I would have a ton of use for the inbuilt library feature but it is still a nice to have all the same for all the batch operations. I wish they had lite versions to try them out as I promised I would stop buying multiple app and then have loads of them become redundant.

 

[Tom March]

Donka, you are right.

I plugged the iPad into the computer and when I open up the folders they have the original file names - even the files that been opened using Photosmith.

We have a 3-week trip planned for September. Sure hope this gets fixed by then.

Next thing is to check whether the Photosmith keywords get ported over with the real filenames.

So far the lesson is that it's better to do a wired transfer.