There is already a Photo Mechanic for iPad
If anyone has real-world examples of how they're currently using iPads for serious photography work, we'd love to hear them.
-Mick
Hi Mick, since that seems like permission to mention other, not CameraBits related apps on iPad, I hope can share my workflow I use to file photos on the go
There is unfortunately no app even approaching the ease and simplicity of PhotoMechanic available for iOS, however, I have been able to find some workable workflow.
For some background, I am a photojournalist, working for daily papers and online news.
I can give a workflow example which worked for me reasonably well (apart from having to use several apps together) during a week-long assignment to cover the refugees in Europe, where we moved by car every day (sometimes several times a day) to newest flashpoint or camp or closed/opened border, filing photos to online coverage on the go. I had it a bit tougher than colleagues from wires, since they mostly transmit just the unedited untoned photographs to their picture-desk, I did my own simple toning on the iPad which necessitated switching between apps on the iPad.
I used iPad Mini 2 (retina display, not the newest one but still fast enough for working with jpegs), Eye-Fi Wi-Fi connected card and Apple SD card reader (mainly for backup if the Eye-Fi failed). I shoot RAW to CF card and Medium JPEGs (around 10MP on the 5DmkIII) to the SD card.
I transmit selected (via lock button) M JPEGs via Wi-Fi to Shuttersnitch iPad app, which can do some automatic actions upon receiving the photos (simple captioning, export to Photos, export to FTP - although captioning means recompressing the files, so be wary of that).
For simple toning, I would have the files exported automatically to Photos on the iPad, which as far as I can see didn't do any recompression (if you don't update metadata in Shuttersnitch though). Once I had a batch of files I wanted to edit and transmit, I would open them one by one in Filterstorm Neue, with default IPTC caption automatically added. In Filterstorm Neue, I had a simple action that made several automated edits, like shadows highlights, some contrast adjustment (sadly, Auto-levels and Auto-contrast are currently missing from the app, they used to be supported in the older version but not yet in the new one). Finally, I did some cropping if necessary. Depending on signal strength, I either directly transmitted the edited and captioned photo to FTP, or I exported it back into Photos for later batch transmission when I got better reception or hotel WiFi network. Working with roughly 10MP jpegs, Filterstorm Neue proved extremely fast doing most edits even on not exactly the top of the line iPad Mini 2 (it utilises the GPU for most operations).
All in all, I was able to import, edit and file photos on the go, noticeably faster then on a notebook, although with some limitations. Every evening, I did use Photomechanic to ingest the whole card full of RAWs and did normal editing and culling.
Some problems and limitations encountered with the software on iPad:
1) Foremost, there is none do-it-all app like Photomechanic to my knowledge. I had to use several (at least two) apps to manage importing, captioning, editing and exporting. Exchanging photos between apps is cumbersome, either one by one or via export to central repository (Photos) which doesn't allow any star ratings or tagging (only Favouriting manually). Shuttersnitch can do import, generic caption and export all in one go, but has no editing, not even cropping. And sometimes its FTP export just fails for no visible reason.
2) All of the apps tried are still somewhat cumbersome to use. Their creators certainly didn't take an Apple course on haptic UI at all. Most frequently used actions are several menus or touches deep, illogicaly. Examples:
- Shuttersnitch - it allows you to import photos automatically from EyeFi card into a set (folder). However, and actions like captioning for that set have to be setup from the menu, not inside the set, but outside, requiring as many as 5 "clicks" to simply edit and save caption that should be applied to newly imported photos. That means it's easy to forget something (like outdated caption info).
- Filterstorm Neue - even though blazingly fast with edits, again, even simple actions like editing, editing caption, exporting, require too many clicks to select and confirm, usually with the Done button on the complete opposite end of the screen than the info you are changing. Cumbersome.
3) If you apply automatic caption on import with Shuttersnitch, it resaves the photo - meaning recompression, at what compression level is not apparent at all.
4) Filterstorm Neue - only works one photo at a time, and when exporting (either to FTP or Photos repository), you have to select compression level manually EACH and EVERY time (the setting doesn't stick) - so to save time, you either leave it at 100% (meaning long transfer times), or hunt with your finger on the unwieldy slider. Also, there is no way to group frequently used edits together, meaning you have to go through different submenus to resize, crop, do curves, WB, caption, export. A lot of finger hunting (at least it's instantly responsive).
5) Doing some real captioning (like where in every photo the caption is different) is also not easy. No easy way like PM's Stationery. Filterstorm Neue does support some basic code replacement (lifted from PM it seems), but you have to load it up using a computer beforehand. No variables, et cetera. For my needs, just sending the edited photos to picture-desk with a basic generic caption with maybe few names added, it was workable. But writing a full story caption would be a chore.
6) Exporting photos to FTP cannot be done in the background. You have to wait for the transfer to finish before you can edit new ones.
All in all, even with those limitations (and limitations in cellular coverage), I was able to transmit edited photos very quickly just by taking the iPad out of the Domke, during any lull in the action. The only thing I needed the notebook for was backing up the daily takes. The key to my workflow is only importing selects (made in camera via the protect button). Over the whole assignment, I filed about 100-200 photos to our picturedesk directly from the iPad, out of something like 7000 photos shot in total.
If Camerabits ever released a simplified version of PM for iPad, I would readily plonk 50$ or more on it, if it just worked. An all in one app for iPad that could import photos, caption, crop, do basic editing and export all in one go would be a godsend. Being able to just take the tablet out of camera bag, instantly powered on, with its insane amount of battery life, ready everytime everywhere.
