*** From the Archives ***

This article is from September 13, 2013, and is no longer current.

Putting the iPad Photo Workflow to the Test: The Mongol Rally

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Power

I’ve been charging the iPad (and both iPhones) off of the car cigarette lighter. While the cigarette charger that I brought was fine for the phones, it did not deliver the wattage that the iPad demands. Fortunately, from Europe to Kazakhstan, it’s no problem finding a store that sells iPad accessories. If you can’t find a computer or electronics store, try a cell phone store. Just be sure that you buy a charger that specifically says it can charge an iPad.

I’ve also been charging camera batteries off of the cigarette lighter. Type your camera name along with “battery charger” into the Amazon.com search box, and you’ll find lots of inexpensive third-party chargers that include cigarette adapters. I’ve had no problem powering the Mark III and several GoPro Hero 3’s this way.

However, I wish I’d brought an inverter. This is a box that you power off of the cigarette lighter, but which offers a normal plug, and so provides a way to power things that you can’t find cigarette adapters for. For example, the ColorSpace UDMA doesn’t charge through a USB port, and I don’t have a cigarette adapter for it. An inverter would let me charge that, as well as the iMainGo powered speakers that I use with my iPod.

Our biggest power problem has been that we keep losing the power plug adapters. They’re easy to leave in a socket when you pull out of a hotel room, and they can be hard to find. Also, most hotel rooms have maddeningly few outlets. Next time, I will bring a US power strip. That will give me multiple outlets, and only require a single adapter.

In Turkey, we found a source of more adapters, and so bought a few. Stupidly, I’ve already lost a couple. Fortunately, my friend was smart enough to safeguard some, so we’re still in business. If you bring a power strip that has a surge protector, be certain it can handle the voltage of the countries you’re going to. In the past, I’ve accidentally detonated a few because they weren’t rated for the voltage of other countries.

Photo Workflow

I’m using the standard Apple Camera Connection Kit for both the SD card from my Sony RX100 point-and-shoot, and for my 5D Mark III. With the Mark III, I have to connect via a USB cable from my camera, which means I’m using camera battery power to transfer images. As I have a car charger for the camera battery, this isn’t a problem, but if you don’t have a way to charge your camera batteries, this could be a significant issue.

PhotosInfoPro on the iPad is working great for rating and adding metadata to my images. With it, I can import images into the iPad, do my metadata editing, save the metadata, and delete the images to save space. Later, I can export the metadata as standard XMP files. Because the images are still on the camera card, I still have them, and can sync up the exported XMP files with the original images when I get home.

Many of the keeper images stay on the iPad, because I’ve been generating postcards from them using Bill Atkinson’s PhotoCard, a wonderful application for creating postcards that get printed and mailed before you even get home.

So my workflow goes like this: import images and apply ratings and metadata; delete all the images except for the ones that I want to email, post to the web, or make into postcards; edit and save those selects; delete the originals; repeat with the next cardful.

As I’m generating more of these keepers, though, I’m running out of space on the iPad, so importing an entire card for metadata editing will soon be impossible. I hadn’t counted on needing this much storage on the iPad, so I’ll need to re-think that bit next time. Also, if you want to import an entire card-full of images for metadata editing, then you need to have enough free space on your iPad for the largest-capacity card that you have. One of my CF cards holds 64 gb, and I only have a 64 gb iPad, so I have to import it’s images in batches. I either need to stick with smaller cards, or upgrade to a bigger iPad.

Image Editing

It’s nice to be able to perform basic image editing chores in the field, both to prepare images that you want to post online, or to print as postcards, and to check that your exposure strategies are working. I do almost all of my editing in Google Snapseed, because of it’s superior interface, and great selective editing tools. That said, I do have some frustrations with Snapseed.

The main problem with it is that it offers no Histogram display. Between glare, and the general unpredictability of the iPad screen, I have no idea about overall brightness of my images. I really need a histogram to know if I’ve got my white point set correctly.

Snapseed also frustrates with its lack of a Levels or Curves tool that would allow independent control over white and black points. It’s difficult to brighten an area without blowing out highlights.

The selective editing controls are great, but I’d love to have a gradient selection to make it easier to edit the foreground of a landscape without messing up the sky.

Even with all that, though, editing in Snapseed is so easy and speedy that I can’t bring myself to switch to anything else. Yes, I know there are applications that offer Histograms and Levels controls (PhotoGene being a very good one) but these don’t offer selective editing tools.

Of course, the biggest iPad image editing limitation is the lack of raw editing controls. Because of the nature of the iPad image API, there is no software that will offer me raw-level controls such as highlight recovery and white balance adjustment.

For all of these reasons, therefore, I’m thinking of all of these edits as rough. Between the lack of histogram, the iPad screen, and the lack of raw controls, I have no idea if any of these edits are as good as they could be. Consequently, I’m expecting to have to re-edit all of my images in Photoshop when I get home.

This, ultimately, becomes the biggest limitation of the iPad. It is not possible to reliably, consistently do finished image editing work on it, because the software tools are not available. Of course, with many images, and tools like PhotoGene, you can work an image to a finished result, but overall, I’m finding that the tools aren’t there yet to reliably be able to depend on the iPad for serious image editing.

That doesn’t change my mind about bringing the iPad over a laptop. I don’t really need to be able to produce finished files on this trip. If I were working on an assignment, though, and needed to deliver edited results from the field, then the iPad might prove to be a bad choice.

Then again, I’m driving on one of the worst roads in the world in a car with very small wheels. So, for the time being, I’m quite effectively distracted from any image editing shortcomings I might be experiencing. What we really need ar
e more zip ties to re-attach our exhaust.


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  • amarie99 says:

    Wow that is an incredible story! I’ll have to read the stories you linked to for more info, but I’m too lazy at the moment … who is your travelling companion? And doesn’t Adobe offer any image editing or metadata apps?

  • Shanna Booher says:

    Couple things-

    1. I found a fantastic keyboard case, it’s made by CruxCase and is called a CruxSKUNK, I found it on kickstarter and though it took a while to recieve it was BY FAR the best case i’ve owned, fits ipad 2, 3 & 4. Full size apple keyboard and a 360 hinge for watching movies. (No i’m not affiliated w/ them at all, but you mentioned writing on your ipad which I do so thought I’d pass this along—I think you can buy now at cruxcase.com, if it’s not on there contact them, the owner, Brian can likely hook you up).

    2. Is there a watermark app for iphone/ipad photos that you’ve found and liked? I tend to do almost all edits on iOS devices, my work is not being submitted for a job or anything so the edits I can do work for me (photos taken with Nikon D3200 or iphone 5).

    3. Great article, thank you for sharing! My father is a pro photographer, but not an apple guy or tablet owner so he hasn’t been too helpful with the workflow on those devices. I too use Snapseed and though I stray now and then, I keep going back to it in the end.

  • Nyamdorj says:

    Great story to read, but where is the Mongolian part?

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