I tend to use my iPad a lot for photo reviewing and editing alongside my MacBook Pro. Over the years I’ve considered if the iPad would be enough for what I do. Challenges around this have tended to be across the piece, and I’ve struggled to find a solution that worked well.
I think it might be getting there now with a few apps combining to provide the bulk of what I want. This doesn’t mean that I’m ditching the MacBook any time soon, but it does mean that I can use the iPad almost interchangeably with the MacBook.
One of the things that eluded me most was printing from the iPad without using the air print option as this just wasn’t good enough in my view, with no real access to the full printer driver options. Buying a new printed recently has changed that as well.
To start off I think it would be useful to list my requirements from the iPad. This may well be different to yours of course.
I do not want to use Apple Photo’s at all. I do not like the product for a start, and it does not support most of my cameras
I do not want to use any form of cloud sync unless I choose to
I want to be able to view and edit files from my iPad iCloud Drive as well as other local storage and USB-C attached external drives
I want a light weight Digital Asset Management tool that I can use to view images across all the drives mentioned
I want a professional grade raw converter that can access images across all the drives mentioned, preferably with local adjustments, layers and the such like
I want to use a pixel level editor for when I need full layer based and pixel level editing
I want to be able to print high quality images to my Epson P700 using a variety of different papers with ICC profiles to match
So where am I with all of this then?
Looking at the hardware I use, starting with the cameras I’ve got all Fuji kit with 2 x 40mp APS-C cameras in the X100VI and X-H2 and a 51mp GFX 50s ii. All are set to record images in lossless compressed raw + jpg so file sizes are in the 50+mb size
My iPad is an M2 PadPro with 1tb hard drive and 16gb ram
The software I’ve settled on is:
Nitro from Gentlemen coders as a very light weight DAM which also can act as an image editor and reviewing tool
Capture One as the professional grade raw converter
The full Affinity suite of which I use Photo and Publisher, with Photo being used as the layer based pixel editor and Publisher for laying out my images for print
Epson Print Layout for printing from the iPad
Files app for file management
All these apps can read and reference images from the Files app
Workflow
Load images into a working directory on my iPad using a card reader
Open Nitro and review the images, mark for deletion any duds and delete them in batch
Use Files to create a copy of the keepers on a USB-C attached SSD
For those I want to edit open Capture One and ‘import’ the images using the Add to catalog option, which references the files in their files location, edit to taste.
If I want to use Affinity Photo I can export (share) direct from C1 or Nitro either as the original Raw or as a 16 bit tiff. Edit to taste and export back as a 16 bit tiff, and save the edits as an Affinity photo file
C1 edits can be shared back to my MacBook as either EIP files which is basically a form of zip file with the original file and edits or as Tiffs or Affinity files which can be shared back to my MacBook as well
Printing
With the Epson P700 and 900 printers the Epson Print Layout app now lets me make much better use of the printer from my iPad.
From this app I can select a number of the advanced print options, including access to Epson print media including their default ICC profiles. Whilst this is not a fully managed print workflow (unless I use Epson papers), I can for example select the right media type for non Epson papers.
The app also lets you add .eml files that can be created using the Epson Media Installer program on your Mac / Pc which in theory lets you create your own Media type based on the media’s ICC profile and the correct epson paper source to match your 3rd party paper.
Unfortunately, whilst you can export the eml file from Epson Media Installer and add it to the Epson Print Layout app on the iPad, the media itself is not visible, which may well be a bug and something I will pick up with Epson. It does however work on the MacBook so is something I will look more into.
What could be improved?
Epson Print layout to fully allow me to create my own media types based on for example Canson paper.
I also use DXO on my MacBook, so would really like a DXO app for the iPad just as Capture One, Adobe and Affinity have done as I tend to use DXO on the MacBook more than I use Capture One
What does all this cost?
Aside from the iPad itself the software is:
Nitro - £2.99 per month (although I get a discount for it) - £35.88 per year
Capture One - £4.95 per month - £59.40 per year
Affinity Photo - £17.99 iPad only one off purchase
Epson Print Layout - Free
Files - Free
Total one off cost is £17.99 for Affinity Photo
Annual cost for Nitro and Capture One is £95.28
I’ve had Affinity since v1.5, now on 2.5 and have paid twice, once when I bought 1.5 and once for the upgrade to 2, and Nitro is also a raw editor - not as good as C1 or Lr, more of a 2nd tier product, but it may well be good enough for you - only you can tell
Final Thoughts
With a terabyte of storage, some decent apps all with compatibility with their desktop counterparts I can now use an iPad as a viable editing tool, and in fact when it comes to Affinity Photo I will use the iPad in preference to the MacBook
Equally, the way the Capture One app is going with its support of curves, layers, AI masking, tethering, soon to be sessions and reference files, this app is beginning to become a C1 desktop replacement for what I use C1 it’s likely I will stop my C1 Pro subscription soon
I do as I said make more use of DXO Elite, so I won’t be getting rid of the MacBook any time soon, unless they come out with an app that is as feature rich as Capture One or make their PureRaw program available on the iPad, in which case I would include that in the mix as well.
