Just thoughts …

Tag: Dropbox

  • Image portfolios, iPads, field triage and Lightroom … and more

    Image portfolios, iPads, field triage and Lightroom … and more

    At long last I’ve had the time to work through a number of technology issues centering around my photography. This in no small part was enabled by having a week in mid-Wales with Nick Jenkins of Freespirit Images who led the photo workshop from a base at Llanerchindda Farm, and several conversations with Andrew Cooper who, apart from having a lot of the same gear as I have, is a definite kindred spirit when it comes to photographic geekery! Check out his website here.

    So let’s start with Image Portfolios. I’ve been meaning for some time to get something together and have been wrestling with whether to put it online, or create something for the iPad. Andrew came up with the perfect solution – Foliobook Portfolio for the iPad – which is amazing and actually hits the online portfolio button as well – here’s the result of my work over the last couple of days – a gallery created from a number of my  Moments like these … images and posts. How does the workflow go … I never thought you’d ask!

    The starting point is the Alloyphoto Lightroom plugin for Dropbox. I created a number of Smart Collections and one Collection Set with several more Smart Collections within the Plugin in the Publish Services Library module of Lightroom and then set about refining my image Ratings and Colour Labels, and updating my Keywording to select the images I wanted to go into each Smart Collection. Doing this carefully now means that whenever I rate, label and keyword an image in the future it will automatically update the Smart Collection and allow easy re-publishing to Dropbox.

    Why Dropbox? Well yes – it would have been nice to use Google Drive, but Foliobook is built upon an infrastructure that relies on Dropbox to import photos to the iPad  other than using your iPad’s Camera Roll. So publish to Dropbox and then link the Category/Galleries you create in Foliobook to Dropbox folders and images, and the updating is almost painless and ridiculously easy … once you’ve got the hang of it. Thanks Andrew – a great piece of advice.

    Incidentally, a secondary benefit of doing it this way, via Dropbox, is that I now have a screen saver for my MacMini and for my Apple TV that link to the same Dropbox folders. Really neat!

    Next it’s the iPad and how can it be used “in the field” with Lightroom Mobile. In a couple of words, it can’t … at least not yet, or not the way I would like to use it. Here’s what’s I would like to do, what’s available, and then what the problem is.

    I (and Andrew) would like to use a WD wireless My Passport hard disk, or in my case alternatively the 128Gb of storage on my new iPad Mini 4, to download our RAW images onto, do some edits and then synchronise them through Creative Cloud back to Lightroom Desktop. Unfortunately, this just isn’t possible – read this to understand why it isn’t possible. I can by selecting RAW+JPEG do the edits in Lr Mobile and synchronise those back to the Desktop as JPEGs but there’s no manageable solution yet (I’m not going to do this, even though I’ve tested it with a single image – and it does work) to tie these edits back to the RAW files when I upload them to Lr Desktop.

    The problem is with both Apple, and Western Digital, the former becuse they insist that all developers only work through their Camera Roll, the latter because their software doesn’t allow you to transfer files from the hard disk into Camera Roll – I believe you have to ask their My Cloud software to do that, which is slow and clunky. So you’re stuck!

    Things may of course change. I’m still looking forward to Apple moving away from Lightning adaptors to USB-C – as on the new MacBook – but they chose not to implement it on the new iPad Pro, so I’m not holding my breath. So for me, it’s still my trusty and heavy MacBook Pro that will continue to accompany me on photo trips.

    However, if you’re working in JPEGs you could use the Camera Connector Kit (SD-card, or USB versions) to upload your images into Camera Roll and then use the excellent Lr Mobile software for edits and sharing to social media, or perhaps Snapseed.

    Lots of words in this post – just had to be written though. Here’s an image from the end of the workshop to break up the text …

    2015 - 1

    … just in case you’re interested,  this is Llewellyn ap Gruffydd Fychan (not Darth Vader) and he stands in front of Llandovery Castle.

  • iCloud, Google Drive, Amazon Drive, Dropbox – what do you do for sharing photos?

    iCloud, Google Drive, Amazon Drive, Dropbox – what do you do for sharing photos?

    If you’re interested in storing and sharing photos in and from “the cloud”, your world has become a little bit more confusing just recently, and will continue to do so whilst the big players position themselves to provide you with services. This post is not about using flickr, 500px, SmugMug or behance, or whatever – that’s another subject altogether. This is about principally cloud storage and sharing with an emphasis upon photographs.

    Let’s start with Dropbox, the first really successful store and share service, and apart from a few privacy/security glitches a little while ago probably the most respected of the solely cloud storage services. If you use Dropbox, and only Dropbox, and you like using Dropbox – perhaps with auto-upload from your smartphone switched on – you can stop reading this post. Nothing has changed. Whew! Yet! Of course you might wish to consider the alternatives …

    An alternative might be to use Amazon Cloud Drive which with its offer for Unlimited Free Photo and Video storage for Amazon Prime subscribers would appear rather attractive. However it’s functionality is very basic and (it would appear from my testing) the only sharing you can do from it is individual photos and that by email only … no thanks! It fails for me. [Another similar option you could use might be Copy, and there are others.]

    Google Drive has become a huge success for photographers due to it allowing up to 2048×2048 pixel images to be stored without counting towards your free storage allowance. Plus, if you want to store full-size images you can do so up to the free limit of 15Gb and beyond that there’s a charge which is reasonable. [See Table below for comparison of costs]. Google Photos and Picasaweb have been integrated, but still retain for old-skool Picasaweb users like me, their separate identities – that’s cool and long may it continue (but I suspect it won’t for long). On the desktop you can use Picasa to edit and upload your images to Google Photos (Picasaweb). On your smartphone you can set your camera to automatically upload your photos, and just recently Google Photos has become fully integrated with Google Drive, meaning you can see your photos uploaded from your device in a Folder on your Google Drive. Also because your Google Drive is a Physical Folder in your desktop file system you can drag and drop using normal file system utilities. Marks out of 10, say 8, because you can do almost everything you might want to with photos, it’s just too complicated to get a 10; too many options or pathways. But if you’re IT-savvy or are able to invest a little time in getting the workflow right for you – this route will not let you down.

    However Google and Apple are NOT friends! Hence this post.

    So today I upgraded to Yosemite 10.3.3 on my #MBP and of course (as Apple is want to do) the iPhoto icon is taken off my Taskbar and replaced by the Photos one – what a cheek! If I still want it there, it is available in my applications folder so a quick drag back to the Taskbar makes it readily available again, but the old Library has been migrated to a new one capable of being read by Photos too); but should I consider the iCloud Photo Library service which comes with the new Photos??? As an Apple user – iMac, Mac Book Pro, iPad and iPhone – it might appear that I’d be mad not to consider using iCloud Photo Library, but what does it actually give me? What might be the sharing opportunities for photos (and videos) stored on iCloud using social media services such as Google+ which I use a lot? How about integrating iCloud Photos with a blogging service such as WordPress (or Blogger). I think you can see where I’m heading.

    Just a little searching this afternoon finds no posts on the subject of iCloud-Google integration, or anything about sharing from iCloud Photos. I guess I need to enable iCloud Photo Storage to find out if it’s possible, but FIRST, perhaps I need to clear out my iPhoto Library so that loads of rubbish isn’t uploaded because immediately I enable iCloud Photos, all my Photo Stream moves out of free storage and becomes part of my 5Gb free entitlement. So you can see 15Gb (Google), 5Gb (Apple) doesn’t match up! Not a great move Apple! Google 1: Apple 0.

    [UPDATE: Since writing the above paragraphs I’ve found out that Apple is confusing things more than I thought possible by distinguishing their iCloud Photo Library from iCloud Photo Sharing. The first counts against your 5GB, the second is free. It’s not clear to me if you can effectively reduce your storage costs by sharing them, but I suspect not as the former is a multi-format full-resolution facility, the latter is for web-sharing and commenting – another social network indeed – shall we call it Apple+ ?]

    Then … how does the integration between iMovie and Photos work … “iCloud Photo Library stores every photo and video you take, making them accessible from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac and on iCloud.com”. Presumably you can upload stuff from the desktop to iCloud.com by installing iCloud on your Mac or PC, but this isn’t being pushed as a feature. Hopefully it is usable, because like Google Drive, your iCloud Drive is a Physical Drive in your file system. It’s just not really intended for anyone who has a requirement that extends beyond Apple. Love them as I do, this is not at first glance, a great move. Google 2: Apple 0 [I will update this paragraph if I’ve maligned them 😉 ]

    So how much would a chargeable monthly service cost from Google and Apple

    Google                                                               Apple

    15 GB Free 5 GB Free
    100 GB  $1.99 20 GB £0.79
    1 TB $9.99 200 GB £2.99
    10 TB $99.99 500 GB £6.99
    20 TB $199.99 1 TB £14.99

    You can see the Google offering is much more attractive. Google 3: Apple 0. Meanwhile, Google has attempted to pre-empt any competition that iCloud Photos could create by providing a route for iOS users to cut-out Photostream (which in itself is on borrowed time given iCloud Photos) altogether and share photos and videos direct to Google+ from your iPhone. Google 4 : Apple 0.

    I can see a few confusing months ahead as the future of Google+ develops with the emergence of the new-branded Google Photos and Streams. I will take-on as I have before the job of Family-Techno-Meister guiding and advising all on the best path to take. Watch this space!

    Why can’t Google and Apple just get along and make it easier for all of us. Of course if Google goes one stage further and just buys twitter – which it might …. where will that leave Apple?

    Next post on “What do you do with storing and sharing Videos”