Lightroom mobile as primary editing solution?

[johna76373788]

Hi there, have two question that I'm hoping I can get clarity on.

I am planning on using an iPad at certain stages as my primary device with lightroom, so not just as a secondary system through sync while out and about, but actually to start and finish the job all on the iPad. I understand there are limitations, but I wanted to clarify a couple things.

If I start a collection on lightroom mobile, will that collection immediately appear on my desktop irrespective of the catalog I have running at the time or do I first have to setup the collection in a catalog on my desktop before leaving, then start the job on the iPad in the new synced collection?

Lastly, if I start the job on the iPad, I believe unlike the other way around, smart previews are not created and synced to my desktop, but the full RAW images are synced across. This is incredibly time consuming dues to size. Can I, on my return to the my desktop, copy the same RAW files into the catalog, into the same collection to speed up the sync and see the results immediately? Or do I have to wait until all RAW's have synced across?

Many Thanks for your help.

[Moved from Photography​ to Lightroom for mobile & Apple TV​ by a moderator]

[Michael J. Hoffman]

Hi Johna,

LR Mobile will sync with one and only one master desktop catalog. If you try to sign in to sync a new catalog from the desktop, it will remove all previous LR Mobile data from the server side. You’ll need to manage your LR Mobile activity from a single catalog, using Collections to organize.

Regarding the syncing of Raw files over the web from your mobile to desktop, this is currently the only way for syncing to work. You can transfer the raws to LR desktop directly, but it will be outside of the syncing process and the synced photos will still come across. There’s no way to match a Raw file that you import directly from a mobile device with a set of adjustments made on the device (unless you wait for the sync to complete and just swap out the file).

Mike