Adobe Lightroom for iPad Likely Coming Soon With Cloud Syncing and $99 Subscription Fee

[Larry-K]

No, sRGB covers the range of colors most commonly seen by the human eye in nature, though it only accounts for roughly 60% of the max range the human eye can see. AdobeRGB ramps up more heavily into green, and only slightly more into blue. I think altogether it accounts for 30% more colors across the spectrum.

I guess you don't have any grass where you are, maybe the sky is rusty orange?

If it were true that there was so much concern for human perception in devising the standard, that would be swell, but sRGB can't even cover cmyk, and I would guess you and everyone else on the planet sees something printed in cmyk virtually everyday, unless they're living in a mud hut. It was originally used because it had such a compressed gamut it displayed reasonably well on cheap HP CRT monitors running Windows.

It has its uses. a lot of inkjet printers insist on it, and if you're looking at a a banner ad or a game screen, who cares, but I have two clients with commonly used blue logos that cannot be reproduced in sRGB with any degree of accuracy, and yes, the difference is readily perceptible to laypeople.

The colors aren't "Bolder", they're clipped.

Maybe people want a RAW converter on an iPad, but since the wider range afforded by RAW images can't be accurately displayed I don't know why, and if your needs aren't that color critical you probably aren't really doing any color proofing.

 

[Renzatic]

I guess you don't have any grass where you are, maybe the sky is rusty orange?

Right. Because as you know, when you watch a movie on your big LCD you paid $1500 for at Best Buy, grass look fuscia because it's sRGB.

If it were true that there was so much concern for human perception in devising the standard, that would be swell, but sRGB can't even cover cmyk, and I would guess you and everyone else on the planet sees something printed in cmyk virtually everyday, unless they're living in a mud hut. It was originally used because it had such a compressed gamut it displayed reasonably well on cheap HP CRT monitors running Windows.

It has its uses. a lot of inkjet printers insist on it, and if you're looking at a a banner ad or a game screen, who cares, but I have two clients with commonly used blue logos that cannot be reproduced in sRGB with any degree of accuracy, and yes, the difference is readily perceptible to laypeople.

The colors aren't "Bolder", they're clipped.

Maybe people want a RAW converter on an iPad, but since the wider range afforded by RAW images can't be accurately displayed I don't know why, and if your needs aren't that color critical you probably aren't really doing any color proofing.

Yes, there are some colors that can't be accurately reproduced in sRGB. This is true. The fact is though, just about anyone outside the print industry who stares at these colors day in and day out would be hard pressed to tell those shades in blue and green that can't be reproduced on a 99.9% of all standard CRT and LCD screens.

And explain to me what you mean by colors looking "clipped". Like when you switch from an AdobeRGB image to an sRGB image, they look less bold? Yeah, I already covered that. You lose boldness in the conversion. That's why you want to work with sRGB when making digital media, you don't want to use Adobe at all.

Also, read this. It sounds like, as a professional working in some industry or another, you need to educate yourself a little more on exactly how the color gamuts work, and where they're used.

Edit: to blow your mind, the screen on the iPad 3, 4, and Air is actually just about on par with a 2011 Apple Thunderbolt display when it comes to displaying color information. Would you ever tell anyone they can't edit RAWs on one of those?

Honestly, it's a rare, rare to get a monitor that can display 90% of the AdobeRGB gamut that costs less than $2000 $1299. The Thunderbolt display only covers 75% of it.

 

[kalsta]

You're right, moving a (little) bit of metadata from app-to-app isn't that big of a deal. Because some of the data in question is standardized. So if you want to migrate things like keywords, copyright data, ratings and such—between apps—you're probably alright. However, even ratings start to get tricky. In the case of Aperture vs. Lightroom, for example, a "reject" is considered a form of rating in Aperture. While in Lightroom a rejection is not a rating it's a "flag". So right there, even with the simple, standard stuff, there's room to start losing data.

The bigger issue comes with things that can not ever migrate. If you start organizing folders and sub-folders (Collections) in Lightroom, there is no way that iCloud could make sense of this stuff. As soon as you touch the Exposure slider (and all others) in Lightroom then Aperture, iCloud, Capture One, _______ would have no idea what that means. Now you're talking two different "languages" and there's no translation between it and some-other-app's version of the same thing.

Point being: of the massive list of attributes that could be considered "metadata"… only a tiny portion of that stuff can move around and be made sense of from app to app.

Okay, I think we're talking about two different things now. You seem to be talking about migrating from one company's app to another's. If there's no standard way of representing the data, then you need to translate the data and import, which can be a tricky business like you say. But that problem isn't unique to iCloud—it's a problem anywhere, even on the desktop.

iCloud is not the tool for this job. (Unless the job is shuttling around flattened JPEGs, abandoning the non-destructive nature that an app like LR and/or Aperture offer.)

iCloud is just a platform for storing and moving data around. It shouldn't (in theory, but more on that in a moment) matter what kind of data it is. To a computer it's all just data. It offers developers various APIs for them to build remote storage and data transfer into their own apps. So when you started talking about all the metadata associated with images (even a filing system can be thought of as metadata) I wondered why that makes iCloud inherently unsuitable for the task. Your personal experience with the complexity of migrating between apps can't answer that question—only a developer's understanding of iCloud's APIs can.

Now, having said all that, I have to be honest and say I am not a Mac or iOS developer either (I do web development and some programming, but my knowledge of iCloud is limited.) Also, I have heard rumblings from developers that iCloud is far from easy to incorporate reliably, so I wouldn't have been entirely surprised if you had said you were a developer who had found iCloud to be lacking. In theory though, I think iCloud is supposed to allow for the kind of syncing even a serious photographer would want.

Is the price right? Not for me. Sure I get it: you're a pro—you've already got a $20,000 camera bag, what's another $100? Well, considering that LR outright is $150, the mobile app for $100 is a little too much I think. But when we talk about a RECURRING $100 for eternity… no thanks. I'm out.

It's so very close to working w/o the subscription nonsense.

On that point I see we agree.

 

[trewyn15]

Simple, don't buy their products and service until this crap is over with.

I'm still using CS3 and CS6, it's more than good enough.

Soon my CS4 & CS5 will be worth lot of money for resale.

Problem is, there's never enough people willing to do this to make a large enough movement.

 

[kalsta]

I'm not really one of the Adobe apologists. I just edited the old post with a strikethrough and updated note. It's weird because I know I read through their EULA, even if it was some time ago.

Hey, a big thumbs up for accepting correction and editing your post in such a transparent way. Respect! Very few commenters do that sort of thing.

I'm still on CS6 personally. For smaller projects it's not like some of these guys couldn't use Krita or Gimp. If possible I will avoid migrating to the subscription model. I used to upgrade every other version or so. Then they made it harder to do that with the full creative suite and jammed in ".5" releases. Now they're on a perpetual payment model, and it doesn't necessarily mean bug fix patterns will be any smoother.

Your experience sounds similar to mine, and I agree.

 

[Larry-K]

Right. Because as you know, when you watch a movie on your big LCD you paid $1500 for at Best Buy, grass look fuscia because it's sRGB.

Yes, there are some colors that can't be accurately reproduced in sRGB. This is true. The fact is though, just about anyone outside the print industry who stares at these colors day in and day out would be hard pressed to tell those shades in blue and green that can't be reproduced on a 99.9% of all standard CRT and LCD screens.

And explain to me what you mean by colors looking "clipped". Like when you switch from an AdobeRGB image to an sRGB image, they look less bold? Yeah, I already covered that. You lose boldness in the conversion. That's why you want to work with sRGB when making digital media, you don't want to use Adobe at all.

Also, read this. It sounds like, as a professional working in some industry or another, you need to educate yourself a little more on exactly how the color gamuts work, and where they're used.

Edit: to blow your mind, the screen on the iPad 3, 4, and Air is actually just about on par with a 2011 Apple Thunderbolt display when it comes to displaying color information. Would you ever tell anyone they can't edit RAWs on one of those?

Honestly, it's a rare, rare to get a monitor that can display 90% of the AdobeRGB gamut that costs less than $2000 $1299. The Thunderbolt display only covers 75% of it.

Those monitors are not rare at all, clearly you're a bit confused about the difference between media. Were you planning on making a movie with Lightroom?

Do you really think scrimping on a monitor you're going to use day in and out to edit millions of dollars of work in a professional environment is a good business strategy?

You can edit on a Thunderbolt Display if you like, Just don't expect me to hire you. The thunderbolt display is just a brainless iMac, and it's a consumer grade product. I use one for a spreadsheet on occasion, and it seems up to the task.

Please define "Boldness" as a color attribute.

As for education, thanks for a link to a simplistic, out of date, consumer approach to color management. If you consider that educational, then by all means feel free to spend the $99 on the iPad Lightroom and convert RAWs to your heart's content, although these days, an iPad won't hold all that many RAW files.

 

[Renzatic]

Those monitors are not rare at all, clearly you're a bit confused about the difference between media. Were you planning on making a movie with Lightroom?

Do you really think scrimping on a monitor you're going to use day in and out to edit millions of dollars of work in a professional environment is a good business strategy?

No, but anyone making a movie is going to use an sRGB monitor. Or at least edit in sRGB color space. Projectors are digital these days, and directors are going to want to make sure their movies look right being displayed on every consumer TV available.

When you walk into a store and see one of those new, high quality 4k TVs, do you think their colors are lacking? Every single one of them is built around the sRGB gamut.

You can edit on a Thunderbolt Display if you like, Just don't expect me to hire you. The thunderbolt display is just a brainless iMac, and it's a consumer grade product. I use one for a spreadsheet on occasion, and it seems up to the task.

If you work primarily with print, no. For digital media, they're pretty alright.

Please define "Boldness" as a color attribute.

Vividness of colors. How bright your reds, greens, blues, and various mixes of the three are. If you're working on a photo in AdobeRGB color space, and you look at it on a monitor that can't run that extra 30% of the gamut, your bright colors will look more muted in comparison. Your shots will look terrible. But if you edit in sRGB in Photoshop/Lightroom, it's going to look great on any monitor or TV you view it on (unless it's a really terrible monitor). That's because AdobeRGB images don't convert down well.

As for education, thanks for a link to a simplistic, out of date, consumer approach to color management.

I've provided three links that say the exact same thing, and all you're doing is playing the "well, I'm a professional and you don't know what you're talking about" card. If you want more, I can throw them your way. Everyone single one of them is going to say the exact same thing: AdobeRGB for print, sRGB for digital media.

Since I've been so gracious to provide evidence backing up my claim, why don't you do the same, and provide me a link explaining how I'm wrong?

If you consider that educational, then by all means feel free to spend the $99 on the iPad Lightroom and convert RAWs to your heart's content, although these days, an iPad won't hold all that many RAW files.

A 128GB iPad could hold a decent amount. Keep in mind I'm not saying it's the perfect place to do it, just that it has the potential to be capable of it.

 

[DigMe]

People keep talking about editing their raw files (raw is not an acronym btw, no need for caps) on iPad but probably the most practical option will be to use the new smartpreviews feature which uses WAY less space and computing power and is totally practical for iPad. In fact now I wonder if smartpreviews was created specifically with iPad LR in mind.

Not only would this be much more peactical with an iPads space/power limitations but it would also sync way faster with the full version of Lightroom. There is currently an iPad app called Photosmith that allows you to preview, flag etc.. Your photos on iPad and then when you get back on your wifi network it automatically syncs with LR and uploads all those photos. One big limitation with it though is that the wifi sync is slow with all those big files.

 

[tizeye]

Let's see....
Adobe Photoshop Touch app, one time $9.99 with future updates.
Adobe Photoshop Express app, free (I think as installed and just has option to update)
Adobe LR app, $99/year subscription. I think Adobe has lost their mind!

Granted, both "Photoshop" apps are marginal at best and I never use Express after initial, at that price, with or without subscription, will have to be a bangup program that Adobe has never produced on a mobile platform. A particular key is what is the interactions of the different versions on different machines, particularly recognition of catalogs in the library.

----------

I may be wrong, but does the iPad import a copy of the RAW file? I always thought it was the jpg subset of the RAW file for quicker transfer and less processor demand. As a result, you have lost the advantages of RAW with a highly compressed file before you even launch an app.

While some iPads have Retina displays, can they be calibrated? The answer to that is no. So you are now doing critical post processing with a highly compressed file on an uncalibrated monitor in an undefined colorspace.

 

[NY Guitarist]

I'm firmly in the category of NOT buying any subscription based software product, especially anything that requires my machine to be connected to a remote server to be functional.

Along with current computers I have older computer systems that are locked into an OS and apps that are compatible with that OS that still function.

Any chance that my software will stop working due to anything other than a problem with my specific system is a NO.

 

[jc1350]

Agreed.

I don't know if my password was one of the leaked ones. I changed it anyway.

Your action is always the best in these situations. You can find out if it was part of the Adobe or a few other major breaches at https://haveibeenpwned.com.

This site was offered/suggested by zdnet (http://www.zdnet.com/how-to-find-out-if-your-password-has-been-stolen-7000023990/) and the only input is a username or email address.

 

[patseguin]

Can't wait personally. The subscription model doesn't really bother me because we'd pay for upgrades anyways. If you don't like subscriptions, stay with CS3 which is perfectly fine IMO.

 

[Commy1]

Wow this will be a hard decision for me...
If I can make my entire photo taking and storage system wireless it'd be so convenient.
Eye-Fi card uploads to Lightroom on iPad which is stored on a cloud which I can then access later on macbook and import into heftier software. Get rid of the need for an external photo storage HD because of this silly 256GB integrated SSD.
Then again... Eye-Fi card uploads to Shuttersnitch for viewing in the field and uploads to Free Eye-Fi cloud which I can access on MacBook...
Decisions decisions...

 

[soulbot]

Three Things

Okay, I think we're talking about two different things now. You seem to be talking about migrating from one company's app to another's.

Yep. But I don't think it's all that different. (Although, admittedly, I was making a bit of an assumption that wasn't accurate. More on that later...) Essentially though, I was describing one process—as an analogy for another, very similar process. Catalog - transfer/sync - Catalog.

As I see it, there are 3 main components to this whole system that we're talking about:

1.) A device. Computer where a catalog is manipulated.
2.) A portal or conduit. This could be a hard drive, but we're really talking more about the web. So call it iCloud, Creative Cloud, Dropbox, Sugar Sync, e-mail… whatever. It's a mechanism for transferring / syncing data.
3.) Another device. The (same) catalog gets viewed here.

So, in my example there was my computer + Aperture || a hard drive || the same computer + Lightroom. Three components. The "glitch" came in because the two apps weren't talking the same language. So data died in the process. There was a flaw in my components (incompatible "catalogs" between Adobe & Apple) that prevented a perfect transfer of data. I had a device with a catalog, a transfer/syncing mechanism, a resulting catalog on my device. My tale was an example: A hiccup with any one component (in my example, the transfer mechanism) breaks things. Ultimately, we're talking about the same thing with Mobile Lightroom: Computer + catalog || transfer/sync || iPad + catalog.

A functioning model already exists today—because all three components work fully. Lightroom on one computer. Catalog in Dropbox. "Second Computer" sees all edits made on Computer #1 via the portal that is Dropbox. So when all three components are in place, we're totally good to go.

Could iCloud fulfill this data transfer/syncing process, in lieu of Dropbox et al? Probably so.

But when we're talking about "Mobile Lightroom" we're talking about a workflow that still requires our 3 components. Lightroom Catalog on computer, internet/LAN connection (syncing), Lightroom on my iPad. So I suppose the problem I saw when I imagined your workflow was a missing component: there's Lightroom, there's iCloud and on the iPad there's ________? I was assuming that you were implying that iCloud could handle two of our three components. That it could be a viewing mechanism on the iPad in addition to being the syncing mechanism. So, as assumptions usually go, it lead to a funky fork in the conversation. Sorry for the confusion I imposed.

At the end of the day we still don't necessarily end up with a working combination in my mind. There could be the combination of Lightroom on Computer + iCloud + ________ on the iPad? To really make this work we would want Lightroom on the computer, and Lightroom on the iPad. Since the transfer mechanism is innate here though, iCloud becomes unnecessary. But now we're hung paying $100 a year to sync things. Still not a win for me.

In theory though, I think iCloud is supposed to allow for the kind of syncing even a serious photographer would want.

So…short story long: Yes, you're correct, iCloud could indeed be used to move a bundle of metadata. But with LR on a computer, iCloud as our vehicle, we're still missing one component to a seamless tablet experience—the iPad app. Involving iCloud alone is not enough. We need three things. Now—if there were a one-time purchase iPad version of Lightroom, for $20 (or whatever) that eschewed the mobile syncing, but allowed syncing elsewhere (Dropbox, Sugar Sync, iCloud) we'd be in business! But, obviously, Adobe has very little incentive to do this.

 

[Porchdog711]

Loco

Here we live in the world of high sales volume but low cost Apps. This is the iPhone, iPad world created by Apple. Along comes Adobe with their same old 10 year old school ideas on getting hundreds of dollars for programs, and they think that this will float. I have news for them.

Just not NO, but Hell NO!!!!!!!

 

[Renzatic]

Here we live in the world of high sales volume but low cost Apps. This is the iPhone, iPad world created by Apple. Along comes Adobe with their same old 10 year old school ideas on getting hundreds of dollars for programs, and they think that this will float. I have news for them.

Just not NO, but Hell NO!!!!!!!

Yeah, because selling a program that costs millions of dollars to make, and employees dozens of people to make it should be sold on the app store for a buck fifty because selling it for what its worth is somehow "old school".

Really?

 

[Larry-K]

I've provided three links that say the exact same thing, and all you're doing is playing the "well, I'm a professional and you don't know what you're talking about" card. If you want more, I can throw them your way. Everyone single one of them is going to say the exact same thing: AdobeRGB for print, sRGB for digital media.

Since I've been so gracious to provide evidence backing up my claim, why don't you do the same, and provide me a link explaining how I'm wrong?

You know, if I had an unlimited amount of spare time, I'd like nothing better that to enumerate the failings in your argument, but I've already worked the better part of a hundred hour week, and I'd like to take enough time off to watch a football game this evening.

Let's just say that you've missed one important premise. and that is that in the commercial world, content is re-purposed all the time. Something starts out as a high quality print image then it's distilled down into something used on the web, when it goes the other way it's usually not good. If you want to go with "Garbage in, garbage out" mentality, you'll find no shortage of companions. I'd link you to a board where color professionals whine about the shortcomings of Adobe RGB, but I doubt you'd appreciate it.

Of course you would know more than a professional, you're on the internet and this forum, and that makes you special. Since your needs are encompassed by sRGB and a tablet, that's all anybody else really needs.

Do you even own a RAW converter?

 

[Renzatic]

You know, if I had an unlimited amount of spare time, I'd like nothing better that to enumerate the failings in your argument, but I've already worked the better part of a hundred hour week, and I'd like to take enough time off to watch a football game this evening.

Let's just say that you've missed one important premise. and that is that in the commercial world, content is re-purposed all the time. Something starts out as a high quality print image then it's distilled down into something used on the web, when it goes the other way it's usually not good. If you want to go with "Garbage in, garbage out" mentality, you'll find no shortage of companions. I'd link you to a board where color professionals whine about the shortcomings of Adobe RGB, but I doubt you'd appreciate it.

Of course you would know more than a professional, you're on the internet and this forum, and that makes you special. Since your needs are encompassed by sRGB and a tablet, that's all anybody else really needs.

Do you even own a RAW converter?

You can puff out your chest, put your hands on your hips, and talk about how awesome of a professional you are, but you're failing to address what I've already proven to you time and time again.

sRGB is used EVERYWHERE. It is the DIGITAL STANDARD. And yes, you're right. Assets are repurposed time and time again in The Industry. But if you're working on something that's destined to be seen via a digital medium, why would you edit a photo or movie in AdobeRGB, only to have to do twice the amount of work when you have to reedit it to sRGB to make sure it'll look good on standard consumer televisions? You can't convert down from one color space to another without messing up everything you've already done.

And it's not like the raw files depreciates over time. It's still got that color information in there, waiting to be edited in Adobe color space if it's being sent off for print.

One thing I've noticed in all my time on the internet is that people who are genuinely knowledgeable tend to explain to me how and where I'm wrong in a very straightforward, usually congenial manner. Yeah, I'm wrong sometimes. It happens. I've been corrected before, and I'll be corrected again.

On the other hand, people who don't know as much as the like to think they do tend to go on and on about how much they know in some vague, generalized fashion that doesn't actually address a single think I've said. Well, other than a "olol, that's wrong, and I should know because I'm a professional". Sometimes a rolleyes emote gets thrown in to emphasize the DISDAIN!

So am I 100% right on this? Probably not. I'm not an expect, nor do I claim to be. But I'm starting to get the impression that I know more about this than you do. Hell, I'm the only one in this conversation who's thrown out a technical explanation, and backed it up with proof. All you've done is talk about how much of a pro you are, then ask if I own a RAW converter.

 

[Larry-K]

You can puff out your chest, put your hands on your hips, and talk about how awesome of a professional you are, but you're failing to address what I've already proven to you time and time again.

sRGB is used EVERYWHERE. It is the DIGITAL STANDARD. And yes, you're right. Assets are repurposed time and time again in The Industry. But if you're working on something that's destined to be seen via a digital medium, why would you edit a photo or movie in AdobeRGB, only to have to do twice the amount of work when you have to reedit it to sRGB to make sure it'll look good on standard consumer televisions? You can't convert down from one color space to another without messing up everything you've already done.

And it's not like the raw files depreciates over time. It's still got that color information in there, waiting to be edited in Adobe color space if it's being sent off for print.

One thing I've noticed in all my time on the internet is that people who are genuinely knowledgeable tend to explain to me how and where I'm wrong in a very straightforward, usually congenial manner. Yeah, I'm wrong sometimes. It happens. I've been corrected before, and I'll be corrected again.

On the other hand, people who don't know as much as the like to think they do tend to go on and on about how much they know in some vague, generalized fashion that doesn't actually address a single think I've said. Well, other than a "olol, that's wrong, and I should know because I'm a professional". Sometimes a rolleyes emote gets thrown in to emphasize the DISDAIN!

So am I 100% right on this? Probably not. I'm not an expect, nor do I claim to be. But I'm starting to get the impression that I know more about this than you do. Hell, I'm the only one in this conversation who's thrown out a technical explanation, and backed it up with proof. All you've done is talk about how much of a pro you are, then ask if I own a RAW converter.

So you don't.

 

[kalsta]

So…short story long: Yes, you're correct, iCloud could indeed be used to move a bundle of metadata. But with LR on a computer, iCloud as our vehicle, we're still missing one component to a seamless tablet experience—the iPad app. Involving iCloud alone is not enough. We need three things. Now—if there were a one-time purchase iPad version of Lightroom, for $20 (or whatever) that eschewed the mobile syncing, but allowed syncing elsewhere (Dropbox, Sugar Sync, iCloud) we'd be in business! But, obviously, Adobe has very little incentive to do this.

Yes, we're talking about two things in addition to Lightroom for Mac—Lightroom for iPad and some form of cloud syncing. That much is clear from the title of the article. The only reason I brought up iCloud originally, was in response to someone who was trying to justify the rumoured $99 annual fee as being for syncing, rather than for the app itself. I simply pointed out that iCloud was free. Apple has provided developers like Adobe with APIs to make free use of iCloud and pass that onto their customers should they so desire.

Of course, Adobe may prefer to roll its own solution and charge $99 a year for it. Who knows. Who cares. All I really know is I won't be signing up any time soon.

 

[kalsta]

sRGB is used EVERYWHERE. It is the DIGITAL STANDARD. And yes, you're right. Assets are repurposed time and time again in The Industry. But if you're working on something that's destined to be seen via a digital medium, why would you edit a photo or movie in AdobeRGB, only to have to do twice the amount of work when you have to reedit it to sRGB to make sure it'll look good on standard consumer televisions? You can't convert down from one color space to another without messing up everything you've already done.

I disagree with this. I tend to do my colour correction in Adobe RGB first. That's what takes the bulk of time—getting the brightness, colour balance, saturation, etc right. From there I can output to either CMYK for print, or sRGB for web. (I'm talking about photos of course. Not sure how you would output a movie to CMYK!) Sure, there's going to be a bit of clipping in the conversion from a larger gamut to a smaller one, but that's what you're paying Photoshop to do for you, and generally it does a pretty good job. Seriously, who wants to have to do almost identical corrections to the same image twice? I haven't got time for that, and no client would want to pay me for twice the amount of work and nothing much to show for it.

 

[thekev]

You know, if I had an unlimited amount of spare time, I'd like nothing better that to enumerate the failings in your argument, but I've already worked the better part of a hundred hour week, and I'd like to take enough time off to watch a football game this evening.

Let's just say that you've missed one important premise. and that is that in the commercial world, content is re-purposed all the time. Something starts out as a high quality print image then it's distilled down into something used on the web, when it goes the other way it's usually not good. If you want to go with "Garbage in, garbage out" mentality, you'll find no shortage of companions. I'd link you to a board where color professionals whine about the shortcomings of Adobe RGB, but I doubt you'd appreciate it.

Of course you would know more than a professional, you're on the internet and this forum, and that makes you special. Since your needs are encompassed by sRGB and a tablet, that's all anybody else really needs.

Do you even own a RAW converter?

As you point out, Adobe RGB is quite limiting. It can't reproduce some of the primaries that may arise in processing files from any of the medium format digital brands. It comes up to a lesser degree with dslrs, and even minor red bloom can make both issues even worse. I'm a little puzzled by the focus on gamut at times though. If you were preparing something that would run on a particular CMYK device, most of those devices will not be able to reproduce the most saturated reds and greens. You might get close with a touch plate, but that's quite costly. Specifically in terms of raw processing you retain the issue of clipping out of gamut colors with relative colorimetric processing from xCameraRGB -> Adobe RGB. You can use masking and export variations, but you will have to do some manual checking for clipping, as the Adobe RGB monitor still wouldn't show all of that. I don't see a huge difference visually when comparing sRGB to Adobe RGB displays on the majority of images assuming both are of comparable quality. It's not that it's a non-priority, but I would call it a secondary one below uniformity, gamma, and consistent color temperature from white to black.

The Adobe RGB gamut is much more deficient when it comes to browns or maroons than green and red if it's to be viewed on typical consumer devices or used in printed form. It's hard to see on current displays whether you should expect a nice clean black from certain settings. I also somewhat disagree on the distillation analogy. I mean the whole method of ICC conversions is typically

RGB-->LAB--->RGB and it's just matrix A x B x C

IIRC and there's a spec for XYZ as well. I can't remember how it handles rounding or truncation, as these are all integer values. Floating point doesn't work with ICC profiles.

Out of bounds are mostly clipped unless you want to squish things in a weird way. It's clipped rather than examined through LUT reference, because of the need to conform to a non-linear workflow where most generic corrections are made within the space of a theoretical machine.



That grew quite long. I have a very costly Adobe RGB display here. Previously I used older sRGB displays at previous jobs, all of which were of high quality. I don't necessarily find the gamut in itself to deliver a more accurate view of how something would look printed compared to the older ones. It's just that most of the displays made today of suitable quality moved to the Adobe RGB panels, so anything current that I compare to in the way of sRGB displays is likely to be inferior.

 

[e-coli]

I've already worked the better part of a hundred hour week,

I look forward to not seeing 80% of the millions of extra colors you're agonizing over because they can't or won't be reproduced.

I personally know photographers who shoot for National Geographic who do their field editing on a MacBook Air. That screen doesn't have anywhere near the gamut of an iPad Air.

How exhausting. Is the iPad a good fit for you? No, clearly not. Move on. Is it good for 95% of people editing photos? Yes. Lightroom on iOS would be a great tool for them.

Hopefully you watched some football and had more than a few beers. You're wound pretty tight.

 

[downpour]

Despite having a CC licence and the latest top of the range 15" Retina MacBook pro I still haven't installed Lightroom on my system because it's far too cumbersome to deal with my 200GB+ of photos.

I don't understand how anyone could conceive of using a program like that on an iPad, even if it only uses the smaller offline versions of the images. The screen real-estate of the iPad wouldn't be enough for Lightroom's complex interface for a start.

 

[DigMe]

LR has no problem at all dealing with my photos on a PC that's probably older than your MacBook and I definitely have more than 200GB from my photography business. Actually the amount of photos that you have is irrelevant. You can choose to have them in different catalogs if you want. There is no faster method of organization and editing large sets of photos than Lightroom and that's why the large majority of working portrait, wedding and events photographers use it. IMO the editing is more intuitive than most other power-user oriented editors as well.