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G.McGilli

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 19, 2015
614
508
Hi!

Traditionally I take all my photos with my iPhone. Then, I put on my glasses and edit all my photos on my iPhone before submitting them to my work etc. I do have an MPB - but I prefer using photo applications that are touch-enabled (I'm not doing serious Photoshop type stuff)

I just ordered an iPad Pro 12.9 so I won't need to pull out my glasses LOL.

How can I set up my 2 devices so that the NEW photos I take on my iPhone are instantly (if possible) available on my iPad for editing - and then once edited they are back on my iPhone also?

I guess -- How do I keep my photos in sync on 2 devices (not worried about them being available on MBP)

I read about using a shared Photos folder?

I don't want all 100gb of old photos transferring from my phone to iPad - I would prefer to be able to select just the photos I need to edit...

Or should I just use Airdrop to send the photos to the iPad, and then Airdrop them back? (I'd rather edit the originals and not have copies etc)

Taking the photos on the iPAd is not an option for my travels while photographing.

Thanks for your help!
 

G.McGilli

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 19, 2015
614
508
how about iCloud Photo Library?

I just looked into that - and since I have 100gb on my phone (and growing) - not to mention 100's of GB on my Mac I'd have to start paying monthly fees - and it duplicates everything across all devices.

I literally want to have access to about 20 photos a day on my iPad to edit (after ging through 50 photos and choosing from my phone), then they are gone back to my phone. I don't actually want to store anything on the iPad - or have a huge photo library on it.

I just tried a shared folder on it on my iPhone - and it works exactly as I want - except - you can not edit the photos in the folder from another device. Even though it's shared under my account -> to my account on just another device it will not allow edits.

Hmmmm....
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So it looks like Airdrop will be the best... Airdrop photo to iPad, edit it, then Airdrop it back, delete the original unedited file.

SHared folder way is: Share file to a folder. on iPad save the shared photo. Edit it. Share it back to the shared folder. on iPhone save the edited file. Delete the original.

It's just extra steps using the shared folder method.
 
Last edited:

ApfelKuchen

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2012
4,334
3,011
Between the coasts
Airdrop may work better for you.

A bigger question (from my perspective), is do you backup those 100s of GB of photos somewhere? Backup/sync images to a computer?

If you're backing up to iCloud rather than a computer, then it little matters whether you are backing up your camera roll overnight, or syncing it to iCloud Photos - 100s of GBs is 100s of GBs. However, iCloud Photos gives you the added benefit of syncing those images to all your devices. If you do use iCloud Photos you can use the Optimize Storage feature, which means all those 100s of GB of images won't be physically present on the device.

Due to the price of Flash storage (whether on a 256 GB iPhone/iPad or a Mac), paying for iCloud storage may be more economical than paying for large amounts of Flash on multiple devices. Just something to add to your pondering.
 

G.McGilli

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 19, 2015
614
508
Airdrop may work better for you.

A bigger question (from my perspective), is do you backup those 100s of GB of photos somewhere? Backup/sync images to a computer?

If you're backing up to iCloud rather than a computer, then it little matters whether you are backing up your camera roll overnight, or syncing it to iCloud Photos - 100s of GBs is 100s of GBs. However, iCloud Photos gives you the added benefit of syncing those images to all your devices. If you do use iCloud Photos you can use the Optimize Storage feature, which means all those 100s of GB of images won't be physically present on the device.

Due to the price of Flash storage (whether on a 256 GB iPhone/iPad or a Mac), paying for iCloud storage may be more economical than paying for large amounts of Flash on multiple devices. Just something to add to your pondering.

Thanks for that.

What I've been doing since the 90's when digital cameras first started (LOL I still have a 1mb and 4mb Flash memory card) - and even what I do today - is I backup all my photos to my computer - then every year I offload them all onto external storage drives. Then photos are deleted locally on my computer (say from MacOS Photos app)

I do back up everything with google photos also.

I was just looking at Apple Photo Stream - and it sounded perfect! Until I realized that it only transfers reduced quality images between iOS deives. I need full Quality images to transfer.

Airdrop seems to be the best way.

Also - it seems that the Apple services all seem to say they wait until you are on Wi-Fi to transfer the photos around - I need this to be done will out in the field on cellular iPad and phone... Airdrop :)
 
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