Toronto Photography Meetup Group

SHORT STORY
I am not a developer of the Pixelsync App (http://www.pixelsyncapp.com/) and do not benefit from it's sale. I found this app today that will synchronize an Aperture or iPhoto LIBRARY over a wireless network between your iPad and multiple desktop/laptop. On the iPad you can then rapidly set ratings, create and set tags, and view EXIF info. This iPad app IS NOT for editing or processing photos. I installed this app on a MacbookPro (June 2011) with OS X 10.7 Lion and an iPad (2010) with iOS5.

I'M LOVING THIS APP! I can synchronize libraries with my iPad, take them to go, and do some rapid rating/rejecting, and even tagging here and there when I have downtime (waiting for an appointment or taking the bus) without having to lug around the laptop. Then I sync with my MBP and edit them there. And the syncing process is really, really simple.

From the website (http://www.pixelsyncapp.com/) :
What is Pixelsync?
Pixelsync is a popular iPad application for amateur and professional photographers. With Pixelsync, you can import photos from any Aperture or iPhoto library to your iPad*. You can rate, color label, and tag your photos, and sync your work back to Aperture or iPhoto with a single tap.


LONG STORY
Ever since I got my iPad (2010), I have been interested in somehow being able to use it to rapidly select or rate my photos using the iPad and then being able to take those selected photos and edit them in Aperture on my computer (desktop or laptop).

My workflow consists of shooting with in RAW, downloading the card to a Hyperdrive device from a CF card, downloading from the Hyderdrive to my Macbook Pro, some file renaming, and then import the images into Aperture. Once in Aperture, I rapidly cycle through my photos and set the rating to REJECT for all the obvious images (I'd like to say I only reject about 2-3 images in a 100 but it's more like 40% right now). These are images that have no photographic quality - no composition, shots with the lens cap on (yeah, I still do that), out of focus, poor exposure, etc. Then I rate the rest of the images as 1 star, and then cycle through again to find my favourite or best images (subjective of course) that I feel represent the project I'm working on and those get a 5 star rating. Then I do some editing on the best ones and various exports happen that go to iPhoto and other websites.

About a third of the time is spent on the part where I'm rating (selecting/rejecting) photos. And it requires me to sit in front of the Macbook for a considerable amount of time. It can be very boring and I was looking for a way to accomplish this on my iPad. It is more convenient for me to carry around the iPad and quickly pull it out to do some ratings and then put it away. I can do this waiting for an appointment or travelling on the bus or sitting in Second Cup or Starbucks looking like I'm an awesome creative type.

I can't see it being too long before there's an iPhone4 version but I'm more than satisfied with just the iPad version.

I will try my best to answer any questions you have.

Doesn't seem to support Lightroom only the Apple products.

DG

I too use this app to rate on the go. Been using it since May.

One issue is that it often takes a while after each Aperture update for the app to be updated to handle any new compatibility issues. Still, the last update which added EXIF accessibility was welcome.

Parts of the interface feels a bit dodgy, but it works as advertised (when it works at all).