Photosmith…The Wait is Finally Over Plus win a FREE copy!!!

Well, the wait is finally over…Photosmith: The iPad Mobile Companion for Adobe Lightroom is available TODAY from the iTunes App Store [Link]

So what exactly is Photosmith?
Ok so just take a few moments to imagine the following scenario…

You’re out on a Photo Shoot filling up a number of memory cards with valuable image files and when you’re all packed up you get out your iPad Camera Connection Kit and backup all the images onto your iPad for safe keeping. Now, wouldn’t it be really cool if whilst you’re grabbing a coffee and doing a bit of ‘chimping’ you could then look through all of these backed up images and at the same time sort through and tag all the ‘keepers’ and rejected files, maybe add a coloured label or a star rating, add some descriptions and copyright information and then create and arrange them into folders. Then…when you get back to the studio or home all of this sorting, labelling and organising on your iPad wirelessly syncs with Lightroom on your computer whilst you get on with the important things like catching up with your loved ones.

Sound too good to be true? Well with Photosmith that’s exactly what you can do plus alot more and it really is as simple as it sounds…

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Photosmith brings Lightroom synchronization to the iPad

Photosmith introduces sorting and tagging to photographers on the go
(All images provided by Photosmith)

Atlanta, GA. April 26, 2011 – C Squared Enterprises, Inc has released Photosmith for the iPad. Photosmith brings the ability to manage photos using collections, keywords, tagging, ratings, EXIF, and IPTC metadata. Photographers no longer need to wait until they get back to their main computer or drag a laptop to sort through photos or show clients their latest results. With Photosmith, photographers can load their photos directly on the iPad, filter, sort, rate, and keyword while in the field/studio. When they get back to Adobe Lightroom on their Mac or PC they can sync all photos from the iPad to Lightroom and all of their tagging and rating will also transfer with no need to duplicate effort.

Photosmith improves the photographer’s digital workflow, especially flows with RAW images. Photosmith offers viewing of full RAW image data from the latest dSLR cameras in full fidelity and up to 100% zoom; even on 25+ megapixel images. Photosmith offers a grid view for quickly sorting through thumbnails and collections, a loupe view for viewing individual images and tagging, and a full screen view to maximize use of the screen. Users can assign a rating, choose a color label, view the basic EXIF data (shutter speed, ISO, f/stop, and more), or edit the title, caption, or a number of other IPTC fields. All these settings are synchronized with Lightroom using the free Photosmith plugin. Future changes made in Lightroom are saved back to the iPad during a sync as well. See more at: http://bit.ly/PhotosmithTour

Photosmith assists photographers on the go with sharing their photos too. Photos can be sent to Flickr, Facebook, Dropbox, or email. Those sent to Flickr and Facebook maintain their titles and keywords, allowing pros to quickly share and get feedback from their clients, or allows the causal photographer to share photos while on vacation.

Photosmith is the culmination of 24 months of effort and development continues to add new features over time. Users are encouraged to submit feedback and suggestions to help drive the future of the app.

The app is available on the Apple App Store, and is available worldwide for US$17.99 (or the approximate equivalent).

For more information please visit http://www.photosmithapp.com

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* All images in this post are courtesy of Photosmith *

Images that appear in Photosmith can come from a number of sources i.e memory cards by using an Apple Camera Connection Kit, email, Dropbox and so on…basically any images that you have on your iPad that didn’t get there by being synced with iTunes.

Sorting through your images, tagging, adding colour labels, star ratings, descriptions and copyright information is extremely quick and easy thanks to the layout of the interface…

To help streamline the process Photosmith makes use of multi-gestures so for example, images can be ‘picked’ by tapping on them once with two fingers…

Creating a Collection is real easy; simply name the new collection and then press onto one of your ‘picked’ images and then drag it across and drop it ontop of the collection name. To add more than one image at a time all you need do is click on one of your ‘picked’ images and when you drag across, Photosmith brings over the other ‘picked’ images too…

The interface is incredibly easy to navigate around. For example the different layout options i.e Loupe, Grid, and Full Screen are selected from the top left of the screen…

Syncing with Adobe Lightroom
Once back at your main computer to enable Photosmith on your iPad to sync with Lighroom on your computer you first need to download a FREE Lightroom Plug In from the companies blog [Link]

Once installed the sync process works incredibly well. Your image files complete with all the tagging, labelling, descriptions and in their respective collections etc are transferred into your Lightroom catalogue via WiFi leaving you to get on with other more important things. I can’t give you an accurate breakdown of how long it takes for your image files to transfer over into Lightroom because I’ll be honest it’s not something I’ve timed. What I will say though is that I shoot in RAW and transferring files over hasn’t taken that long at all; obviously this all depends on how many files and what size they are but personally speaking I found it surprisingly quick and during the testing I experienced no crashes or issues with the transfer process at all.

Syncing your images with Lightroom isn’t all you can do either; images can be upload directly from the App to Facebook, Flickr and Dropbox plus they can be attached into emails…

Summary
Photosmith works and works extremely well. It is as the description says, a companion to Adobe Lightroom as opposed to an iPad equivalent and with that being said during the time I’ve been using it I’ve found it to be an extremely useful tool.

Sorting through images, labelling, adding descriptions and copyright information isn’t the most stimulating of past times; if I’m in front of my computer with images on the screen I want to be editing rather than doing what I would call the ‘tedious’ tasks. However as odd as it may sound these previously ‘tedious’ tasks are actually made quite enjoyable using Photosmith on the iPad. Maybe one contributing factor to this is because I feel like I’m making better use of my time i.e. rather than just backing up my memory cards, drinking coffee and chimping at the end of a shoot I’m doing something else constructive that’s going to save me time when I get back to the studio/home.

Highly Recommended

Photosmith is available now from the iTunes App Store [Link] priced at $17.99 (£10.99)

Photosmith on Twitter [Link]
Official site: http://www.photosmithapp.com
Support site: http://support.photosmithapp.com

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*** UPDATE: Competition Day 1 has now closed…check back tomorrow for Day 2***

Get yourself a FREE copy of Photosmith

So…how’d you fancy getting a copy of Photosmith for FREE? Well this week I have 3 promotional codes to give away so for today here’s what you need to…

Simply post the following into the ‘comments’ section below:

“I can’t wait any longer…I really want a copy of Photosmith: The iPad mobile companion for Adobe Lightroom”

…and before tomorrow’s post goes live I’ll randomly select a winner and email you a code, oh and don’t worry if you miss out this time…just check back tomorrow for another chance to win.
Enjoy

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