How to Export Photos from Lightroom to the iPad

by Aaron on April 3, 2010

The iPad makes a great device for showing off one’s portfolio. If you use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, there are a couple steps to get your photos onto the iPad. These instructions are for Lightroom 2.6:

The Basics

Pick a folder on your hard drive that you want to use for your photos that you’ll copy to the iPad. I created a “iPad Portfolio” folder.
From Lightroom, export your photos to that location. The iPad’s screen resolution is 1024×768, so you might as well size them for the device since any larger files will only take up excess storage.
Open iTunes (you’ll be using iTunes to copy the files to your iPad).
Plug in your iPad if it’s not already connected.
You should see the iPad listed on the left side of the iTunes window (under DEVICES). Click on the name of your iPad.
Click on the “Photos” tab at the top of the window.
Check the “Sync photos from…” box.
In the dropdown menu (which usually defaults to iPhoto if you have it installed), click on “Choose Folder…”
Select the folder where you placed your photos from Lightroom.
Next time you sync your iPad, the photos should show in the Photos app on the iPad.

Creating Albums

The Photos app on the iPad offers a neat interface for viewing albums of photos, but how does one turn Lightroom files into an album on the iPad? It’s not as hard as you might think.

Albums are created based on the folder structure on disk. So, for example, if you create a Landscapes folder and a Weddings folder inside of the folder that you told iTunes to synchronize, you’ll find a Landscapes album on your iPad along with a Weddings album.

Photo by sciondriver, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Tagged as: ipad, itunes, lightroom, photography, photos

Patiwat Panurach

Don't forget to set Lightroom export to 132 pixels per inch.

This is much higher than the Cinema Displays and most laptop displays, but lower than the 163 PPI display of the iPhone.
Jeff

First, I'm not sure why you'd want to show the iPad photos at less than their max resolution? Why wouldn't you set it to 163 ppi?

Also, iTunes automatically scales down the size of the photos although it's a good idea to scale it down on export to save hard drive space. It's different than an iPod in that you don't have the option to store the full-sized image.
Patiwat Panurach

Exporting at more than 1024×768 and 132 ppi will have zero effect on what is actually shown on the device, because that is the native maximum resolution and pixel density of the device. Presuming you won't zoom, of course.

It's best to have Lightroom do the resizing, rather than the iPad. With Lightroom, you know and can see exactly the result you'll get – who knows what shortcuts the iPad might take in resizing.
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