November 9, 2009
Using Lightroom for your iPhone Photos
The new Publish option in Lightroom 3 Beta allows you a handy way to control what photos are on your iPhone without iPhoto. Fortunately iTunes allows you to select a folder that will sync to the iPhone instead.
First up, create a folder called iPhone on your hard drive. Next, in Lightroom 3 Beta’s Library Module, go to the Publish Services section on the bottom of the left panel. Click on the ‘+’ beside ‘Publish Services’ and choose ‘Manage Publish Connections’. This opens a dialog box that’s remarkably similar to Export.
The left hand side has 2 panels, Connections and Post Process Actions. Click ‘Add’ at the bottom of Connections. In the Dialog box that pops up, choose ‘Hard Drive’ from Via Service. Next name the Connection ‘iPhone’. Click Create.
Now go through the settings. For Export Location, go to the folder ‘iPhone’ that you created at the start. Don’t tick a Subfolder. For the settings I recommend Jpeg, sRGB, Quality 75, 960px long edge (to allow zooming in on the iPhone), 72ppi, Sharpen for Screen. I’ve added a Watermark, that up to you, if you want one. Once the settings are done, click Save. You’ll now see a new Bar in Publish: ‘Hard Drive:iPhone’.
Right Click on this and choose ‘Create Published Folder’ to add a folder to this. Each folder will be a selectable album that you can transfer in iTunes. Repeat for all the different albums you want.
Add files to the Published Folders and then click on the folder and click the Publish button (it replaces Export). You’ll need to do this for each folder.
Now connect your iPhone. In iTunes, click on your iPhone Icon and then go to the Photos tab. Click on the ‘Sync photos from’ flyout menu. Click ‘Choose Folder..’ and then navigate to your iPhone folder and click ‘Open’. If you want to pick and choose folders, click ‘Selected Folders’.
Finally click Apply. You can now control the photos on the iPhone from Lightroom.
All text and and images ©2009 Sean McCormack. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be reproduced without permission.