LRPad was introduced recently and allows control of Lightroom via an iPad. There’s 2 parts to the program. First there’s the iPad app itself, available from the iTunes App Store and then there’s a plugin for Lightroom downloadable from http://www.lrpad.com.
When you start LRPad, the first thing you need to do is set the computer’s IP address. The instructions are there in the Quickstart Guide, but here they are for ease of finding:
On Mac OS X, start “Network Utility” (Applications/Utilities) and select “AirPort (en1)” interface. IP address is shown in interface information sections.
On Windows, start cmd (from Start/Run menu). Then type “ipconfig”, which will list all your active network interfaces, take a note of your wireless interfaces IP address.
In my case my Airport was actually (en2). I entered the IP address and LRPad started immediately. Once in you have a number of screens that control various options.
Basic lets you control the Basic Panel and the Tone Curve parametic points, along with Post Crop Vignette. Details covers the Detail Panel. Colour gives you the equivalent of the HSL ‘All’ View. Camera deals with Manual Lens Profiles and Camera Calibration. The final tab is Metadata, where you see the image metadata and can apply a Label. You can’t edit the other metadata, unless I’m missing something.
With the features that are there, it’s a quick way to edit with external hardware. That said there’s a few little issues. Response time isn’t immediate, but it’s acceptable. Split Toning goes from -100 to 100 in the Saturation sliders for some unknown reason. None of the Tool Strip items are available, and Flags and Ratings are curiously absent.
It’s only just been released, so a lot of this is to be expected for a new product. What it does, it does really well. Hopefully in the future we’ll get even more stuff, but despite the current limitations, I’ve no hesitation at recommending it, especially at the price. Other hardware solutions offer more, but at a much higher price.
