Looking for feedback: Sort your lightroom photos an Android. Or should that be iPad

[luke.sleeman]

Hey,
I'm a software developer and amateur photographer. I think I have the same problem that many people do - to many photos and not enough time to organise them. I've been tossing around the idea of creating a (paid for) application for Android smart phones and tablets. The application would allow you to download a subset of your LR library, tag and flag photos on your phone, before uploading the metadata back to Lightroom. All final post processing an image manipulation would be done back in Lightroom.

What I want to know is; would anybody pay for such a thing? How much would you pay if it had the following features?

* A Plugin for Lightroom which allows you to export a subset of your photos on your phone/tablet
* An application for android which allows you to tag, rate, flag photos and add colour labels
* The android app will allow you to filter the photos on the phone by flag status, rating, and colour label
* The plugin for Lightroom would allow you to import back in the metadata changes you have made on your phone

I note that there is already an application out for ipads, costing $17, that allows you to do something very similar: Photosmith . Unfortunately, you need to import the photos directly from the camera into the ipad, before sending them into Lightroom. There is no way to get photos already in Lightroom and upload them to your tablet (though they say its coming soon).

I would like to use your feedback, to decide how to proceed. Would anybody pay if I created such an app? Does anybody even have android tablets and phones, or do you all want to use ipads? What features must I add? Is the above feature set enough?

- Luke

 

[lindymagoo]

First post from a noob, so be gentle. I find that my time is the most important commodity I have. I discovered filter storm pro for IPad and haven't looked back. It allows me to edit on the fly, so that I am not tied to my desktop for workflow. For the most part, I love it. There are a few quirks to it that I find aggravating, such as the export process, but that could be due to a limitation of my IPad 1 3G, more than the program itself. As with any program, there is a bit of a learning curve to it, so It took a bit of playing with it to find out it's strengths and weaknesses. It will never replace my desktop computer/editing software, but it does afford me the opportunity to work on my shoots while I travel. Since I have to work a day job to support my photography fix, I use the iPad while I am on my morning or evening commute. That extra 1.5 hours a day adds up.

That being said, as the price point continues to drop on tablets, I think they can be a useful tool for the photographer. I say, continue to develop your idea. There is always a market for fresh offerings in the world of apps. I am not as familiar with the android offerings, but I feel there are very few quality apps out there for the serious photographer in apple land, that are worth the investment of time and money. So, Go for it!!!!!

 

[EPPhoto]

If you can do iPad, can you also make it work with my iPhone 4? I use lightroom for 99% of my work, so that'd be nice. I'd pay $10 for it, if it worked properly!

Get yours completed before the other app upgrades and you may be able to cash in on their being slow to upgrade. Could net you some nice side money!