Instagram is all about pictures, so it’s kinda funny that I’ve only just started using it. Nonetheless, I’ve fallen in love with it. I love that I can post to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter all at once, and if i’ve tagged someone it automatically seeks out their Twitter handle, too.
I hate that I can’t post images using my computer.
The Perfect Solution
I prefer to share finished images, photographs that’ve been through Lightroom for a little polish, and I rarely like what my iPhone shoots because I prefer to use telephoto lenses. My GH4 beams pictures directly to my phone or iPad, so I often share images directly from the camera, but many still require finishing before sharing. There are several workarounds people use to get their pictures from their computers onto their phones for Instagram. Some use dropbox, I was using facebook and saving my own picture from there (tedious). My dropbox fills too quickly, and it means I have to create a file from Lightroom and then post it to Dropbox, and I don’t like all those steps. But I’ve just realized that Lightroom Mobile is the perfect solution.
Make a Collection
All you have to do is make a collection of images in Lightroom 5. You can do it in the Library Module or the Develop Module. Just select images you’d like in the collection, then click the + sign on Collections tab on the left. You can add more images anytime from within Lightroom.
Login and Download
Lightroom 5 may have invited you to login with your Adobe ID, and, like me, you may have ignored it and disabled the “Sync with Lightroom mobile” switch in the identity plate at the top left. Well, you’ve got to enable it for this to work, but you don’t have to leave it enabled all the time. You’ll also need to download Lr Mobile for your iPhone or iPad.
Sync Collections
The last thing to do on your computer is to click the little check box next to your collections that allows them to sync with Lr Mobile. The cool thing is, you can check and uncheck these boxes anytime, and Lightroom will simply remove the pictures from your mobile devices for you. You can also remove them in Lr Mobile to control your memory space. In this image I’ve sync’d a collection of images recently shot on Kodak films.
Launch the app on your device, login with your Adobe ID and you’ll see your sync’d collections handy and ready for viewing/editing.
Share to Device
To get your pictures out of Lightroom and into your photos app, just click the icon in the top right corner, and choose Share, then Save Image. Now your photograph is in your photos app and it’s ready to go up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, G+, Ello, LinkedIn, or wherever else you want to send it. You can also share your images from within Lr Mobile with people standing next to you.
See how great this is? I didn’t have to create new jpegs from my RAWs (or TIFFs, in the case of scanned negatives), and I don’t have to jumps through hoops loading the photographs to different apps and downloading. Lightroom keeps itself up to date across devices and let’s me share my finished images from my phone, both online and in person. Initially, I was having a hard time seeing where Lr Mobile fits in my workflow, but the more I mess around with it, the more I realize it’s the perfect tool.
Join Rob Sylvan and I for a Google+ Hangout to Dive Deep into Lr Mobile with none other than Lightroom Product Manager, Sharad Mangalik. I’m so excited to see what master techniques Sharad will share with us.
You can also do the same sort of thing for Flickr; it lets you save from your photostream to the device, and then share to Instagram from there. Good for those of us without massive iPhone capacities :)
Thank you, Levi.
I’m not a user of LightRoom as I do most of my post in PhotoShop and the flow works better for me.
Though after reading your article, I may try LR mobile since I have a year subscription of the Creative Cloud. I’m still exploring through all it’s features.
Thanks for the good tip. You can also use the “Open In…” option instead of “Share” and choose Instagram (you need to have the app installed) and the image opens right in Instagram where you can add hashtags and share with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr all at the same time. It’s pretty much the same except you don’t have to move the image to the Photos app to make it work.
After I read this it occurred to me that you can also use the Keyboard shortcuts on the iPad to easily add hashtags that use regularly.
Thanks, Michael! I’ve seen the option, but Instagram isn’t one of my options in there. I wonder if it’s because I had Lr Mobile before I had instagram…?
Might need to add Instagram to your share menu. I believe I had to do that in order for “Open In” to appear.
Finally, come to the solution! But I’m thinking about the Lr desktop, I want to integrate Lr to Instagram. So only the solution I found, it is the plugin called “LR/Instagram” This will save a total lot of time. Hopefully, it will come handy for the user of Lr desktop.
I like this idea, but the only problem I found is that I was not able to watermark my pictures when using LR mobile. Do you have any idea as a workaround?
Thank you, Levi.
I’m not a user of LightRoom as I do most of my post in PhotoShop and the flow works better for me.
Though after reading your article, I may try LR mobile since I have a year subscription of the Creative Cloud. I’m still exploring through all it’s features.
I like this idea, but the only problem I found is that I was not able to watermark my pictures when using LR mobile. Do you have any idea as a workaround?
Thanks for the good tip. You can also use the “Open In…” option instead of “Share” and choose Instagram (you need to have the app installed) and the image opens right in Instagram where you can add hashtags and share with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr all at the same time. It’s pretty much the same except you don’t have to move the image to the Photos app to make it work.
After I read this it occurred to me that you can also use the Keyboard shortcuts on the iPad to easily add hashtags that use regularly.
Finally, come to the solution! But I’m thinking about the Lr desktop, I want to integrate Lr to Instagram. So only the solution I found, it is the plugin called “LR/Instagram” This will save a total lot of time. Hopefully, it will come handy for the user of Lr desktop.
Thanks, Michael! I’ve seen the option, but Instagram isn’t one of my options in there. I wonder if it’s because I had Lr Mobile before I had instagram…?
Might need to add Instagram to your share menu. I believe I had to do that in order for “Open In” to appear.
You can also do the same sort of thing for Flickr; it lets you save from your photostream to the device, and then share to Instagram from there. Good for those of us without massive iPhone capacities :)