I see more and more photographers getting iPads these days. It's a natural for showing off your photography to clients and perspective clients. As a matter of fact Scott Kelby was telling me the other day that more photographers showed up at Photoshop World with iPads to have their portfolios critiqued than with printed books. That's pretty incredible considering the short amount of time that the iPad has been out. With that said, I have't found the PERFECT portfolio presentation app just yet. However, I do have 8 other Apps that I think iPad wielding photographers should know about:
Photoshop Express
Photoshop Express by Adobe is a FREE basic image editor for the iPad (and iPhone/iPod touch). Besides being a decent basic editor it has one unique feature in that it allows you to access your online albums on Photoshop.com and show images that are not actually on the device. This is a great way to litterally have access to thousands of your images without having to take up precious space on the iPad's built-in memory. Of course you can also quickly edit those images you've imported using the camera connection kit or ones that you've received via email and then upload them directly to your Photoshop.com account, email them or post them on Facebook right from your iPad in the App.
See it in action here:
You can get Photoshop Express for FREE here from the 
Filterstorm
While I really like Photoshop Express for quick easy corrections, when I want or need more editing power I actually fire up Filterstorm. Filterstorm is an iPad App that has a slew of editing features and just keeps getting better. If you start saying things like Color balance, Noise reduction, Curves, brush sizes, Clone Tool, Text Tool, etc. this is your App. You can not only send the finished image via email, but you can also FTP it as well.
You can get Filterstorm for $3.99 here from the
Easy Release
As a photographer probably more often then not you're going to need to do Model and/or Property release forms. Now because of the great apps on my iPhone and iPad I no longer carry paper forms any more. While I've reviewed a few great release form apps here in the past, Easy Release is the best one I've seen that's native to the iPad. With Easy Release you can put in your own custom contract text. You can insert pictures of the model/property right on the from from the device and you can of course have the model/property owner sign right there on screen. A PDF of the signed release can then be immediately emailed to the model/property owner and yourself.
You can get Easy Release for $9.99 here from the
Also if you're going to be doing a lot of these then I highly recommend this stylus to make signing on your iPad much more natural.
The Guardian Eyewitness
Sometimes I just want inspiration! I don't know of any good photographer out there who isn't often inspired by another good photographer. One of the Apps that I draw my inspiration from si the Guardian Eyewitness. Each day the App features a photograph of a newsworthy event that day. The images are often stunning, breathtaking and INSPIRING.
You can get The Guardian Eyewitness App for FREE here from the
Scott Kelby's Photo Recipes Live: Behind the Scenes
Scott Kelby is one of my favorite teachers. So quite naturally I was interested in his first iPad App, which is all about Lighting. This App is basically a Lighting Class on your iPad. You can start watching any of the videos for any of the subjects that you want whenever you want without needing an internet connection. Pick a topic, watch Scott light it from scratch and then see the end resulting shots. Review the techniques as often as you need to and best of all right there on the set because it's on your iPad.
You can get Scott Kelby's Photo Recipes Live App for $9.99 here from the
PosePad
I was actually pretty stunned to find out that there really aren't any dedicated Shot List apps (or at least not any that I could find). There are hundreds if not thousands of photography based Apps on the App store, but none really setup to do what I want, which is create a shot list for an upcoming shoot with sample photos, description of the shot, a list of equipment that I want to take to get that shot and a diagram of how I want to setup the shot. The closest thing I could find is this App called PosePad. PosePad goes along ways towards what i want, but it's not quite there in terms of really being a "shot list App". However, it's the closest I could find. You can use your own images. You can put in a description of the shot. You can see a list of the shots and there's even a digram that you can draw on. Unfortunately there's no equipment list and even on the digram you can drag out standard symbols for lights, people, etc.
Until something better comes along or until this app is updated, this is the best I've seen.
You can get PosePad for $4.99 here from the
Smugmug
Smugmug is definitely a popular photo sharing and portfolio hosting site for photographers. As I mentioned above with Photoshop Express, the ideal here is that you can have your images on your Smugmug account and access them in the native Smugmug App on your iPad to show to clients. You can also show your HD Videos you've uploaded and as a nice bonus you can use the App to download your photos from your Smugmug account to your iPad for editing in one of the Apps I've mentioned above or others.
You can get the Smugmug app for Free here from the
LightKit
LightKit is a cool idea! It turns that big beautiful iPad display of yours into a small "light" for adding creative reflections to the item you're shooting! Not bad for product shots or maybe even an dramatic portrait. However, rather than talk about this one. Check out their demo clip:
You can get LightKit for $4.99 here from the
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
Greets Terry,
Remember to check out Minimal Folio from http://www.simonheys.com/minimalfolio/
A nice app for displaying your foolio in a smooth way.
-Steve-
Thanks for the great App tips! I will definitely invest in some.
Thanks for the list, just purchased three of the apps on there, very useful. Thanks again.
Well there’s another 8 reasons I need to get myself an iPad. Keep holding off for the 2nd Gen’ but with posts like this, the resistance is weakening.
Thanks for sharing these Apps Terry.
All the best to you,
Glyn
Exactly my feelings. Waiting for that goddamn 2nd gen ipad with camera. It is torture man.
Hi Terry, Thanks so much for featuring PosePad in your article. I’m also open to suggestions to making PosePad better and I would like to extend an offer to yourself and any of your readers that if they have a suggestion on how to make posepad better, they can feel free to submit a suggestion on our web form at: http://www.posepad.com/request-a-feature/
I’m very open to hearing people’s thoughts on how we can make it better together.
Shawn Thanks so much for your generous offer! I think your App has some really great potential to be become an excellent shot list App. I’ll ping you with the features I’d like to see.
Just wanted to add, here are 10 download codes for your readers to get a copy of PosePad. Just enter the code like you would an itunes gift card on the main page of the itunes store.
Enjoy!
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3LMJL6EW3MKA
WXL4HYHE7YYP
XXYKXPLL9WLY
9J9XRNXWHAA6
PRKP3PRWH96H
6Y94WT4YKMMR
33THWJRJ7E9E
4K9AWPN66R64
XM39JFYWY6EK
Ah too bad I was to late to get a code for Posepad.
It looks really interesting.
AFAICT you’ve covered all the bases with this asewnr!
Shawn, thanks for your generous gift of PosePad. I will be sure to comment on any features/issues i find. thanks!
john
The Guardian Eyewitness is nice, but you can’t use it over 3G. There’s no mention of that on iTunes, you find it out after you download it and try to use it, which I found to be frustrating and limiting for me given I spend a lot of my day connected to the world via 3G.
dkh
Now… if we could only take a picture with the iPad…we’d be all set.
Have to say that LightPad is a pretty cool idea. Made mostly useful by the customizable light patterns!
What a GREAT roundup of apps! I particularly like the LightKit! Thanks for bringing it to… and excuse the pun…. light!
Terry, my must have iPhone and iPad app is The Photographer’s Ephemeris – it works with Google’s maps and the GPS chip to show you the angles and elevation of the sun in any location you choose on any time and date you choose.
I’m surprised and disappointed that PhotoShop Express doesn’t have a facility for making white balance adjustments. The most common defect of digital cameras is incorrect white balance: shots are too cold or too warm. The Tint slider is essentially useless since it is principally a colorizing filter.
Any idea why this basic adjustment was not included?
I just bought PosePad just because Shaun got on here and gave 10 free copies away and opened himself up to comments. i LOVE that kind of support from a developer.
Hi Terry,
Take a look at iAlbum. It’s a virtual photo album for the iPad that looks and feels just like the real thing! A beautiful and intuitive way to share your favorite photos, and a great alternative to the space and clutter of physical photo albums.
Here are some free redemption codes:
J3RA6HTJ79TM
WANHPRELXTY4
KKLH6KXKLARJ
HWF7XK9F9449
JEY49YWFK7NT
Ron
Hi Ron,
Many Thanks …. look forward to giving it a go and a review.
Regards,
David
Great apps!
Is there an app out there to run a quote for a client? Something you would have all ur products preloaded, and be able select everything for the quote and send them it in a nice pdf email?
Hi, I would just like to add a couple more great ipad apps for photographers sugeestions:
http://www.digital-photography-student.com/8-useful-ipad-apps-for-photographers/
Great photography ipad list! Thank You for the post. )
RE: PosePad.
I just discovered Shot List Assist, an iPhone app that also allows you to download GPS locations. I tried it out yesterday. The GPS is slow, but not a huge deal. Overall, it works well and I can see I will use this often when out in the field shooting landscape. For studio work, the icons are interactive and you create your own studio set up with ISO, lenses, etc to remember the photo shoot.
here’s a link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shotlist-assist/id470511764?mt=8
Thanks for this post. I find it very useful. I’ll try to get my hands on some of the apps that you recommended. By the way, Snap-a-note by Rainbow Riders is a good photography app. Though not something for editing, its useful because it allows you to send the photos you took right in your email or your friend’s email for later editing.
Terry, I downloaded an app and for some reason I seem to have lost it! It does a color negative type photo. Can you steer me in the right direction where I might download it again. I’m sorry I seem so vague. I’ve tried all the apps I’ve downloaded and just can’t identify what this is. The quality of these is what strikes me the most. It did a great job. They look something like this:
/Users/james/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2012/Jan 18, 2012_2/photo.JPG