Adobe Revel is Adobe’s Photography Cloud Service. There’s currently a desktop Mac version and an iOS Version. With the Revel Service you can add photos from any device, do non-destructive enhancements and see those photos on any device. While Revel isn’t new, the 1.5 update adds the one feature that I’ve been waiting for – ALBUMS! Now that I can organize my photos in Albums (I know, simple concept right?) It just became much more useful to me.
The Lightroom Integration is the Key
Adobe Revel as a stand alone product/service isn’t that interesting for my workflow. However, with the updated Lightroom 4.2 (RC) Publish Collection plug-in I can now create Smart Published Collections that mirror my Portfolios (Collections) in Lightroom.
This means that when I update any of my portfolios (collections), all I have to do is press the Publish button in the Revel area and those portfolios are sync’d to the cloud and therefore my iPad, iPhone and other Macs.
The Syncing is the Key
There are some really great Portfolio apps for the iPad out there that do all kinds of cool things. Many let you customize them with your own brand, they have nice transitions and they allow for music to play during the show. GREAT! However, where most of them fall down is the difficulty in updating or keeping the portfolios current. For example, one of my Portfolios called “Recent Work” It has 24 images in it and after each shoot I put 1-3 images in and remove the oldest ones keeping it at 24. This takes two seconds in Lightroom. Now getting most Portfolio apps to reflect that update is often a very manual process. With Revel, I hit the Publish button on my “Recent Work” smart collection and my iPad is updated!
Is it perfect?
Well no! Most things aren’t perfect. Revel on iOS was not designed to be a portfolio app! It doesn’t have branding, music, transitions, etc. However, those kinds of things are much easier to add over time than getting the workflow right and getting the workflow right is the most important thing for me. Lightroom 4.2 with Revel 1.5 Album support is just about there.
You can download the Lightroom 4.2 RC build from Adobe Labs. It also includes:
New Camera Support in Lightroom 4.2 Release Candidates
- Canon EOS 650D / Rebel T4i
- Canon EOS M
- Fuji FinePix F800EXR
- Leaf Credo 40
- Leaf Credo 60
- Panasonic DMC-FZ200
- Panasonic DMC-G5
- Panasonic DMC-LX7
- Pentax K-30
- Sony DSC-RX100
You can learn more about Adobe Revel here. Please note that Adobe Revel is a paid service and you can try it for 30 days at no cost.
Get Revel for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch here.
Get Revel for Mac OS X here.
Terry,
Like you, I had the same reaction to Revel 1.5…albums!!! Finally!!! This update pushed me over the edge to come back. I was a subscriber, but was frustrated at the lack of web albums, and organization into albums so I cancelled my subscription. Now that this update has hit, I am back in love with Revel.
However, I had no idea about the smart collections changes in the Lr 4.2 RC. Nowhere does it mention updating the Revel Publish Service, so when you posted this tonight, I freaked out!! My biggest wish for Revel / Lightroom integration was a sync able photo hierarchy. I am still in the process of downloading the 4.2 RC, so I haven’t tried it myself, but I have a question for you.
Do these Revel publish collections now sync bi-directionally? Meaning if I add / change / delete a photo on my iPad, does that change sync back to the collection in Lightroom? I love being able to publish from Lightroom to Revel, but wanted to know about bringing back changes I make to my photos from Revel back into Lightroom.
Thanks Terry!!
B
This is the first that I’m hearing about Revel but being a Creative Cloud subscriber I’m going to check it out. Any change that it outputs a RSS feed that could be parsed into displaying on a website or page kind like 500px?
Erik,
Creative Cloud subscription does not include Adobe Revel, as far as I know. Many CC subscribers have asked for inclusion of Revel into CC subscription, but so far I have seen no reaction from Adobe at all.
Adobe Revel should be part of the package. Seems like a natural inclusion for CC.
Mosaic View is better. 2000 Images Free and supports Collections without having to push your photos. They are just automatically there.
http://www.mosaicarchive.com/lightroom-ipad-web-app-mosaic-view/
Seems to work only via web browser on mobile devices. I don’t see a way of viewing the images offline. Revel has native apps for Mac and iOS and supports offline viewing.
Hi Terry,
Just read your post about Revel syncing and this is just what I have been looking for 🙂
What I tried to do, was set up a published smart collection, mirroring one of my portfolio collections. I was surprised to see that the published collection contains more images than the original portfolio collection.
It seems like if the portfolio collection contains an image that is/have a virtual copy, the published collection will include the original and all virtual copies.
Svein Olav
Wouldn’t Dropbox be a better (cheaper) solution?
Cheaper perhaps and not the same functionality in the mobile app either.