Sometimes you can be so focused on what you do professionally that you totally overlook what’s out there for fun. Both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC are at the heart of my day-to-day photography workflows. Many of you have heard me talk about Adobe Revel in the past. I had begun using it as my portfolio App on iPad. I loved that it sync’d my photos from Lightroom to the cloud and instantly to my iPhone and iPads. However, the one BIG THING that was missing from the iOS apps was a “slideshow” feature. Sure you could swipe the images, but you couldn’t simply hit play and let them run. The beautiful new redesign of Revel 2.0 changed all that. The app is gorgeous and has many new features that has me using it as my Portfolio app again. Let me share some of the other updates with you that you may have missed…
What’s Adobe Revel?
Adobe Revel is Adobe’s “consumer” based photo sharing service. It’s FREE to use for those with modest needs. With the FREE account you can upload an unlimited number of photos in the 1st 30 days after setting up your account and then 50 photos a month after that. If you “need” more than that you can go UNLIMITED for $5.99/month. Yes, that’s unlimited imports, no limits ever. Once you upload your images to Revel they are instantly available on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (Windows and Android is in the works, but no timeline for when they will be available). As with other services like Flickr. com, most will only need the FREE account, but if you want to handle a lot of photos each month you can go unlimited whenever you want.
Download Adobe Revel for Mac here:
Download Adobe Revel for iPhone, iPad and IPod touch here:
Why isn’t this a part of Creative Cloud?
Adobe Revel is on the consumer side of the house and the consumer offerings from Adobe (like Photoshop Elements) will remain separate from the professional offerings in Creative Cloud.
What do the Mac and iOS Apps let you do?
In addition to uploading your photos, the Mac and iOS Revel Apps allow you to do non-destructive edits to your photos. Think of it as a Light version of the Lightroom develop module for consumers. It’s all slider based and like I said, 100% non-destructive. Once you make edits on one device those edits are automatically sync’d to all your other devices. This means that you always have the most up to date photos with you. You can also use the App to display your photos on screen or via AirPlay to say an Apple TV.
How does this work with Lightroom 4 and 5?
Lightroom 4 had a Revel Publish Service built-in and Lightroom 5 has a plug-in that you can download for free that does the same thing. Get it here. When I sign in to the Revel Publish Service I see my Revel libraries and I can create collections (or better yet, Smart Collections) that represent my portfolios. This means that I can publish my best/favorite images from Lightroom directly to Adobe Revel. I have created a Smart Collection in the Revel Publish service for each of my portfolios. When I update the regular Lightroom collection with new images, all I have to do is hit the Publish button in the corresponding Revel Publish Service Collection and my images are uploaded and my iPhone, iPad and Mac are updated. This has been the easiest way for me to carry my “CURRENT” portfolios around with me on my various devices. Yes the images can be viewed offline too. Actually if it weren’t for the Lightroom tie in I wouldn’t be half as excited about Revel. Since all my photos live in Lightroom it’s the hub of all my photographic workflows.
You mentioned a NEW photo sharing workflow. What’s NEW?
Everything I mentioned above is pretty much old news to Revel. The 2.0 iOS Apps and rate plan changes have been out for a while. What’s new is a couple NEW iPhone Apps. The 1st one is called Grouppix. I reviewed it here last week. When you and your friends download this FREE App, one of you can create a “shared” Album and invite the other to it. At that point anyone that has access to the album can upload pics to it and you all see them. This is GREAT for events such as parties, weddings, conferences, etc. Now everyone will have access to all the photos. That’s pretty cool, but what I didn’t realize right away is that those albums are powered by Revel! If you’re a Revel user those Grouppix shared albums show up in your Revel account. This also means that they show up in the Lightroom Publish Service. This makes it really really really easy for me to not only share photos I’ve taken with my iPhone, but also the ones I’ve taken with my DSLR. I can import my DSLR photos into Lightroom 5, select my picks, Develop them and add them to a Revel collection (Grouppix album), hit Publish and everyone that’s on the shared Grouppix album now has access to them. I did this last week during the Adobe Create Now Tour in APAC and it worked GREAT! If you’re into video there’s also a consumer based video editing app for iPhone called Video Bite. Yep it’s free too. It’s basic, but hey it lets you put clips together quickly and output a final movie right on your iPhone. Also did I mention that it’s free?
Get Adobe Grouppix for iPhone here:
Get Adobe VideoBite for iPhone here:
Learn more about what Adobe Revel has to offer here.
Thanks Terry! Very exciting options presented here. I have a problem though…
Why can’t I get photos I added to Revel on my iPhone to show up in the Lightroom publishing service? Isn’t it supposed to be two-way?