Adobe sneak peak at RAW processing on Tablets
On Episode 94 of The Grid, Tom Hogarty from Adobe previewed RAW image processing on a Tablet, specifically an iPad 2. Now, an iPad 2 is pretty outdated at this stage, but the video shows it making edits to the images fairly quickly and effortlessly. This sounds like an interesting prospect, but I think there is something very missing.
First, he showed (starting around the 17min mark) a demo of a prototype app for the iPad which allows editing of RAW images on the iPad. Now, i have not fully watch this video (its 50+ min long, and I hope to get around to watching it over the weekend) but it looks like the processing is done in “The Cloud”. This is an interesting idea, since you can offload all the processing to a faster machine somewhere, and do not have to worry. If Adobe get faster machines for faster processing in a few months, you get the automatic benefit, or at least in theory you do.
Anyway, with that comes a question: How do you get the image to the Cloud in the first place? My 5D MKII shoots 25MB RAW images. the Demo uses a 5D MKIII, which is about the same size. On an Average HSDPA Connection, you could be talking a Minute (25MB RAW uploading at about 4mbits/s gives 50 seconds) for just one photo. Thats assuming you have a full 4mb/s connection (HSDPA can reach about 6, give or take, and 4G is faster, but still. not everyone will have these speeds).
Also, as a second issue, If you are uploading, editing and working on photos this large, what happens to your bandwidth bill? I get 10Gb of data on my 3G modem at the moment. if there is a lot of data being sent between the Cloud and my device, that can go very quickly.
I do like this idea, do not get me wrong, i just wonder how Adobe will, or even if they can, manage the bandwidth requirements.