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Level 1

11 points

iPhone 4 photo-size is a disaster! 2MB per photo!?

Hi,

it took me about a year to convince all of my friends not to use the highest (12 megapixels) resolution on their digital cameras available, instead take pictures with 2 megapixels, since the sensors are so small that it doesn't make a difference anyways. So now it's about 500kb per photo instead of 3MB!

Now, the iPhone 4 has this super 5 megapixels sensor and there is no option to set it back to 2 megapixels, so every single photo imported to iPhoto has about 2MB!!!

Does anyone know of an automator-script, batch-app, hack that allows me to shrink the photos without messing with timestamps and other meta-data of the photos?

Regards,
Eric.

Mac Mini, MacbookPro, iPod Shuffle & iPhone, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Jul 2, 2010 2:56 AM

54 replies

honeyb27

Level 1

10 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:44 AM in response to esreverse

esreverse wrote:
Hey kramey74 aka smartass,

ever realized that your meta-data gets messed up when you batch-resize photos? And how do you suggest importing photos from your iPhone appearing in iPhoto and then resizing them? Digging into the iPhoto-folder and search for the photos there?

Go waste someone else's time.

WAH WAH WAH! Go cry to someone that cares.

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:51 AM in response to honeyb27

You guys must have too much time (unemployed) or maybe do care after all!? Or why else would you mess up this constructive discussion after all?

Hint: You probably didn't get the passage above, it's like the same with some "American Idol" candidates: Some people just don't get they are loosers.

AND FROM NOW ON: PLEASE LET'S STAY ON TOPIC AGAIN.

Message was edited by: esreverse

kramey74

Level 1

105 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:52 AM in response to esreverse

This coming from someone who spent "a year" badgering people about how to resize their photos.
I'm sure they find you as annoying as I do, so I'll try to keep this simple so you can follow along.
On the File Export tab, under Size, set the width and height under "Scale images no larger than" and then click Export. Choose a folder for your resized exported photos.

Disaster averted.

honeyb27

Level 1

10 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:52 AM in response to esreverse

LMAO

That's what you got? American Idol? LOL Ouch it hurts so much!
Not to mention you don't know how to even SPELL "loser".. apparently we are all just really "loose" lol

kramey74

Level 1

105 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:55 AM in response to honeyb27

Loosers indeed.
Nice catch honeyb, I'll return the +1 unless it's needed for disaster relief.

🙂

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 10:05 AM in response to kramey74

How old are you guys? 13? 14?

Ever considered that this is an international discussion board and not everyone in here is American?

And: If you would have read precisely we are NOT looking for workarounds, but a real solution.

NOW STAY ON TOPIC and stop annoying other people with your crap. Get a job or a life or out of puberty. Whatever works for you.

red555

Level 4

2,581 points

Jul 2, 2010 10:09 AM in response to esreverse

While we are discussing resolution and photo stuff, I have been taking photos in the highest resolution the camera supports. Then, I crop for best viewability. Based on responses above, I am now wondering if this is the best approach.

kramey74

Level 1

105 points

Jul 2, 2010 10:22 AM in response to esreverse

How does not being American affect this discussion?
Are you saying that in the UK or where ever this photo disaster struck they spell the word "loser" with two o's?

You should call Apple Support and alert them to the impending doom of this disaster, rather than back and forth with me. My opinion won't change. I'll still know how to spell "loser" and my hard drive will still be nice and tidy.
Perhaps you only look at your (disaster) photos on your computer screen, but surprise, some people still print photos. Why don't you print out that 500k photo and let's compare it to my full size one. But wait, that would cause another disaster.

My logic is this: once you take a decent photo and resize it to a crappy photo and delete your original (to avert disaster, mind you) YOU CAN'T MAGICALLY RESIZE IT BACK. If photos are
sooo important to you, and they seem to be judging from your language, then perhaps you should invest a
bill or two on a decent external hard drive. Like the rest of us "loosers" have.

kramey74

Level 1

105 points

Jul 2, 2010 10:30 AM in response to red555

red555:
You do what's best for you, and what works for you. Don't let the disaster talk fool ya.
He spent a year badgering people to change photo size, he obviously has strong opinions if his time could be wasted to do such a thing.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

pberk

Level 2

321 points

Jul 2, 2010 10:33 AM in response to red555

red555 wrote:
While we are discussing resolution and photo stuff, I have been taking photos in the highest resolution the camera supports. Then, I crop for best viewability. Based on responses above, I am now wondering if this is the best approach.

red55,

You're doing the right thing... you should always shoot in the highest resolution you can handle based on your storage and then you have a myriad of hi and low res options. If you start off with low res, you are limiting what you can do in post production and still have high quality photos..

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 11:28 AM in response to kramey74

kramey74,

sorry to all others for still being off-topic, but I - only one more time - have to set things straight:

1. Not everything outside the US is UK. I'm from germany and we are speaking german here. I learned english in school. That was some 15 years ago. I'm sure you can find one or two more mistakes if you really care! 😉

2. And once again, we are NOT looking FOR WORKAROUNDS here, but for a real solution to get the best quality-size-ratio which is at about 2MP for me and obviously some others. I use Quicksilver and Automator on a regular basis and there are probably a few other dozen ways to manually resize photos, but those are only workarounds.
At the moment, I'm looking into the iOS 4 framework to check what components of the native photo app you can use to maybe quite simply build a photo app with that extra feature and maybe the option to use the volume-buttons as a physical trigger, instead of the small trigger-button onscreen. With 3.2 it wasn't possible, maybe now, I doubt though.

3. I know about compression formats, camera sensors, resolutions, blablabla and external harddrives (I'm using a RAID-system). Yes, there may be people who still print photos, and yes, maybe you getter a better quality when printing out a high resolution image, but that is NOT THE QUESTION here, (n)either (don't remember if this is with or without "n", shame on me)! 😉

4. You are absolutely right, all of this is "not" a desaster, but I decided to give this topic a catchy title, so some like-minded users read this and we try to work something out together. The last thing I wanted is to offense someone by implicitly and unintentionally comparing the oil spill with the photo-size of the iPhone 4. Shame on me AGAIN! 😉

5. Please stop being off-topic now.

6. I wrote this post with a smile and: Ein sonniges Wochenende! 😉

Dave Hutch

Level 4

1,491 points

Jul 2, 2010 11:38 AM in response to esreverse

iPhoto is a very basic application. If you use a proper digital photo editing application like Photoshop (Elements or the full version) the metadata does not get messed up.
Right tools for the job

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 11:42 AM in response to Dave Hutch

True Photoshop or Aperture (which I use for my DSLR images) won't destroy meta data, but opening every single photo in Photoshop is a workaround and a half! 😉
I'd love to have an option in iOS or inside iPhoto, but I probably have to wait for some smart developers to write an app for that (This changes everything.) Again! 😉

red555

Level 4

2,581 points

Jul 2, 2010 11:54 AM in response to esreverse

esreverse wrote:
I'd love to have an option in iOS or inside iPhoto, but I probably have to wait for some smart developers to write an app for that (This changes everything.) Again! 😉

If it's done with an app on the iPhone, it will need to be re-imported to your computer from the camera roll album. The 3rd party app will save the edited photo there, in most cases, and the original photo on the iPhone will be unchanged.

cheetahz

Level 1

0 points

Jul 2, 2010 12:22 PM in response to esreverse

I know you may want your photos taken at only 2mp, but your really not looking at the BIG picture. I am a pro Photog and the higher you can shoot a picture the better. EVEN on a cell phone. Here is why, sure at first you may just want to just send the pics email wise. But later on you may want to print them or even include them in a professionally done picture video, the more res you have to work with the better. It is MUCH much easier to take away then to add to something. 2mb pictures are not as sharp or detail as a 5mp picture, they just aren't. I think your complaint is short sighted and nothing that another camera program on the Iphone won't do for you. I think your complaint is minimal in nature.

iPhone 4 photo-size is a disaster! 2MB per photo!?