What the heck is the difference between Camera Roll and Photo Library?

Question

What the heck is the difference between Camera Roll and Photo Library?

Perhaps this is a no-brainer, but so far I can't figure it out, and there's nothing in the User Guide that I can find to help. Anyway, here's what I do.

1) I take pictures with iPhone
2) I have iPhoto upload any pictures from iPhone that aren't already there
3) I assign keywords to every iPhone picture in iPhoto
4) I create regular and Smart Playlists
5) I set up iTunes to sync only these playlists with iPhone
6) I sync

To my mind, Camera Roll should contain ONLY those pictures that I've taken since the last upload to iPhoto, after which they're deleted from iPhone since I manage what stays on iPhone's photo library via playlist.

I don't care much about Photo Library, either. I have a feeling I'm missing something fundamental, but can't figure it out.

Now, that said:

1) Can anyone please tell me specifically what defines *Camera Roll* and *Photo Library?* The latter always seems to have more pictures in it. What are the criteria for inclusion in each of these?

2) If Camera Roll is in fact an inventory of what's been taken with iPhone, if I upload all my pix to iPhoto, how can I make my Camera Roll empty? I'll worry about getting photos back down to iPhone through the use of playlists.

3) The Photo Library icon is a flower that's unchangeable. Is this correct?

Thanks for any assistance. I've been wrestling with this for a while now and just today sat down to try and make some sense of it. 🙂

MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.10), 23" Cinema HD Display

Posted on Oct 7, 2007 3:42 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Matthew Morgan

Level 7

22,623 points

Oct 7, 2007 3:57 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

A camera roll is simply the pictures you've taken with the iPhone that have not yet been erased from the phone.

If you choose to erase them after importing to iPhoto, the camera roll should be empty.

Are you deleting the photos have importing to iPhoto?

Matt

P.S. No, the flower icon cannot be changed.

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Answer 2

Oct 7, 2007 3:58 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

To my mind, Camera Roll should contain ONLY those pictures that I've taken since the last upload to iPhoto, after which they're deleted from iPhone since I manage what stays on iPhone's photo library via playlist.

This should be how it works. The Camera Roll contains photos taken by the iPhone only and if any such photos are not removed from the iPhone after being transferred to iPhoto, they will remain in the iPhone's Camera Roll.

1) Can anyone please tell me specifically what defines Camera Roll and Photo Library? The latter always seems to have more pictures in it. What are the criteria for inclusion in each of these?

As already provided, the iPhone's Camera Roll contains photos taken by the iPhone only - you cannot transfer photos from iPhoto to the Camera Roll via the iTunes sync process.

Photo Library on the iPhone is similar to the same in iPhoto. It stores all photos transferred to the iPhone from iPhoto via the iTunes sync process only.

Say you have 3 iPhoto albums that you transfer to the iPhone which contain 10 photos each for a total of 30 photos, it will appear as follows on the iPhone.

Camera Roll - any photos taken by the iPhone that have not been removed but these are not counted with the total Photo Library count on the iPhone.

Photo Library (30)
Album 1 (10)
Album 2 (10)
Album 3 (10)

You can view all photos stored on the iPhone in all albums by selecting Photo Library - excluding any photos taken by the iPhone which are stored in the Camera Roll.

If you want to view the 10 photos in Album 1 only, you select Album 1. The same applies to the iPhoto library and the iTunes library and the Apple Address Book library.

2) If Camera Roll is in fact an inventory of what's been taken with iPhone, if I upload all my pix to iPhoto, how can I make my Camera Roll empty? I'll worry about getting photos back down to iPhone through the use of playlists.

iPhoto includes an option to delete all photos from the Camera Roll after being transferred to the iPhoto library.

3) The Photo Library icon is a flower that's unchangeable. Is this correct?

Correct.

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Answer 3

Oct 7, 2007 3:57 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

Thanks, Matthew. At the last import, iPhoto found about 250 pix that weren't already in the library. So I uploaded those, and I told iPhoto to delete them from the phone.

However, in previous imports I didn't tell iPhoto to delete these, so for some reason they're still on iPhone *even though in iPhoto, it shows iPhone has zero photos.

So now, the next question, please: If iPhoto says zero photos on iPhone, iPhone says 391 pix in Camera Roll, then assuming I verify that those 391 are in iPhoto, how to get them off iPhone?

Thanks!

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Answer 4

Oct 7, 2007 4:01 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

Are you using iPhoto 8?

It has an option to hide photos that are already imported. Perhaps you have that checked.

Select the phone in iPhoto source list. The check box is in the lower left corner.

Matt

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Answer 5

Oct 7, 2007 4:02 PM in response to Allan Sampson

Interesting: Photo Library reflects a count of 568, yet the sum total of all albums included is about 630. Is this because based on keyword Smart Albums, some pictures are included in more than one album?

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Answer 6

Oct 7, 2007 4:07 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

Yes. Problem is that iPhone doesn't always show up in iPhoto when I connect it. It seem to decide when it will and when it won't. Am struggling with that at the moment -- hoping to see if I can find the option to can all the pix on iPhone after upload.

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Answer 7

Oct 7, 2007 4:17 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

Is this because based on keyword Smart Albums, some pictures are included in more than one album?

I believe so - must be but I haven't made much use of Smart Albums yet.

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Answer 8

Oct 7, 2007 4:44 PM in response to Allan Sampson

OK, so I now understand the difference between the different album types in iPhone...thank you to all respondents. I have one minor problem left.

For whatever reason, I still have 379 items in the Camera Roll -- which of course matches what shows up in Devices under iPhoto for iPhone. I tried re-importing them, and I told iPhone to ignore duplicates.

When it was done, it asked if I wanted to delete the originals, to which I replied yes -- but I still have the 379 pix both on iPhone and in iPhoto.

What gives?

Is there a way to force iPhone to empty the Camera Roll? It takes up a ton of space on iPhone that I'd like to recover.

Thanks again.

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Answer 9

Oct 7, 2007 4:50 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

I think I answered my own question. This time I simply re-imported all 379 pix, but I gave iPhoto permission to duplicate existing photos. Then I told iPhoto to delete the originals.

Then only thing I had to do was re-keyword all those photos. 😟 Could have been worse, I suppose. Still dunno why this happened in the first place, but what the heck.

Solved!

Thank you.

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Answer 10

Oct 7, 2007 4:53 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

That is strange - I had 3 photos taken by my iPhone in the Camera Roll that I just imported into iPhoto and after the import, I was provided with the option to delete the originals on the camera or iPhone and they were deleted.

Launch the Image Capture application located in your Applications folder. This app also provides an import option from a digital camera. This may require re-importing these photos to your computer but not to iPhoto - you can create a folder on the Desktop and choose this folder for importing the photos again and Image Capture includes an option to delete the photos from the camera after the import - it may include an option to do so without importing the photos again but if not, this should work and afterwards, delete the folder created on the Desktop that contains the re-imported photos.

Something might have gotten crossed with multiple imports ignoring duplicates by iPhoto.

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Answer 11

Oct 7, 2007 5:24 PM in response to Allan Sampson

Think you're right. That said, my problem is now resolved. Matter of fact I really didn't even need to re-keyword the duplicates. Each of them was in fact just that -- a duplicate -- sans any keywords (every photo in my collection is linked to keyword(s), which makes using Smart Albums and iPhoto WAY easier...love it.

All I really had to do was delete the duplicates. I then synced iPhone, and indeed the photos in Camera Roll were gone - but 261 blank thumbnails and one of the photos as an icon for Camera Roll was left. I panicked a bit.

I decided to quit iPhoto, disconnect iPhone, reconnect and re-sync.

Lo and behold, all is well in iWorld again. 🙂 I freed up at least a gig on iPhone, and my albums are exactly what I want them to be.

I love Apple stuff. 'Course I've been saying that for 20 years. Not only is the hardware really awesome, but they take time to engineer really cool, integrated software applications. Yeah, they have anomalies now and then, but considering the rather Herculean task of making everything sing in concert and so it seamlessly, Jobs & Co. gets an A.

Those who want to moan and groan that they can't tinker, tear apart the innards, tweak this, that or the other thing "because it's there," and who gripe about how much Macs cost (specious arguments at best) I say go for it. Have all the fun you want on Windows.

Meanwhile, I'm getting some work done. LOL

Thanks, everyone.

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Answer 12

Oct 7, 2007 5:38 PM in response to Craig Deutsch

Craig,

I'm glad you got it figured out!

Matt

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Answer 13

Oct 7, 2007 5:43 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

Me, too! Thanks to you and Allan for your help. 🙂

Craig

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