Import from iPod Photo to iPhoto

Hello,

If you want to get back your photos on laptop, this is as simple as that:

1. you connect your iPod to your computer
2. when prompted about syncing with your laptop, you say no for both Music and Pictures
3. Into iTunes, you go to iPod preferences
4. You click on use iPod as hard drive

then from that, into iPhoto, you go to file>add to library (or whatever it says, I don't use english version) and you browse your iPod

in ALL case, you must not sync your iPod at first connection otherwise, it will erase all your pictures.

good luck 😉
IanX

hi, i've also lost my hard disk and the photos are only available on the ipod photo. However i have a windows based computer and so don't have iphoto. Will i have to use a imac to have any chance of getting the photos from the ipod to computer? or is there any other way?
would appreciate a reply.

Hello,

I've got no specific knowledge about PC's but as far as I'm concerned, you can connect your iPod to your laptop. this will launch iTunes. You then refuse to sync your photos - otherwise it will erase your iPod - and you go to preferences. from there, you select "use your iPod as Hard Drive".

Once done, you can take your photos one your iPod as you would do on an external/internal hard drive disk.

Good luck
IanX

try this program for windows

http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplaypb/

First, to both of you...

Did you have iTunes set up to 'Include full-resolution photos'? If not, then there's nothing you can do, as the synced photos are only iPod-screen resolution, and in a custom format. Even if you could decode the format, the pictures would be miniscule, only 220x176 in resolution (or 0.038 megapixels. Yes, zero point zero three eight. Not three point eight. Not even point three eight.)

If you DID have it sync the full-resolution photos, then you're in luck. (This works on both Mac and Windows.) As mentioned, plug in the iPod, tell iTunes not to sync it, and get iPod options. Enable disk mode. Then you'll have your iPod appear as an extra drive (on the desktop on Mac, in 'My Computer' in Windows.) Open that drive, open the 'Photos' folder, and open the 'Full Resolution' folder. Your original photos are in here. Put them back on your computer however you want. (Drag the 'Full Resolution' folder into iPhoto on the Mac, drag it into your 'My Pictures' folder on Windows.)

P.S. The iPod does not store the iPhoto names, comments, ratings, albums or anything else in the 'Full Resolution' folder; and they are unrecoverable from the thumbnails. You will lose all of that information when you re-import into iPhoto. But if you had lost absolutely everything to start with, having the photos themselves should be consolation enough.

Hi there Ed,

I did sync my pics "full resolution" however when i go into my ipod on the desktop on my mac and open the photo folder the only folders in that folder are "Photo Database" and "Thumbs" I don't seem to have the folder "Full resolution" is there a reason for this or am i doing something wrong?

Craig

Craig, the only thing I can think of is that in one sync or another, it somehow lost the instruction to add full resolution pics. Which means they're probably not there.

To find out, though, you can try showing hidden files (a script is available at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030409015020645 ) and muck around to see if they are hidden.

Also, 'Get Info' on your 'Photos' folder on your iPod and see how big it is. If it's obviously way too small, then the full res images aren't there. (i.e. if you have about <number of images>*52KB, then all you have are the thumbnails; if you have <number of images>*500KB or more, then the full res images are hiding in there somewhere.)

I am having the exact same problem. I thought I also synced as full res, but i can only find these 2 files, is there anyway to even recover just the 52 KB photos? I have 2 years worth of photos I dont want to lose!

It seems I have solved my own problem. You can use a program called file juicer to get your photos from the ithumb files:

http://echoone.com/filejuicer/iphoto.html

iPod Photo cache

If you have an iPod Photo, iPhoto makes images for it too. They can come in handy if you should somehow loose your iPhoto versions of your images.
They are stored inside the iPod Photo cache, in a ".ithmb" format suited for television. "ithmb" is raw uncompressed pixels in YUV color. File Juicer can convert this to TIFF . They are 720 by 480 pixels, which is the best of the low resolution formats iPhoto keeps track of. One downside with this is the filenames of these images are just numbers.
The ithmb files on the iPod are larger, and largest contain the same images you find in the iPhoto iPod cache. They can be extracted by File Juicer too.

thanks apple for your help with this..........