Actual size photos

Give it higher resolution source photos.

Don't know what you expect it to, then. If you don't have enough pixels to fill the screen, it's going to have to interpolate to blow it up, and it's HARD to do that when you've got that few pixels to start with.

You could try interpolating in Photoshop or a similar tool as they likely have higher quality interpolation algorithms than iTunes uses.

I'm sorry, I just realized that you were asking for low-res photos to NOT be interpolated and blown up.

I don't know if the iPad can do that. I suspect not, because the assumption is likely that most photos will be larger than iPad screen size. But perhaps someone else knows a way.

Alternatively, you could take these photos into Photoshop and change the canvas size, which will add blank space around the photo. If you change the canvas size to 1024x768 or 768x1024 depending on the orientation of the photo, you should force the iPad to not upsize it because it will already be the right size.

Note that I'm NOT talking about the Image/Image Size command, which would interpolate, but the Image/Canvas Size command. I'm sure that other photo tools will have a similar command if you don't have Photoshop available.

Is there any way or app to see actual size photos and not blown up pixelated photos ?

Not sure about third-party app availability, but photos copied from Photos to Mail on my iPad seem to display unscaled as opposed to the "scale to fit" display algorithm used in the Photos app itself. Admittedly not a very good solution for large batches of photos but works for small numbers on the spur of the moment. Same is true if batches photos are emailed from main photo manager app like Aperture or iPhotos to your iPad for display. In any case, it would be nice to have a Photos app user preference to turn on/off up-scaling as desired. Suggest anyone interested in such an enhancement send feedback request to Apple.

I have a related issue...

I want to display my web design portfolio on the iPad, but I cannot find a way to display the images clearly in the 'Photos' app. I have saved the images as both JPG and PNG with a 1024x768 resolution, imported to Aperture, then synched. Both file types look fine in Aperture, but horrible on the iPad. I would think that these images would retain their sharpness since they match the resolution of the iPad, but they seem to get some major compression.

Is there a way to prevent or control image compression when moving them onto the iPad??

These same images look fine when I view them online via Safari on iPad. However, I would like to also have them available right on the iPad for times I cannot get online.

Chakravarthy Cuddapah wrote:
This works !

I am using GoodReader which can display correct size images. On Wi-Fi, I copied the images to GoodReader's folder. Images are displayed in their original size!

Glad it's working. Another option would be to add a frame to the photo with photoshop or such, to make the photo the same size of the ipad's dissplay.

red555 wrote:
Another option would be to add a frame to the photo with photoshop or such, to make the photo the same size of the ipad's display.

I tried this for my problem and the images still look like crap. It seems like a lot of compression is being adding to images as they are transferred to the iPad. Even images that are 1024x768 and less that 100k to begin with.

You could use the PhotoTransfer app to import the images into the iPad. PhotoTranfer will allow you to send unto 50 photos at a time and there isn't any recompression to the photos.

App Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-transfer-app/id365152940?mt=8

Developer's Website:
http://www.phototransferapp.com/

Bill Fant1 wrote:

red555 wrote:
Another option would be to add a frame to the photo with photoshop or such, to make the photo the same size of the ipad's display.

I tried this for my problem and the images still look like crap. It seems like a lot of compression is being adding to images as they are transferred to the iPad. Even images that are 1024x768 and less that 100k to begin with.

Scratch that idea then. Thanks for the feedback, Bill.

red555 wrote:

Bill Fant1 wrote:

red555 wrote:
Another option would be to add a frame to the photo with photoshop or such, to make the photo the same size of the ipad's display.

I tried this for my problem and the images still look like crap. It seems like a lot of compression is being adding to images as they are transferred to the iPad. Even images that are 1024x768 and less that 100k to begin with.

Scratch that idea then. Thanks for the feedback, Bill.

Well... let me just say... I'm trying to view a web design portfolio clearly on my iPad. These images all include type, graphics and photos. It's the type and graphics that really display poorly. The compression that is applied (somewhere between Aperture » iTunes » iPad » Photos) probably would not be as noticeable in a photograph.

Your recommendation to add pixels around the low-res photos (so it adds up to 1024x768) would probably work fine (although additional compression would be added).

I'm mainly looking for a way to prevent or adjust the additional compression.... OR... it may be that iPad Photos displays images at a resolution slightly different than the device resolution. A few pixels difference and type and graphics suffer. Looking into that.

You can download the test images I'm using here if anyone is interested:

http://www.edgedesign.net/test/iPad_Test1.png
http://www.edgedesign.net/test/iPad_Test2.jpg
http://www.edgedesign.net/test/iPad_Test3.png

I would expect them to appear as clear, if not more clearly on the iPad given the 132ppi

The images actually look better streaming off the web than they do locally on my iPad. I would like to have them on my iPad for the times I cannot get a connection plus I think the presentation is nicer.

http://www.edgedesign.net/slideshow/01/ (works on iPad too)

null

So long as images are greater in resolution than the screen resolution regardless of how the iPad is being viewed, landscape or portrait, your images will not be tampered with for viewing. If they were sharp to begin with then they will be sharp on the iPad.

Now if an image is say 500x500 resolution, obviously less than the ipad's screen resolution, then the iPad does resize a copy of the image to fit the screen resulting in poor quality. It doesn't zoom into the image to fit it to the screen it actually produces a resized version of the original.

The original image though is never tampered with. That is why you can use the excellent Goodreader app to view those small originals in their actual size once they are imported into Goodreader.

The only way to view those smaller images untampered in the built-in photo viewer is to create a canvas that is 1024x768 for each image. Unlike what someone said this method does work and I use it all the time. I create a dark gray canvas for each image in paint shop pro as a script so it can be easily done on many images at once.
I have over 12,000 pictures from the web that are smaller in size than the ipad's screen resolution and with the surrounding canvas the images are viewed in their actual size and sharp as a tack the way they were originally.

I still think there is some tampering going on.... some compression when transferring images into iPad Photos. It may not be noticeable in photographs, but I can see it in more graphic images... especially images with text.

Take a look at my posts above if you have any time.