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

Question

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

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Answer 1

BryC

Level 1

54 points

Jul 2, 2010 3:13 AM in response to esreverse

Once you have taken a picture, and email it - it gives you an option to shrink the quality/size.

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Answer 2

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 3:22 AM in response to esreverse

Hi and Thanks BryC,

I know about that option, but sending all photos via email to my mac to import them into iPhoto is a workaround, not a solution. 😉

Steve Jobs was superproud when he announced/said that other companies just go for megapixels, Apple instead goes for quality. But nobody thought of a simple switch in the settings to reduce the totally unnecessary image size from 5MP to 2MP. 5MP are just too much for a sensor this small, even though it's a back-wired sensor. Every stupid camera has that nowadays.

@Apple, thanks for wasting space on my harddrive by totally overdimensioned photos.

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Answer 3

choddo

Level 1

4 points

Jul 2, 2010 3:41 AM in response to esreverse

2MB is hardly a disaster when 2TB of storage costs $100. While I agree that the megapixel race is nonsense, there is a noticeable difference in detail at 2mp versus 5 on most cameras.

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Answer 4

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 3:47 AM in response to esreverse

@choddo: True if iPhoto wouldn't have performance problems with big libraries and photos. But you may again answer: Just us an 8-Core Mac Pro with 16GB of ram and you are fine. 😉

Fact is, that a shrinked down 5MP-to-2MP photo looks (subjectively) as sharp as a 5MP photo while having 1/4 of the size on the harddrive.

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Answer 5

BryC

Level 1

54 points

Jul 2, 2010 3:56 AM in response to esreverse

Once it's jailbroken , i assume a variable will be available ( another workaround )

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Answer 6

red555

Level 4

2,581 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:11 AM in response to BryC

When we shoot a digitally zoomed photo, doesn't that reduce the image size,
MP-wise? I know it increases the pixelation.

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Answer 7

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:13 AM in response to esreverse

Hi red555,

nice idea, but unfortunately the resolution stays at 2592x1936. 😟

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Answer 8

pberk

Level 2

321 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:16 AM in response to red555

Be really careful with digital zoom if you want quality photos - a zooming camera lenses actually reorients the lens system so that the zoomed-in scene is what enters the camera's shutter.... Digital zooming is a pixelation process as you suggest that happens within the camera...

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Answer 9

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:18 AM in response to pberk

True, but red555's idea would have been the smarter option. Reducing the numOf pixels (= just cropping out the remaining portion of the image), instead of blowing the rest that is there up. 😉

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Answer 10

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:19 AM in response to esreverse

Ah small HIGH/LOW or 5MP/2MP switch somewhere in the photo-app hud would have costed nothing. But I guess, like for many other widespread standard-features, we need to wait for 3rd-party-apps. 😉

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Answer 11

gdgmacguy

Level 7

21,885 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:32 AM in response to esreverse

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

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Answer 12

kramey74

Level 1

105 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:40 AM in response to esreverse

A disaster? Really?

The oil spill is a disaster. Hurricanes and earthquakes are disasters.
You having to take one extra step to resize photos to your desired size is not a disaster.

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Answer 13

Jul 2, 2010 9:40 AM in response to esreverse

Hey there,
I totally agree with your logic. I've been hounding my parents and siblings about photo sharing for years now. Everyone is a shutter bug, leaves the @#$%'ed default to the highest resolution then calls me with 'computer' problems when they can't send me more than one or two 5MB photos at a time.

I hope Apple addresses the resolution so we don't need workarounds, however, I've trained my folks to resize with XP add-ins now. They move their photos to the PC and right-click then resize to approx 300K (800x600) and we get to see little Johnny graduate from kindergarten ad nauseum!

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Answer 14

esreverse Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:42 AM in response to esreverse

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.

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Answer 15

honeyb27

Level 1

10 points

Jul 2, 2010 9:43 AM in response to kramey74

kramey74 wrote:
A disaster? Really?

The oil spill is a disaster. Hurricanes and earthquakes are disasters.
You having to take one extra step to resize photos to your desired size is not a disaster.

+1

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