iPhoto is destructive when editing photos

iPhoto for iOS is best used to edit photos and share those photos on social media sites like Facebook. It is known that iPhoto optimizes photos for that type of use.

There are other apps like PhotoForge2 that will edit photos at their original resolution as well as allowing you to downsize the image if you desire.

iPhoto is fine for its intended purpose but I much prefer other apps when I need to control or keep file resolution.

The "iPhoto Help" (http://help.apple.com/iphoto/ipad/1.1/#blnka97fbb1f) says something completely different:

Edit a photo

Use the editing tools to improve or add an effect to a photo. As you edit a photo, iPhoto saves your edits automatically (there is no Save button). iPhoto never changes the original photo, so you can go back to it at any time.

Have you tried to revert the changes to the original version? If you still have the edited version on your iPhone, duplicate it to keep the edited photo and revert the one you edited to the original. Then save the original to the Camera roll to share it.

But the problem rely in the photo stream. Because when you save the modifier picture in the camera roll, it's still shrinked. Even with photoforge2, you can't get the full resolution version from the photostream.

The Photo stream is documented here:

iCloud: Photo Stream FAQ

See the paragraph:

What resolution are My Photo Stream photos?

On your Mac or PC, your photos are downloaded and stored in full resolution. On your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV, your Photo Stream photos are delivered in a device-optimized resolution that speeds downloads and saves storage space. While actual dimensions will vary, an optimized version of a photo taken by a standard point-and-shoot camera will have a 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution when pushed to your devices. Panoramic photos can be up to 50 pixels wide.

So you can't get full resolution using Photo Stream to send photos to an IOS device, but from an IOS device to a computer the resolution stays the same.

It is editing in iPhoto that creates smaller versions, but the originals are not destroyed. You can send your originals back - full resolution - by sharing them to iTunes.

If you say, that it is impossible to edit high resolution images and get a high resolution results with iPhoto on IOS, then I agree fully. iPhoto on IOS is simply not a full resolution editor. Only that is not meant by "non-destructive" editing. iPhoto never does destroy the original image file; it is kept, until you delete it yourself.

Ralph said in his first post, what iPhoto is meant for; if you feel, that that is useless for your purposes, o.k. I use my iPad and iPhoto, to show my photos, not to edit and tag them. For that I use a more professional tool, Aperture on a mac.

I frequently shoot raw photos, and iPhoto will never edit the raw, only edit the embedded jpeg, so there would be no hope to do the image editing for my photos in iPhoto on IOS.

Regards

Léonie

You are welcome!

It's def not that powerfull and definitively not a professional tool but rather - as you said - a light editor before sending pictures to facebook like services.

The iPhoto product is nice for what it can do - only the name is misleading - it is the same for all IOS versions of the iLife programs. Naming the iApps exactly like their counterpart on MacOS X raises expectations, that cannot (yet) be fulfilled on the handheld devices.