Why do iOS 7 photo filters disappear?

Hey everyone.

This seems to be an intentional design choice by Apple.

The photos in ios7 are "lossless" which means the filters are applied distinctly from the raw image file. When that image is shared, sometimes that filter disappears based on what device / os / program is viewing it. I am thinking of the filter as a "tag" that is interpreted (or not) by the viewing program / device. For instance, syncing to iPhoto loses the iOS7 filter. Emailing it to myself retains the filter as a flat picture and loses the original. Posting to Google+ loses the filter and I can reapply a Google+ filter, etc.

http://www.cultofmac.com/231726/ios-7s-new-photo-filters-are-lossless-keeping-or iginal-photo-untouched/

I (kinda) understand the "lossless" rationale, but don't agree with it.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for this! Do you know what happens if you text a photo with a filter to an Android user? Does the Android user receive the version of the photo with the filter or not?

I also find it super annoying, since I use a built-in filter for practically every photo I take as soon as I discovered them in iOS 7! If you want the filters to remain once you upload to your computer via iPhoto, there is actually a workaround, which I found on another post, and it works!

You create a "Shared Album" on your phone (I named mine Filtered Photos), add photos to that Shared Album from your camera roll to which you have applied a filter, and then you pull that Photostream up in iPhoto via iCloud. (In iPhoto, in left navigation pane, under Shared, select iCloud.)

Voila! 😉

Hi there,

I'm trying to follow your advice akajules but not sure exactly how to do it. I created a shared album but I don't know how to photostream up in iphoto via cloud. Can you tell me more about this?

A solution is to use an app called FilterKeeper that solves just that,

It creates copies of photos so that iOS filter effects won't disappear when exported to other devices.

Like some users wrote here, when you sync or export your photos from your iPhone, your filter effects are lost and it seems to be an intentional design choice by Apple.The photos in ios7 are "lossless" which means the filters are applied distinctly from the raw image file. When the image is exported, the filter disappears based on what device/os/program is being used. Well, almost all of them won't show the filters. That's where the problem lies.

This FilterKeeper app creates new photos that keeps the filter effect. it finds those photos that have ios7 filter effects attached to them, lets you choose the photos that you want to be processed, and saves the effects to the image itself.

Cheers.

karriann wrote:

Hi there,

I'm trying to follow your advice akajules but not sure exactly how to do it. I created a shared album but I don't know how to photostream up in iphoto via cloud. Can you tell me more about this?

Hi karriann,

If you still need assistance with this method, I will do my best to lead you down the right path:

When I open iPhoto on my Mac computer, I have three main categories in my left navigation pane: Library, Recent and Shared. Under my Shared category, I have an iCloud link. Click on the iCloud link, and I have My Photo Stream and any other albums I've created in my Shared albums on my iPhone, in this case, I show the "Filtered Photos" album I created earlier.

I hope this helps. If you still need assistance with particulars in iPhoto, I find it helpful to go to the Help menu in iPhoto and browse around.

Seeing a new reply to this thread, I am also going to look into the FilterKeeper app as suggested by photo_guru.

Thanks!