does syncing back up photos?

[davidnssbm]

sorry for the stupid question, but in my itunes it says sync photos from (then gives me a folder from iphoto)

Does this just mean it will replace my iphone photos with my iphoto photos from the computer?

I'd really like to just sync every morning with my cup of coffee and back up my photos

 

[HazyCloud]

Syncing your phone with iPhoto will only add images. It won't take the ones already on there away.

iTunes is not backing up your images. PhotoStream and iCloud do however back them up. PS will store them for 30 days and up to 1000 pix. If you device is using iCloud as a backup, your pictures are being saved every time your phone backs up to iCloud.

 

[deeddawg]

iTunes is not backing up your images.

Strictly speaking, it does backup your images -- it just doesn't put them in a normally usable place. Otherwise you couldn't pull images from a backup with software like iPhone Backup Extractor as I've done before. Nor would your photos be back on the camera roll if you restored from a backup via iTunes.

@davidnssbm: Photos synced from iPhoto show up as different albums/libraries on the iphone rather than in the Camera Roll "album", so the photos on your phone don't get overwritten. You can import photos to iPhoto from your phone and then do what you want with them; with iCloud I just use the Photo Stream and they end up in iPhoto without having to actively import photos from the phone. See iCloud: Photo Stream FAQ for more info.

 

[HazyCloud]

Strictly speaking, it does backup your images -- it just doesn't put them in a normally usable place. Otherwise you couldn't pull images from a backup with software like iPhone Backup Extractor as I've done before. Nor would your photos be back on the camera roll if you restored from a backup via iTunes.

You're right, iTunes does back them up; you just don't easy access to them. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[thelatinist]

I have no idea why Apple hasn't given us the ability to sync our camera roll with a folder on our computers through iTunes. Now with WiFi sync I never have to plug my iPhone into my computer...except to sync photos because Apple insists on treating the iPhone like any digital camera.

 

[maliu]

You have to download your camera roll photos into iPhoto. It took me awhile to figure out that you needed to do that. I'm a little slow some times.