Incoming calls : large vs small pictures ?

[Tumbleweed666]

I've scoured the web and MacRumors but cannot find a definitive answer to the simple question,
what is it that determines if you see a large or a small picture on an incoming call ?
I've seen it variously described as depending upon the size of the picture (ag above a certain size you get large), if you took the picture on your phone, if you added it via contacts or via the edit function on the phone (irrespective of size in those cases).
But nothing definitive and experimenting with my phone (on iOS 7) , I cant seem to determine what the criteria are for sure, except that if I add a large photo from my phone,whether by camera or from a stored pic, I get large.

I know some folks like small, others large (no laughing please) but there seems to be no simple way to choose or know, is there a definitive statement, even if the conditions are complex?

(what would be ideal, IMHO, is an overall setting, eg large/small, with the ability to override for specific contacts)

 

[Sodner]

I asked the same question in another thread and though I have not done lots of testing the one I did test works. And that is that the pictures must be set on the PHONE itself and not say in the Address Book on a Mac. So I edited my wife's contact on my iPhone, selected a picture, saved it and had her call and "Ta-da!" large picture.

 

[fanchee]

I think this has something to do with gmail contacts (smaller pic) vs iCloud contacts (larger pic.)

 

[garethjs]

If u imported a photo via the contacts app on the mac it'll appear as a small pic. If u take the photo from the device itself and save it straight into the respective contact it will appear large.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

I've found that if you edit the pic within contacts on the phone and import a picture that wasn't necessarily taken by the phone, you still get a large photo. But if you add the exact same photo to contacts in iCloud and it syncs back to the phone, you don't get a large picture.

Regards gmail, unfortunately it has been stealthily shrinking my pictures which started as large (I've been synching them with an otherwise very nice contact-sync utility which does photos also) which would be fine if gmail didn't just arbitrarily shrink every pic to 64 x 64 pixels even if you uploaded a large picture. So I am going to have to redo about 100 pics

And in future sync to gmail always in the phone -> gmail direction. Previously gmail was my "main" hub for contacts as it was nice to edit on a bigger screen. Unfortunately you cannot use iCloud to get big pics unless someone has found a workaround?

So what I'm doing is creating an event in iPhoto that contains contact pictures and that is synced to my phone and then I'll add the pics from that set now on the phone, into contacts. Thats a job for my next long train or plane journey.

So to summarise, it seems that unless you add a large picture into contacts from your phone, then whatever and however the source of the photo, you'll get a small one displayed for incoming calls.

 

[yanki01]

yea the only way I know of is editing them through iCloud.com or I believe through iPhoto.