Photo Stream Gotchas

[ustein]

This may interest you and definitely worth an even more detailed investigation.

There is a major pitfall with Photo Stream :

Devices push the full resolution images to Photo Stream (e.g. iPhone 4S 3264x2448), but they download an optimized (whatever that means: optimized for display maybe) resolution depending upon the device for viewing.

iPhone and iPad get max 1920x1440 pixel wide images from full 4S resolution photos. Mac iPhoto/Aperture get the full resolution images from the same Photo Stream.

Why does it matter? Lets assume you shoot photos on the iPhone at full resolution. Now you get these photos in your Photo Stream on the iPad (great image exchange you think). When you start editing on the iPad you may not even realize that you don't work on full resolution original images. Same is true if you edit photos from the Photo Stream on the iPhone.

The idea is likely to save bandwidth for the mobile devices. But on the other side it cripples the usefulness of the Photo Stream (maybe we could have an option here in the future).

 

[Tearabite]

I guess if this is an issue for people they will have to choose to disable PhotoStream.

 

[PNutts]

This is mentioned under "What resolution are my Photo Stream photos?" in the iCloud: Photo Stream FAQ.

But it's good to have a reminder.

 

[ustein]

Photo Stream

It does not make it useless but it could be so much more useful.

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This is mentioned under "What resolution are my Photo Stream photos?" in the iCloud: Photo Stream FAQ.

But it's good to have a reminder.

Thanks. Interesting how one can use the word optimized . They optimized away some good use. Maybe they had only viewing in mind.

 

[saving107]

Pixel-gate? Please, no.

Did you know that even doing a quick edit (crop, red eye, enhance) will reduce the quality of your photo by 1/3 (photos from your camera roll)

I'm away from my computer right now, so I can't post examples. But if you take a photo and go into camera roll to edit it, the new copy will be 1/3 less quality than the original. Example: if the original photo was 90mb, the new copy will be 60mb.

 

[ustein]

Photo Stream

>But if you take a photo and go into camera roll to edit it, the new copy will be 1/3 less quality (mb) than the original

How would that be possible if you crop?

>go into camera roll to edit it

You mean in general or in the Apple apps? Yes, other apps would decompress and then compress again.

 

[saving107]

>But if you take a photo and go into camera roll to edit it, the new copy will be 1/3 less quality (mb) than the original

How would that be possible if you crop?

>go into camera roll to edit it

You mean in general or in the Apple apps? Yes, other apps would decompress and then compress again.

Edited inside Apple's Camera Roll (iOS 5 feature).

Here is an example of the Original photo and the Edited (enhanced using the Magic Wand) Photo.

Original

Enhanced/Edited

 

[Interstella5555]

Thread automatically deemed useless by use of the word "gate."

 

[ZBoater]

Pixel-gate? Please, no.

Did you know that even doing a quick edit (crop, red eye, enhance) will reduce the quality of your photo by 1/3 (photos from your camera roll)

I'm away from my computer right now, so I can't post examples. But if you take a photo and go into camera roll to edit it, the new copy will be 1/3 less quality than the original. Example: if the original photo was 90mb, the new copy will be 60mb.

That's if you keep the same compression settings on your saved output.

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Thread automatically deemed useless by use of the word "gate."

Well, this is actually quite disturbing in that picture quality is such a big selling point only to be unknowingly butchered by Photostream. Another one of those "man behind the curtain" features.

 

[Small White Car]

I've only used it for phone-to-Mac streaming which does keep full resolution. So I never realized this. Interesting info.

 

[ustein]

Photo Stream

>about "gate"

Removed it and can we not have some fun?

 

[Interstella5555]

That's if you keep the same compression settings on your saved output.

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Well, this is actually quite disturbing in that picture quality is such a big selling point only to be unknowingly butchered by Photostream. Another one of those "man behind the curtain" features.

Ok, so Apple gives you the full version and people complain because it's too big and eat their data, or apple gives scaled versions and it's too confusing for everyone. I don't really see how they automatically scaling is such a huge deal; it's not like you can't access the other versions or (god forbid) back up locally.

You (and many others) are just making it a boy who cried wolf thing, it's just like bringing Hitler or Nazis into the conversation. does it add anything? Is it THAT serious of a problem? No and no. Quit exaggerating and making it sound like the worst thing that's ever happened and people may take the "issue" a little more seriously.

 

[ZBoater]

Ok, so Apple gives you the full version and people complain because it's too big and eat their data, or apple gives scaled versions and it's too confusing for everyone. I don't really see how they automatically scaling is such a huge deal; it's not like you can't access the other versions or (god forbid) back up locally.

You (and many others) are just making it a boy who cried wolf thing, it's just like bringing Hitler or Nazis into the conversation. does it add anything? Is it THAT serious of a problem? No and no. Quit exaggerating and making it sound like the worst thing that's ever happened and people may take the "issue" a little more seriously.

I would prefer to be given a choice, not just accept whatever an Apple engineer decided was appropriate to do to my pictures.

And I'm not sure where the wolf and worst references are coming from. It is what it is. You are attributing quite a bit more hyperbole to me that I actually included in my post. The problem may not be serious to you, but for those of us who want to preserve the quality of our original pictures it is a big deal.