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How are photos stored on iPad

azonie

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How are photos stored on iPad, and what happens when you copy to a album?
Does it double space?

Settings is showing 315 photos but camera roll only has 102.

I thought if you copied from Camera Roll to another album it didn't show or count but once. Therefore not using any additional storage space?

And what about photo in Photo Stream?
 

KevinJS

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When you copy a photograph to an album, you are not copying the actual photograph. You are linking to the original photograph in Camera Roll. For this reason, if you delete the original, the copy goes too.
 
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azonie

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Are the photo in Photo Stream taking up storage space?
 
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azonie

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How can I tell how much storage space is being taken up by photos?
 

KevinJS

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I dont use Photo Stream so I don't know how it works, but if the photographs are resident on your iPad, yes they are. if it s necessary to download them each time you want to view them, then no they are not.
 

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I think that what you see in Photos are pics that were taken on the device thattook them. If you are using photostream, those same photos will also show up on photostream (as a link, not as a second copy) on the device that took them.

So, assuming you are using Photostream on all your iDevices, if you take a shot on your iPhone, that pic will appear in Photos (file) and Photostream (link) on your iPhone, but will only appear in Photostream on your iPad (but it will be a actual photo, not a link). If you take a shot on your iPad (or do a screen capture, which is what I do most of the time on my iPad), then that pic will be in the Photos folder (actual file) and the Photostream (as a link) on the iPad, but only in the Photostream (as a file) on the iPhone.

I based these comments on what I think I observe from using the two devices. I may be wrong and any corrections are welcomed. :)
 

ajcgn

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azonie said:
How can I tell how much storage space is being taken up by photos?

Don't know how to tell on the iPad itself, but when you sync with iTunes, the amount of space taken up by photos shows up in iTunes on the bottom of the screen.
 

digitalbits6

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Settings / General / About menu will show the number of photos and videos stored on the iPad. As for the size, you can see that when you sync with iTunes the amount of GB used by each type on the iPad.
 

twerppoet

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Photo Stream copies the photos to every device. They are available offline.

I don't know how to tell how much storage Photo Stream is using. You can see what most apps are doing by going to General > Usage and looking at the apps; however Photos isn't there. Neither is Photo Stream.

If you do iCloud backups you can see how much space the Camera Roll will take to backup. Go to Settings > iCloud > Manage Storage > and choose the iPad's backup. But since the Photo Stream does not count against your iCloud space, it is not shown.

That's all I've got. Sorry.
 
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azonie

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Still trying to figure out how photos are stored and how much space they take up.

On "Photo" album only have 238 photos but in settings/general it shows 701 photos.
 

twerppoet

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Go to Settings > General > Usage, then tap on Photos & Camera in the Storage list. It will show you how much space is being taken up by the Camera Roll, Photo Library (albums), and Photo Streams. That will give you the storage answer.

For the number of photos, here's a quick workaround to see how many photos are in each album and Photo Stream.

In Mail, DropBox, GoodReader and most other apps that can access the Photo library, when you access the photo chooser it shows all the albums with the number of photos to the right.
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I'm afraid that's all I have for you.
 

rtiano12

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How are photos stored on iPad, and what happens when you copy to a album?
Does it double space?

Settings is showing 315 photos but camera roll only has 102.

I thought if you copied from Camera Roll to another album it didn't show or count but once. Therefore not using any additional storage space?

And what about photo in Photo Stream?

The pics are stored automatically in the internal storage of an iPad. If you copy the image to some other folder that you might have made it also consider that pic as an individual pic. Nevertheless, the pic that you download from any or downloaded automatically will also be considered in counting by the system.
 

WhydidIbuyit

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Go to Settings > General > Usage, then tap on Photos & Camera in the Storage list. It will show you how much space is being taken up by the Camera Roll, Photo Library (albums), and Photo Streams. That will give you the storage answer.

For the number of photos, here's a quick workaround to see how many photos are in each album and Photo Stream.

In Mail, DropBox, GoodReader and most other apps that can access the Photo library, when you access the photo chooser it shows all the albums with the number of photos to the right.
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View attachment 41460
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I'm afraid that's all I have for you.

Note to self: Hit Reply With Quote BEFORE you write message.

Sheesh!

I have followed your instructions.

Photos & Camera usage: Camera Roll 17.4 GB, Photo Library, 0.2 KB, Photo Stream, 514 MB.

I am not relating to these numbers. It looks like I have pretty much filled my Camera Roll. I'm not sure what Photo Library is ... but it appears empty. There is only 514 MB in Photo Stream ... which, when I look at it, appears as full as my Camera Roll. :confused:

The photos on the "new" iPad were all taken by the iPad. I don't sync cell phones to my iPad.

My original reason for questioning the iPad photo system was to find out how to move just "a few" decent resolution pictures onto my PC in order to have them available when emailing from my desktop PC. Some of my friends are (cranky) complaining that not only are my pictures all sideways but that they are huge! Others receive them perfectly.

I found the resizing icon on the iPad mail site. I tried sending six photos in the smallest size via the iPad. They arrived as a blur ... though the email looked good at this end.

I've read a LOT of comments about moving pictures from iPad to PC but none of the answers really deal with what I want to do.

Look forward to your comment.
 

twerppoet

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The Photo Library contains pictures you've synced using iTunes on a computer. If you have not done that, then it should be empty, or nearly so. A little space may be taken by the file structure, and I'd guess that is where your 0.2KB is going.

Photo Stream will only keep the last 1000 pictures, or 30 days. I'm not completely sure how that works out to space in the end, but it puts an absolute cap on how storage will be used on the iPad for that feature. 514 MB (half a GB) could be that cap. For that reason don't use Photo Stream as a permanent way to keep photos on the iPad.


Pictures may end up upside down or sideways when sent if you hold the iPad upside down or sideways when taking the picture. While the iPad stores the orientation data in each photo, not all apps on other computers or devices understand this. So they can look fine on the iPad, but end up elseways elsewhere. To prevent this make sure you are holding the iPad with the power button at the bottom or to your right when taking photos.

If you are not sure how you held the camera, try Editing the picture in Photos. Rotate it, save it, then rotate it back, and save again. In my experience this resets the photo to the viewed orientation in whatever way it needs to look right on other devices.


The smallest size, using Mail, is really quite small. It's going to look blurry on any display much bigger than a phone. Try medium for web viewing, or large if someone is going to want a decent picture. Here are some samples of what Mail does to a picture when you choose a smaller size, depending on the source.


From Screen Shot on iPad 2

Small = 320 x 240
Medium = 640 x 480
Large = 1280 x 960
Actual = 1366 x 1024


From Screen Shot on iPad (3rd gen)

Small = 320 x 240
Medium = 640 x 480
Large = 1366 x 1024
Actual = 2732 x 2048


From iPad (3rd gen) Camera

Small = 320 x 240
Medium = 640 x 478
Large = 1296 x 968
Actual = 2592 x 1936


320 x 240 is very small by todays standers. It's the same as older TV sets (not HD)


You can also copy photos from your iPad using the USB cable connected to your computer. In Windows iPad will mound as a USB drive, and the pictures will be in the DCIM folder, in subfolders. On a Mac you can use the Image Capture app (in the Applications folder) to copy pictures from the Camera Roll to the computer.

Another way that works is to use a photo transfer app. PhotoSync (no hyphen) is an app you can run on the iPad to transfer photos between iOS devices and a computer. Between devices you need the same app loaded and open. There is also a client for Windows and OS X. It is not necessary, but it does make things easier. Works either on the same wi-fi network or BlueTooth, the last being less reliable and slower. A method of last resort.

There are other photo transfer apps. PhotoSync just happens to be the one I use, and like.

One last thing. If you've been keeping your pictures just on the iPad, you need to start considering how to back them up elsewhere. It's never a good idea to keep important data in just one place. It is doubly a bad thing when that one place is a mobile device, subject to all kinds of extra hazards

Hope that answered all your questions.

Good luck.
 
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WhydidIbuyit

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Once again, "thank you."

Appreciate the reminder on backing up. I just have to decide what program I want to back them up into. My Picasa must be about full at this point. I don't like Windows Live.


I loaded DropBox earlier this evening. Your thoughts? Is Photosync the same idea? I'll check it out. I will delete DropBox if you think I'd like the other program better. I don't use documents on the iPad so I only need an efficient way to move pictures around.


Yes, I realize Photo Stream holds the last 1000 pictures and that it is temporary.


I always use the camera and the iPad in portrait mode so that would mean everything should be right side up. You mentioned you could also have the power button to the right????? I just tried that. It's kind of an awkward way to take a picture .... or am I missing something here?


Thanks for the tip re sizing. I just found the button on my iPad mail site last night. Didn't realize I could alter the size till then. Yep, I just reduced them too much.


Earlier today I did try the USB hook up and opened up the ipad folders. There were four of them. All the pictures were sideways ... and I really wasn't sure what the heck I was doing ... so I closed it.


I guess the albums have to stay on the iPad? They wouldn't likely transfer in that form huh?
 

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