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Photo editing with the iPad - a limitation of file management I discovered.

donka

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Just a brief introduction to this issue. I was knocking up some sample Wallpapers for the iPad using photos I shot with my dSLR. I would normally do all this in Photoshop but decided to give it a try solely on the iPad using great apps such as Filterstorm, Photogene & Snapseed.
I managed to quickly produce some great results but some apps such as Snapseed do not let you export to a specific size - in this case 1024x1024. I could easily crop to a square but I still had around a 2000x2000 image that I needed to resize. Simple I thought, finish the edit in Snapseed and save this and then open this file in Filterstorm and save it as 1024x1024.
That all worked fine but here is the problem, I wanted to email some of these 1024x1024 samples to someone. Going into the Photos app to select the images I had just edited - I had both the 2000 & 1024 pixel images with no way to determine which was which as they appear identical in the app. In the end I had to create a new folder and copy over the ones I thought were the 1024 images and then open these up one by one in Photogene to see the properties of the image. I had to delete out the larger images I had incorrectly copied into this folder and then repeat the process until I only had the 1024 images I wanted in this folder and then use this as the base folder for emailing out the images.
This all seems like a major limitation of the photos app on the iPad. I would love to be able to pull up basic information such as file size and resolution. If I could do all the work in a single app like Photogene or Filterstorm, I could then export these via email from within the app but I want the flexibility of using multiple apps depending on the end result I want.
Is there a better way of doing this?
 

twerppoet

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No good suggestions:

But, for the two picture problem, try zooming in. Near as I can tell the Photos app only allows about 3X zoom (based on screen, not pixels), so the picture with the most detail remaining after maximum zoom is the larger one.
 
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donka

donka

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No good suggestions:

But, for the two picture problem, try zooming in. Near as I can tell the Photos app only allows about 3X zoom (based on screen, not pixels), so the picture with the most detail remaining after maximum zoom is the larger one.

A good suggestion and something I did try but the issue is the zoom level remains the same regardless of the image resolution, so provided the shots are saved at a suitably high quality, it is virtually impossible to discern a difference by zooming in, you would only be able to notice this if it let you zoom right in dependant on the image resolution i.e. when I zoom into both images as far as I can go and take a measurement between two points, the measurement is identical between the images. If I could zoom in dependant on the resolution then the higher resolution image would give a larger measurement between the same two points.
Granted, it doesn't help the subject of the image has a grunge type filter which masks some of the detail if the first place. If think the only way to determine the difference by zooming in is if one of the images was saved at a very low resolution i.e. 480 or lower or if one of the images was saved with a much lower quality setting.
 

twerppoet

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You are right. If both images are of superior quality it would be hard to tell.

No other ideas, except to scour the App Store for an app that will display photo info. I seem to remember at least one that will show metadata. That should do the trick.
 

hilsroo

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Not sure if this will help, but I just found out Photo Shack Pro shows metadata for each photo.
 

twerppoet

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The final straw. I'm buying the app. There are several other things it does that I want, but couldn't quite convince myself that I needed.


My, that was a fast download.

Them metadata does include the pixel size, DPI, and other info. You can mail straight from the app. Since Photo Shack Pro does not make a copy of the original the foot print is smaller than those apps that maintain a separate library.

So, if you're willing to spend $9.99 I think you will be happy with it; once you figure out how it works. That took me a few minutes.
 

maleaco

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Dosent metadata have the GPS coordinates, or is that only on iPhones?
 

twerppoet

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Dosent metadata have the GPS coordinates, or is that only on iPhones?

The iPhone photos that I brought in via Photo Stream did not show GPS data. The photo I took with the iPad did (even though it is a Wi-Fi only iPad). I suspect that iPhone and other photos imported via the CCK (Camera Connection Kit) or other methods would retain their GPS data, but can't confirm it. I can't find my USB CCK dongle, so I can't test it to be sure.
 

twerppoet

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Ok, just copied a couple of iPhone photos to the iPad using the PhotoSync app (no space). The GPS metadata arrived intact. No idea why Photo Stream is stripping it.

You can check the metadata without actually importing the photo into Photo Shack Pro (just before importing it), and you need to tap the Details button to see all the data. It defaults to a more Basic set of stats.
 
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donka

donka

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Sounds like Photo Stack Pro would do the trick. A shame it is needed though as I would typically just email in batch from the Photos app. I have a couple of apps that will display the metadata but I can only send one photo at a time from within in those apps.
 
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donka

donka

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Actually, I need to back track a little here. Using the select tool in Photogene, I can select a batch of photos and then email them at a specific size or just review the metadata for the ones I want and then select them and email them in a batch untouched. I thought the select option was only used for the Collage feature.
Looks like I have a work around for my own problem now. :)
 
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donka

donka

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twerppoet said:
Glad you got it figured out.

I'm also happy you gave me the excuse to pull the trigger on another app I wanted. ;)

It's a very good app. I haven't explored it enough and it has impressed me a great deal today. :)

Sent from my iPad using iPF
 

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