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Export Full Resolution Version Pictures to iPad 3 #1
Stephen Paulson's picture
by Stephen Paulson
March 18, 2012 - 6:08am

I want to export selected edited “Versions” in full resolution from Aperture 3 to my new iPad 3 without having to create a new JPEG of the “Version”. I can drag and drop from the Aperture Browser window to the PhotoSync app, which exports a “Preview” copy of the edited picture version from my Mac to iPad 3. This process is very convenient. However, my preview images are set to 1/2 resolution and I would like to export the full resolution “Version” to the iPad 3.

Question, is there a simple way in Aperture 3 to export a selected full resolution “Version” without first doing the intermediate step of creating and exporting a new physical JPEG image of the selected “Version” or selectively reprocessing the desired image to create a full resolution “Preview” image.

Stephen Paulson's picture
by Stephen Paulson
March 20, 2012 - 12:47pm

Joseph,

I have not purchased iPhoto for the iPad. Reviews for iPhoto don’t appear great?

To test if PhotoSync will transfer a large file intact from Mac to iPad I did the following.

1) Wireless transfer of 14.2MP.jpg from Mac to iPad 3 using PhotoSync
2) Wireless transfer 14.2MP.jpg back from iPad 3 to Macbook using PhotoSync
3) Execute “Get Info” for each of these two files
4) Both files were listed as 5616 × 3744 resolution
5) The PhotoSync’d file from the iPad 3 was 4,599,745 bytes
6) The original file was 4,590,237 bytes
7) All of the basic photo info (Device, focal length, etc) appears to be identical for both files.
8) The file 14.2MP looks great on the iPad 3.

Hope this answers your question.

Regards,

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 20, 2012 - 12:53pm

Steve,

I haven’t read any reviews. I’ll write my own eventually :)

Thanks for running the set, but, arm, sorry, it was the 21MP 5,616 x 3,744 photo I was hoping you’d sync? The one I linked to above… here it is again.

Hope you don’t mind…

@PhotoJoseph
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Stephen Paulson's picture
by Stephen Paulson
March 21, 2012 - 8:14am

Joseph,

I repeated the sync process again. I was brain dead I guess. The above posting has a typo. Please replace “14.2MP” with “21MP” in my note above. Bottom line, the PhotoSync app does not downsize the photo resolution when transferring to the iPad.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 21, 2012 - 1:51pm

Steve,

aha! So you got the full rez on the iPad… ok that’s enough for me, thanks for testing. I’m off to download the app!

cheers
-Joseph

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PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 21, 2012 - 1:53pm

Steve,

Is this the app: PhotoSync?

When I looked at it the other day I could have sworn it was $5 or $7 which is why I didn’t buy it right away.

Funny…

@PhotoJoseph
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PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 22, 2012 - 6:33am

Steve,

The interest continues…

When I transferred the 5,616 × 3,744 (21MP) sample JPG file to my new iPad using PhotoSync, the resulting file that was copied over is only 2,808 × 1,872 (5.3 MP) in iPhoto on the new iPad.

However when I transferred it back to another Mac, then like you, I got the full size file.

So apparently the iPad is only showing a small version of it.

19 MP file transferred is showing as 4.8 MP
18 MP file transferred is showing as 18 MP!

So the threshold is somewhere between 18 MP and 19 MP for files transferred using PhotoSync.

But what’s really frustrating is that this is clearly NOT what we’re actually looking at on the iPad. If I pinch-zoom in as far as I can on either the now-4.8 MP version vs the 18 MP version, they look the same. I can’t zoom any farther in.

So there’s more to the story…

1. If you import a high resolution photo using PhotoSync, the full rez photo DOES get moved to the iPad
2. According to iPhoto, if it’s 19 MP or over, it will show as a much smaller file in iPhoto. If it’s 18 MP or under, it will show as full resolution (by getting info on the photo in iPhoto).
3. Yet no matter which one you look at, when you pinch into it, they all look the same

-Joseph

@PhotoJoseph
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d kenner's picture
by d kenner
March 24, 2012 - 1:46am

This article provides an interesting slant on the question -

http://duncandavidson.com/blog/2012/03/photography_on_retina

Progressive JPEGs: How to Publishing Hi-Res Photos for iPad on the Web

gfsymon's picture
by gfsymon
March 18, 2012 - 4:53pm

You didn’t mention any 3rd party app on the iPad, so I’m guessing you want to use the built-in ‘Photos’ app.

You do this in iTunes setup for your iPad, but first, in Aperture, make a new Album and drag in the images you want to show up in your iPad. Make several Albums if you want to keep subjects separate.

Now in iTunes, plug-in or connect over WiFi to your iPad and select it in the Sidebar. Now select the Photos tab and choose to sync manually from Aperture then use the Checkboxes to select the albums/projects you want to sync.

The images you choose, whether RAW/Jpeg/Tiff, Versions or Masters, will be synced and optimised for the iPad. You don’t need to do anything more. If you select to Sync over WiFi on the Summary page for your iPad in iTunes (scroll down) then you don’t even need a cable.

(Just one extra point. If you’re working with jpegs in Aperture, then every time you output/export any image to do anything at all with it, then it will be re-jpeg’d (assuming you’ve edited it in Aperture and are not outputting as a Master). This is not ideal, because this second jpeg’ing process will only have a fraction of the number of pixels to work with compared to an original raw. The consequence will be a small to severe drop in quality compared to a first generation jpeg, depending on the compression you’re using and ironically, can actually increase file size in certain circumstances.)

Stephen Paulson's picture
by Stephen Paulson
March 19, 2012 - 12:21am

Thanks much for your helpful post.

Your suggested method using iTunes works great, but unfortunately the iTunes to iPad sync process downgrades the photo resolution.

To take full advantage of the new iPad 3 resolution, I was hoping have a convenient method to transfer the Aperture 3 full resolution edited “Version” for viewing and sharing from the iPad.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 19, 2012 - 1:05am

Steve,

I haven’t played with syncing photos yet to my iPad 3, but whenever iTunes is involved, I believe it’s going to “optimize” for the iPad. Not having tested it yet it sounds like from what you’re saying that it may be optimizing to much!

Do you use Dropbox? If so, try loading full resolution images into a Dropbox folder (you’ll just export from Aperture at full rez to that folder) and then open it on your iPad from there. I think you can save to the Photos folder, and maybe that won’t scale it?

I’m gonna try this myself right now, actually. I had shared some photos to myself through Photo Stream but I’m pretty sure that scaled them down.

@PhotoJoseph
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PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 19, 2012 - 1:52am

OK, did some tests.

Forget Dropbox for this. It just passes through a 1024 wide image.

Even Photo Stream is only passing through a 1024 wide image. So that super sucks.

The way that I normally sync photos (and I’ve just now done it on the iPad 3) is not to sync through Aperture, because I don’t sync my iPad from the same computer I keep Aperture on, but instead to sync a folder of photos. I just exported a variety of photos at full resolution to my sync folder and am now looking at them on the iPad 3, using iPhoto, which displays the resolution.

Here’s what I’ve got:

original size JPEG (what’s in the folder that’s being synced) vs what I see on the iPad

4,288 x 2,848 file — same size on iPad (12.2 MP)
5,616 x 3,744 file — 4,608 x 3,072 on iPad (14.2 MP)
5,210 x 3,280 file — 4,879 x 3,072 on iPad (15 MP)

So files over a certain size get downscaled on sync. Now I’m testing a variety of sizes to se where the cutoff is. I suspect it will be at 19MP since that’s what the keynote demo said was the limit for RAW files.

@PhotoJoseph
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PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 19, 2012 - 2:09am

So much for that theory.

The cutoff is 14.2 MP. I guess that odd image listed above that came in at 15MP is because of its odd aspect ratio.

Here’s the results. I took a single image and made a series of versions, cropped to a series of sizes, watching the MP count in the crop box. I exported the original at 21MP, and a series at 20MP, 19MP, etc. all the way down to 14MP.

Every single photo is showing up on the iPad as scaled down to 14.2MP, and the 14MP one is left alone.

So no matter what size it started as, all files on the iPad are downscaled to 4,608 x 3,072 (14.2MP). The largest file’s original size was 5,616 x 3,744 (21MP).

That is somewhat disappointing, because I’d like to have full rez files to dive into on the iPad.

OK next test; put a full 21MP file on a web page and see what happens.

Here’s a 21MP file: http://www.apertureexpert.com/storage/files/21mp.jpg

Well crap, that even loads in Safari on the iPad as a low rez file. If you click that link above on the Mac, you’ll see it as a 5,615 x 3,744 file (what it actually is) but on the iPad it shows as 1,404 x 936.

OK enough testing.

MORAL OF THE STORY… if you want the highest rez possible, export as 14.2MP.

Oh hell, let’s test this too to confirm. I’ll put this together as a proper post on the front page later.

Now exporting files at 14.0, 14.1, 14.2… up to 14.9 and syncing to iPad 3.

@PhotoJoseph
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PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 19, 2012 - 2:22am

Yep, confirmed. 14.2MP is what you get no matter how much bigger it is.

There appears to be a 3,072 max vertical resolution, as we saw from my earlier test that included an odd-ratio file. Ooh I know, I’ll export something super wide which should give us the max width on the iPad! OK then…

Syncing now a file that is 5616 x 1242 (7.0 MP).

On the iPad it is… drumroll please…

5,616 x 1242. Same size. Damnit… there goes that theory. There is no max horizontal dimension. Maybe there’s a max vertical?

Rotating that file and exporting again, so now it’s a 1,242 x 5,616.

And on the iPad…

same.

So much for the max dimension theory.

OK if anyone out there is an iPad developer and can look up what the max MP size is, that’d be great. It seems to be 14.2MP except that there’s the one odd file up top that scaled down to 15MP.

Until further notice then, the best/safest thing is to export your images from Aperture at a 14.2MP size max so that your image isn’t scaled on sync.

@PhotoJoseph
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Stephen Paulson's picture
by Stephen Paulson
March 19, 2012 - 9:28am

Joseph,

Thanks much for all your detective work. The 14.2MP picture size IOS 5 limit is currently not a problem for me with my Canon 40D, but I anticipate upgrading my camera later this year and will cross over the 14.2MP limitation that you have found for the iPad & IOS 5. Hopefully Apple will remove this limit in future updates of IOS.

Fyi, the best way I have found to export full resolution picture from my Macbook to iPad 3 is to export my edited picture “Version” to a folder on the Mac and then sync to the iPad 3 using PhotoSync. The resulting photos are full resolution and look fantastic on the iPad 3. This export method from Mac to iPad is multi-step, but functional.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 19, 2012 - 12:57pm

Steve,

I haven’t played with PhotoSync. Do you have iPhoto on your iPad 3? That will tell you the dimensions and resolution of the file—I’d be curious if a larger-than 14.2MP file synced through PhotoSycn doesn’t get scaled down?

If you don’t mind trying, you can download a full 21MP file here and sync that. I’d be very curious to see what it does.

@PhotoJoseph
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Ray's picture
by Ray
May 25, 2012 - 2:07pm

A bit late. Create a DCIM folder on an sd card and use the camera connection kit to import. Or, get PhotoSort. Probably many other ways as well.

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