email low-res images from your photo library (click to enlarge and unobscure)

On that occasion where you find yourself with a great photo taken with an app that outputs at super low resolution like the 320×480 apps, you’re not completely out of luck. Your iPhone can do a little magic, resizing images to give tiny photos a few more pixels.

Simply email the image to yourself from your iPhone’s camera roll using the share button in the lower lefthand corner of the screen. Before it emails the image, your iPhone resamples a 320×480 pixel image to 533×800 pixels. Popular app Polarize’s 450×520 resolution gets a boost to a more usable 681×800 when you email the photos from your photo library. Now, instead of postage stamp-sized photos, your images are suitable for uploading to Facebook, Flickr, and even suitable for printing at smaller sizes.

Image upsampling isn’t an ideal solution to having the pixels there in the first place — image quality won’t be as sharp as an photo that should have been saved in high resolution in the first place — but it can make the difference between a super low-res image and one that’s now suitable for a variety of uses.

=M=

~~~~

Previous Life In LoFi Technique links:

Life In LoFi: Technique: How to Edit Images on an iPhone: Adjust Your “Gamma”

Life In LoFi: Technique: Taking clearer pictures

From Glyn Evans, c0-developer of Format126 and publisher of The iPhoneography Blog:

In my opinion Apple should force developers to disclose the maximum size in the apps description, making this element of the description part of the approval process, and so no size, no tick in the box, and no approval.

From thescw, app consultant and beta tester:

If developers can make a flashy looking at times state of the art photography app & then lack the damn knowledge to do justice to their own hard work giving users full resolution, you are kidding yourself if you think anything you have produced is even slightly successful. The only reason many of these apps even get a good rating or sales is 1) deceit due to lack of descriptive details (resolution sizing) or 2) Teens & Tweens with iPod Touch & iPhones buying these apps to send to their friends using MMS & Instant Messengers. But the day they realize that the hard work they put into making the photo that is nothing bigger than the size of the screen they will be very unimpressed.

So these developers are taking a sneaky deceptive route which is honestly a “take the money & run” approach. For rarely will these developers ever upgrade the app, reply to an email, have a valid website, give out their contact info.

Renzo Verleysen from phoenxsoftware who develop MonoPhix and FlashPhix was the first coder to post a comment. Here are some highlights:

Why developers release low resolution apps can be explained in multiple ways.
One of the problems comes with Apple and the iPhone SDK. If you capture an image from the cameraroll you have the choice as developer to open it as an original or to “allow editing”. This means that people will be faced with a dialog which allow them to resize and crop. The maximum size of the cropped image is 320×320 if I’m not mistaking. So many developers go the “easy” way and choose this….

The next problem is indeed that some filters are too complicated to be performed in a fast way on full resolution images on the iPhone. Even desktop computers have problems with efficiently handling some graphics operations. So people develop a great app and put a lot of time in it and then find out that their filter is too intense for the iPhone’s hardware and requires minutes to apply to a full resolution image. So to get the app out in time they simply lower the resolution….

I’m not justifying the developers, but I was once in the same shoes. Luckily with the help of the Apple Dev Support engineers I managed to get full resolution PNG/JPEG support in most of my apps. The only one that’s still lacking full resolution support is iPhix, but that’s just because I haven’t had any time to update it yet. I’m eager to do so and when it’s updated it will flawlessly operate full resolution images without delaying anything.

Takayuki Fukatsu, developer of TiltShift Generator, wrote:

Lower image with 320×480 app basically has Three reason.
1: Developer is stupid.
2: App using super cpu / memory extensive processing, or developer’s skill issue.
3: That is free version and you need to pay for hi-res.

Also 1200×1600 app has reason.

1: Application is old, made on early 3G ages.
2: Backward compatibility for both 3G and 3Gs.
3: App using super cpu / memory extensive processing, also backward compatibility for 3G.

Another well know row-rez size is 320 x 427 has more serious problem for resolution. The reasons for this is …  App uses screen capture, therefore it is restricted with iPhone’s screen size. Problem is that apple doesn’t provide easy way to detect camera size or iPhone generation.

Joe Macirowski, developer of Auto Adjust, added:

What’s interesting is that it’s actually an extra step in the code to down sample an image from the library to 320×480. My only guess is that it’s to conserve memory in favor of not crashing…, but through extensive testing I’ve found that a first generation iPod Touch running iTunes in the background can easily (although slowly) deal with bitmapped 1600×1200 images from the library, and the iPhone 3GS can work with the 2560×1600 OS X wallpapers (and actually haven’t found the ceiling on what the iPad can do). I’m absolutely astonished that apps do this. It really doesn’t make sense.

The latest comment comes from Chromocam, who’s developing a series of new iPhone photography apps. In his comments on Life In LoFi, he writes:

I blame a few lines of code that developers might cling to….

Basically, dumping any view straight to memory and then from there you can save it easily to the photo library. The trick is to have offscreen coregraphics buffers, which isn’t too difficult, but it can be scary rotating and translating some big chunks of memory. And therein lies the fun….

On the Chromocam blog, he writes further:

Why would some apps like CameraBag or MonoPhix save at nice resolutions, and yet others save at 320 x 480, the iPhone screen resolution? Well, the answer is… lazy programmers.

I can’t say that I blame the programmers though. Apple has not made it particularly easy to play with large image buffers in memory. Actually, they’ve made working with images extraordinarily easy, as long as you are just displaying them and maybe moving them here and there. But rotating, applying filters, working byte by byte with them gets a little trickier.

You can read all of the comments here. As of this writing there are 26 spread across two pages, and they’re still coming in. The comments are a good read and provide a lot of insight into the frustration of the users and app developers who care about the quality of their apps and their reception in the iPhoneography community.

=M=

~~~~

This is all you get. Full-size output from one of the recent super-low res camera apps (300x400 pixels)

Another day, another super-low-res monochrome camera is released in the App Store.

With the number of monochrome camera apps that save at the iPhone’s full resolution — Vint B&W, Spica SuperMonochrome, and others — and the number of apps that do an excellent job of converting images to monochrome — CameraBag, MonoPhix, CameraKit — I don’t understand why it’s suddenly become so difficult to produce apps that save to at least 1200×1600 resolution.

One of my biggest peeves in the App Store is the recent glut of super-low-res photo apps. These are the apps that save images at 320×480 pixels (or less) — the iPhone’s screen resolution. Seriously, that’s 0.154 megapixels. The original VGA resolution from the late 1980′s was 640×480 pixels.

An app that saves at 320×480 is nearly useless in my opinion. Don’t think you need more pixels that that? Your 320×480 images will look horrible on an iPad. You can forget about prints. A 320×480 pixel image will only make a print that’s about 2″ x 3.25″. That’s pushing it and it will still be fuzzy.

They won’t look much better on your monitor. Super-low-res images lack detail and sharpness no matter where they’re viewed. They simply don’t have the pixels to hold detail.

These super-low-res images are only good enough to send MMS phone-to-phone or to make wallpapers for your iPhone. They aren’t even large enough to look good online in Facebook, Flickr or Picasa.

If all of these other apps have been able to save 2MP files since the dawn of the App Store, why has it now become so hard to desaturate an image in full-resolution?

Why are these apps even released? In the comments section below, I welcome responses from developers who create super-low-res apps. I’m willing to have an open-minded debate on any merits of 320×480 apps.

Granted, sometimes an app’s goals overreach what the OS will let it do. For instance, last year I discovered an app which emulated a slow shutter time, creating some great motion effects. This was a very innovative camera app. At the time, there was nothing even comparable. Unfortunately, it saved at super-low-resolution. Apple doesn’t allow developers to tinker directly with the shutter speed of the iPhone. The developer told me how their app worked, but that saving at higher resolutions wasn’t possible, saying “I know well the output resolution is too low. However, I cannot do it for the life of me.” I felt sorry for this developer. But, they were honest and upfront in the description about the limitations of the app.

Many times, though, I think it’s just lazy programming. For example, there are dozens of full-resolution cameras already available that can shoot in monochrome. A noise reduction blur has been available in PhotoForge for a long time and the app is able to save any image size your iPhone’s RAM can handle. Apps like TiltShift Generator and FocalLab have been in the app store for a while; they have great focus tools and they save in full-res. I can’t imagine that those APIs are restricted from developers.

Some developers even charge a buck or two for apps that destroy your image size. What angers me the most is when a developer describes their app and everything it does, yet they leave out the very critical fact that the app only saves at 320×480 from the app’s description. With a 5 megapixel iPhone rumored to be released later this year, I think it’s both deceptive and irresponsible to omit this information from an app’s description.

I have much more respect and much less anger towards a super-low-res photo app that clearly states what its maximum resolution is. Then the choice is mine whether I want to spend money, time, bandwidth or all three on an app that produces tiny photographs which are only suitable for texting.

As a buyer, I want to know what I’m getting before I purchase. Without full disclosure, these camera apps aren’t a purchase, they’re a gamble. This not only irritates me when I get a clunker, but it erodes the confidence I have as a consumer in the App Store. While I realize that it’s only a dollar, when enough people unwittingly buy these apps, it’s rewarding lazy or deceptive behavior.

Ideally, it would be nice if every app that wasn’t full-resolution had the resolution information stated in its description. As long as people can be duped into spending a buck for a sub-par app, I don’t think this will ever completely happen.

It would be nice if Apple were to require this information to be disclosed the app’s description, but this would require additional testing on the part of Apple to ensure compliance and would increase the time from an app’s submission until its release. Apple has steadily been trying to reduce the submission-to-store time.

As consumers, all we can do is to be careful. Read the online app reviews here and at other iPhoneography web sites. Read the App Store reviews. Lately, it seems that reviewers have been very diligent at exposing these unannounced low-res apps in their reviews.

Developers, trust us to purchase your apps. Be honest with us up front. Don’t surprise us. Sure, you’ll lose sales, but you’ll generate far fewer complaints, one-star reviews and ill will if we purchase your super-low-res apps with our eyes wide open.

</rant>

=M=

~~~~

If you want to make quality prints from your images, before you buy an iPhone photo app check to see if it saves at 100%. Many of the most popular ones don’t. After you download an app check the settings. Even though the app saves at 100% the default may be less than full resolution. I simply don’t use an app unless it saves at 100%. Why would I want to degrade the image? So if you ever plan to make prints, print calendars or books, check before you buy and save yourself some money.

Editor’s Note: Well said, Dixon. Thanks! Even if you’ve read a review of an app online, it’s always a good idea to read the app’s entire description in iTunes. If it’s mentioned, many times a developer will bury the size of output at the end of a description. Not all online reviews mention an app’s resolution (LifeInLoFi’s policy is to mention image resolution when we find lower than acceptable output. Often we mention the resolution anyway.). If no output resolution is mentioned in the online review you read — either full-size or reduced — check the user reviews in the App Store. Many times, the early reviews will mention low res output.

~~~~

Dixon Hamby publishes the blog dixon hamby iphoneography and has given me permission to republish his post here. You can follow Dixon on Twitter, @dixonhamby. You can purchase books of his iPhoneography here.