Photo Storage on the iPod -- The Gory Details

[Astro_Digital]

Hi,

Few questions I have photos stored on my PC but when iTunes syncs the photo folders from my harddrive to my iPod it says some photos can not be copied but does not tell me why some photos can not be copied. What could be wrong with some of my photos that iTunes with not copy the photos to my iPod? How can if identify and fix photos that need fixings?

I have photos from the old predigital camera days. Can somebody tell me if my old pictures can be scaned, digitized and copied on my PC then copied to my 5.5 iPod Video?
My pictures come in two sizes 4 x 6 and 3 1/2 x 5 not sure of the sizes does these matter?
I do not not much about photos they come from cameras but aspect ratio, DPI and such terms not sure of. Can the average nob scan photos, store them on their PC and iPod without taking a course?

[Jesse Hollington]

iTunes should be able to transfer any photo that is in standard JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD (Mac only) or PNG format. If you have files or photos in these directories that are not in these formats, then this would likely be where iTunes is having problems.

You may have to identify the photos that are causing issues and see if you can use a photo editing/conversion tool to ensure that they are in the proper format.

As for scanning in print photos, basically all you need to do is use a normal scanner and scan them in one of the above formats and then place the resulting files in the appropriate directory. If you're scanning them in specifically for iPod viewing, then you would want to scanner settings appropriate for the iPod's lower resolution... Anything above 720x480 is going to be a waste of space, and even that resolution is only necessary for TV viewing. DPI in this case is only relevant for printing photos, so it doesn't really apply, although some scanners will insist that you specify a DPI setting, in which case usually something around 120 would be more than sufficient for a 4 x 6 print.

[Maha10k]

I think I have the same question as other posters but I haven't found a definite answer yet.

I uploaded a about 1.9 GB of photos to my 5G 80GB iPod. In total they swelled up to over 15 GB. I gather from the chart that this happens because of the additional previews the iPod generates. There is also the gigantic cache folder in the iPhoto.

Is the only way to avoid this to NOT load photos onto the iPod? There are no software utilities to fix this?

[Jesse Hollington]

Hi and welcome to iLounge.

In principle, that's pretty much correct. This is less of an issue on the iPod Nano, as it does not store the TV quality image, which is the largest one to deal with. You can also choose to not store "Full Resolution" photos, which are not used by the iPod in any way, so they just take up space on the drive. The only real reason to use the "Store Full Resolution Photos" option is if you plan to use the original photos on a different computer, or you want an extra backup copy (although there are probably better places to back up your photo library than your iPod).

15Gb does sound quite high, however, since I have my entire iPhoto library syncing to my iPod, and it's almost 20Gb, yet it only takes up around 7Gb on my iPod. Obviously, this does depend on what the original resolution of the photos are, since iTunes will always resize them to a consistent size. You can calculate from the information and chart on the first page how much space should be taken up by the number of photos you're putting on. However, for 1.9Gb of actual photos on your computer to be taking up 15Gb on the iPod, they would have to be fairly low-resolution photos.

15Gb of photos, assuming you're not storing the full-resolution versions, would be equivalent to over 15,000 pictures, since each photo, even in it's various converted resolutions, takes up a little bit less than 1Mb.

[admanmavo]

A friend took some photos at my home recently with her digital camera, then she e-mailed the pictures to my wife. I copied the photo attachments in that e-mail message to a sub-directory under the "My Pictures" directory -- that's the location on our computer where my video iPod is directed to look for and then copy new photos from my computer to the iPod.

Getting the e-mailed pictures onto my computer was very easy; synching them onto my iPod has proven more difficult -- I tried a number of times but was unsuccessful every time.

When I turned on my iPod, and went to iTunes, I saw the sub-directory name with those photographs on the iTunes "Photo" page and I checked the box to the left of the name -- in effect, directing my iPod to begin synching those pictures from my computer onto my iPod. However, none of the photos nor the sub-directory name itself were synched.

This has never happened when I take photos using my own digital camera. Synching them onto my iPod is a piece of cake.

Any logical explanation? Could it be the JPG format of my friend's camera -- could it be somewhat different from the format of the images my own camera utilizes?

[Jesse Hollington]

Hi and welcome to iLounge.

While JPG is supposed to be JPG, there could be some issues in the format of the files that iTunes doesn't like.

Further, are you certain they are JPEG files? What model of camera was she using? Is it possible they were shot in some other format such as RAW or TIFF?

What happens if you drop one of your own, known-good photos into that folder? Does the folder sync to the iPod with even that one picture?

The only other thing I can suggest is to turn OFF photo syncing, delete your "iPod Photo Cache" folder (it should be located in the same directory that you are syncing your photos from, and then re-enable photo sync. When you turn OFF photo sync the first time, iTunes will ask you whether or not you want to remove the photos from your iPod. It shouldn't matter whether you do this or not, but there also shouldn't be any reason not to.

This will reconvert all of the photos for the iPod, rebuilding the photo cache on your hard drive and retransferring all of your photos. It may be a lengthy process, but it's the best way to ensure that you're starting with a clean configuration in terms of the photo cache and photo databases.

[blugh]

Well I have tried to get photos on my iPod. They are all JPEG.. some seem to work. some dont at all and some seem to be all destorted. Is there a limit to the size of the photos on your pc?

[jvolino]

I keep my photos in a hierarchical folder structure outside iPhoto and try to keep that structure relatively clean for long term archival purposes. If I choose to synch photos to my iPod, will the optimized photo cache that's created be placed in a single location, or inside every folder that has photos that are transferred to the iPod? Is there any way with the current version (7.x) of iTunes to specify other locations for the cache?

Thanks,
Judd

[Jesse Hollington]

Hi and welcome to iLounge.

The cache folder by default is placed directly under the parent directory of folders that you are synchronizing, and contains all pictures that are synchronized from any sub-folder.

So if you're synchronizing a folder named C:\Pictures, with sub-folders for Winter, Summer, and Spring, the photo cache folder will be created as C:\Pictures\iPod Photo cache.

It is not possible to change this location at the present time.

[ssides]

OK, I'm not all that technically inclined when it comes to digital media, but I just got a brand-new 160gb iPod classic, and I've uploaded all the photos stored on my computer to it. 99% of them work and look great.

However, I've noticed a problem with some of the old family photos that I had scanned to my computer. I have them in three separate subfolders in the "my pictures" part on my computer. One of these subfolders downloaded fine to the iPod -- all the scanned pictures showed up.

However, for the other two folders, most of these scanned pictures only show up on the thumbnails screen on the iPod. When you click on the photo, the screen is blank (except sometimes you can see a faint digital white line on the right side of the screen). When scrolling through, you can hear the iPod clicking through the photos, but you just see blank screen after blank screen.

Are these photo files corrupted, or is there some type of setting I can change to make them show up?


Many thanks for any insight.

[danielharris627]

^ same for me! Very irritating...

[Beninark]

can anyone tell me how do I get rid of the ipod photo cache on my computer? It is taking up around 6 gigs of hard drive space...needless to say I dont need 12 gigs of space taken up by pictures and is pretty insane that I cant remove the cache from my computer with out having to go through the process of re-processing all the images.

any suggestions?

[Jesse Hollington]

Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of it is to turn OFF photo syncing to your iPod. iTunes will otherwise re-create it whenever you connect your iPod and resync your photos.

The good news is that you can turn OFF photo syncing without removing your existing photos from your iPod, which may be useful if you retain a relatively static photo collection on your iPod. Of course, you'll have to turn it back on again if you ever want to add any additional photos (and of course go through optimizing ALL photos, not just the ones you're adding).

[KerryC]

This week I bought the new cables and the new Universal Dock so that I can connect my iPod touch to the TV to view movies/tv shows and photos externally. I was happy with the video resolution (converted using Handbrake) but I was shocked at the poor quality of the photos. I mainly wanted to use the dock/cables in order to show slideshows of my photos of a recent overseas holiday on friends/relatives TVs.

A bit of reseach found that the iPod touch (and iPhone) only has the low resolution versions of the photos transferred, not the high resolution ones for TV out as well.

I'm contemplating buying a 160GB iPod Classic to store the photos and videos for TV out, but does it has the same problems as the iPod Touch, or does the iPod Classic store the high resolution versions as well?

(I'm really quite annoyed at the lack of high resolution photos on the iPod touch, it makes a mockery of the great zoom function. I understand it's probably a space-related issue, but I'm capable of managing the space, and would prefer to have fewer photos at a high resolution rather than a larger quantity at low resolution (it could always be a choice in iTunes))

Thanks

Kerry

[helpmeprease]

how can i convert the thumbs or make the images on my ipod drive viewable and usable on my pc?