Horrible cropping bug in IOS9 for none-iPhone camera pictures

[Dan_85]

Yes, the problem seems to be fixed on iOS 9.2 thankfully I have the beta running on my iPad Air and photos are displaying correctly, as they were before iOS 9. They're no longer cropped to fit full screen. Woohoo!

 

[crwoo]

I am now running 9.2 beta on my iphone and the bug is still there.

 

[scruffypig]

Yes, the problem is only with Apple's Photos app. If you view the photos with a 3rd party application such as Facebook, Google Photos, Flickr etc then they display correctly. Unfortunately that means having to always have an internet connection to view them. Using the Photos app is (was) a much faster way to view photos or artwork, especially when offline.

Over on the official Apple discussion forums one user has today mentioned having a long phone conversation with Apple who have declared that this is intended behavior. If that's true, it's insane. Imagine if the manufacturer of your television forced the latest Hollywood blu-ray to play in an aspect ratio different to what it was shot in. It just about renders the iPad useless for photographers and designers such as myself.

And to think that the iPad Pro is aimed squarely at designers, photographers and creatives. Is the same issue going to persist there?!

EDIT: Photos are displaying correctly in iOS 9.2 Public Beta 1!

Doesn't Facebook resize jpegs? I am sure Facebook does this.

 

[yvandermeer]

Until this bug is fixed… I found this to be an acceptable workaround for my workflow:
…

Edit: this forum is not letting me post links because I just signed up, so please Google yourself for:

"add letterboxing during lightroom export" site:photo.stackexchange.com

That should give you the link.

 

[Dan_85]

Yes, you won't be able to view photos in the original quality if you view them through FB. They'll be reduced in resolution and have FB's pretty aggressive compression added to them. So this is not a great solution for professionals, creatives etc.

I'll reiterate again that for me, on iPad Air running iOS 9.2 Beta 1, the problem is resolved. I know crwoo said this hadn't fixed the problem for him on iPhone, would be good to hear some other feedback.

Whilst, not ideal, adding letterboxing in Lightroom as suggested should resolve the issue. It's an extra step that users really shouldn't have to take but I think that's the best option right now if 9.2 isn't fixing the problem for you.

 

[scruffypig]

Yes, you won't be able to view photos in the original quality if you view them through FB. They'll be reduced in resolution and have FB's pretty aggressive compression added to them. So this is not a great solution for professionals, creatives etc.

I'll reiterate again that for me, on iPad Air running iOS 9.2 Beta 1, the problem is resolved. I know crwoo said this hadn't fixed the problem for him on iPhone, would be good to hear some other feedback.

Whilst, not ideal, adding letterboxing in Lightroom as suggested should resolve the issue. It's an extra step that users really shouldn't have to take but I think that's the best option right now if 9.2 isn't fixing the problem for you.

Aren't you forgetting that LCD screens are fixed resolution? Have you had this problem when playing a slideshow from your Photo app?

 

[crwoo]

now running IOS9.2 beta 2 on my iPhone and the bug is still not fixed

 

[scruffypig]

Looks like it's intended behaviour. Makes better use of the screen. You could also do a quick pinch zoom-in then out and it displays full size, same as the double tap method you mentioned but with less effort.

Still, you'll probably be best to find an app designed for viewing non-iPhone photos since it's pretty clear that Apple has optimized their own apps for their own hardware.

^Exactly. This explains it very well.

 

[crwoo]

i dont think you understand the complaint. why should I have to zoom in and out with every picture coming from my camera but not with pictures taken with my phone? it's also painful that i have to zoom in and our as a work around. the fact that a bug this serious has been reported a few times and has not been fixed shows that apple doesnt give a crap anymore about their quality.

Watch the video and see what i have to do in order to see my pictures uncropped and tell me if this is standard operation.

 

[scruffypig]

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Oktfcl86G-U[/url]

i dont think you understand the complaint. why should I have to zoom in and out with every picture coming from my camera but not with pictures taken with my phone? it's also painful that i have to zoom in and our as a work around. the fact that a bug this serious has been reported a few times and has not been fixed shows that apple doesnt give a crap anymore about their quality.

Watch the video and see what i have to do in order to see my pictures uncropped and tell me if this is standard operation.

Do you experience this when playing back a slideshow?

 

[Dan_85]

Aren't you forgetting that LCD screens are fixed resolution? Have you had this problem when playing a slideshow from your Photo app?

Yes, I'm aware that LCD screens are a fixed resolution. What are you implying? I think crwoo is the only one who fully understands the problem.

Do you understand the concept of how aspect ratios work? What's happening is that any photo which does not match the native aspect ratio of the device running iOS9 (4:3 for iPad) is being cropped and zoomed in so the central portion of the image fills the screen. Instead of seeing the full photo (with letter boxing on the top, bottom or sides as necessary), this is resulting in large amounts of the photo being invisible - a problem that can only be rectified by zooming in and out on every single photo.

For comparison, on most new TVs you have the option to adjust the aspect ratio of the picture if you want. If you watch an old movie shot in 4:3 aspect ratio on a new TV with a native 16:9 aspect ratio, you will see the full picture with black bars on the left and right hand sides. A menu option will allow you to override this if you wish and have the central portion of the image fill the entire screen without the bars on the sides. This is exactly the same issue. The only difference being that on your TV it will be an *option* whereas Apple forced this behaviour on users. Given that the issue appears to be resolved on 9.2 betas 1 & 2 (at least for many iPad users, sadly not for crwoo on his iPhone) it would seem this was not intentional and it was a bug.

The behaviour of the slideshow is irrelevant as the slideshow option within Apple's Photos app combines multiple photos (regardless of their res/AR, slightly cropping them if needed) into a fixed 4:3 grid layout that fills the entire screen.

On iOS 9.2 beta 2 the issue is still resolved for myself, and a number of other iPad users on the official forums. I hope this issue is fixed to you soon crwoo...

 

[scruffypig]

Yes, I'm aware that LCD screens are a fixed resolution. What are you implying? I think crwoo is the only one who fully understands the problem.

Do you understand the concept of how aspect ratios work? What's happening is that any photo which does not match the native aspect ratio of the device running iOS9 (4:3 for iPad) is being cropped and zoomed in so the central portion of the image fills the screen. Instead of seeing the full photo (with letter boxing on the top, bottom or sides as necessary), this is resulting in large amounts of the photo being invisible - a problem that can only be rectified by zooming in and out on every single photo.

For comparison, on most new TVs you have the option to adjust the aspect ratio of the picture if you want. If you watch an old movie shot in 4:3 aspect ratio on a new TV with a native 16:9 aspect ratio, you will see the full picture with black bars on the left and right hand sides. A menu option will allow you to override this if you wish and have the central portion of the image fill the entire screen without the bars on the sides. This is exactly the same issue. The only difference being that on your TV it will be an *option* whereas Apple forced this behaviour on users. Given that the issue appears to be resolved on 9.2 betas 1 & 2 (at least for many iPad users, sadly not for crwoo on his iPhone) it would seem this was not intentional and it was a bug.

The behaviour of the slideshow is irrelevant as the slideshow option within Apple's Photos app combines multiple photos (regardless of their res/AR, slightly cropping them if needed) into a fixed 4:3 grid layout that fills the entire screen.

On iOS 9.2 beta 2 the issue is still resolved for myself, and a number of other iPad users on the official forums. I hope this issue is fixed to you soon crwoo...

I think you are confusing aspect ratio with pixel resolution. They are not the same.

 

[Dan_85]

I think you are confusing aspect ratio with pixel resolution. They are not the same.

I'm not confusing them. I understand the difference perfectly well, I work with them every single day.

I've mocked up a quick graphic to illustrate the problem:

 

[scruffypig]

I'm not confusing them. I understand the difference perfectly well, I work with them every single day.

I've mocked up a quick graphic to illustrate the problem:

Your example doesn't look cropped and stretched at all. Apple has done this as long as I can remember with photos and even the photo app before it: photos are zoomed in full screen vertically. The Photos app doesn't crop your image, because you can still pan your photo left or right to see everything and if you double tap the photo, you can zoom out horizontally. When you display your photos with the Photos app's Slideshow feature, the photos display full screen, zoomed out horizontally.

 

[crwoo]

hi, you can not pan the pictures without zooming in and out again. do you really know what we are complaining about? i have posted a video if how you are currently forced to view the content of the picture.

I am installing beta 3 now and am happy that ilom reports this issue is now fixed on iphone too.

 

[crwoo]

@ilom
I just finnished installing 9.2 beta3 and nothing has changed, photos still does not work properly on my 6s plus. is it really working on your phone? what device is it? I checked with pictures from both my cameras and the bug still exists.

 

[crwoo]

Apple fix this

 

[tijc]

Hi
Just want to sympathise with you re this bug - I find exactly the same problem, with iPhone 6S on IOS 9.2.1. I hardly ever use the iPhone camera, but import loads of pics through iTunes, taken on other cameras, and, like you, I find that when viewing pics in landscape on the iPhone, they are zoomed in to fit the screen height, which is really annoying. Do post anything you may find out about curing this.
Also, FWIW, one other factor which I've realised is that this bug only seems to affect photos imported through iTunes SINCE getting the new phone at Christmas. When I set the new phone up, I restored from a backup of my old phone (iPhone 4S), but still had to separately sync all the older photos over from my PC to the new phone, and all those pics display OK; the bug only seems to affect pics that are imported through iTunes for the first time onto the iPhone 6S. Pics which had previously been imported onto the 4S seem to display OK, even tough they are freshly imported onto the 6S. Possibly a link between the differing screen aspect ratios of the 4S & 6S, and photos that were previously optimised for the 4S?
Very annoying, and hope a future IOS update cures it.

 

[scruffypig]

Double tap on the picture and it zooms out.

 

[Sherry_B]

Apparently this is not a bug and it's working as intended.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/29214184#29214184