Database Users

Contact Picture Quality

I'm probably not the first to 'complain' about this... but I thought I'd put it all together in one post and see if anyone was having the same issues, or same results...
So...
Trying to 'Sync' Facebook contact pics with my x10 contact pics - tried a few apps, and while most of them did the job to some degree, with varying results, but mainly the same level of disappointment, one thing I found with all of them was that the resolution was abysmal to say the least...
I found also that if I opened Facebook, I could view any of my own profile pics, and I was given the option to assign them to a contact – great (sort of) providing the only people I know are myself. Friends pictures were ‘locked’ such that the assign to contact option did not exist - silly, really.
Now, while fiddling with my phone, I discovered that the some of the Facebook contact syncing apps actually downloaded a full quality pic to my device – perfect – now let me see if I can open them and assign them to a contact... nope, no luck – interestingly, they were ‘locked’ just like they were when I opened them through Facebook – no option to assign them to a contact.
Now, I move them to another folder (one which had pics that I could assign) and all of a sudden, they were unlocked... funniest thing was that pics left in the original folder I took them from were also unlocked... odd... good too, but odd.
So happily assigning all these full definition contact pics, I then had a look at them, and the resolution was again abysmal... WTF...! Anyway, one last go, and instead of going via the picture to assign it to a contact, I went through the contact then assigned a picture to it... Success...! this time proper resolution...!
So from this I assume that going through the picture, or any syncing apps, you’re only getting a contact pic as good a quality as the Android system expects. However, if you go through the contact, the x10 is getting a contact pic at the full quality it knows it needs to display...
Anyway, take what you will from this, but I thought it was interesting...

same over here, the pictures I assigned to my contacts are very high quality and they all look like sh#t on the phone when some one calls me.
It is full of noise and extremely blurry. Really don't understand why...They can't be made this for such a low quality so I assume we do something wrong, but I can't figure it out. Do we need very big resolution pictures to get them proper on this phone? But thanks for the tip, working the other way around does work good, but it keeps being strange...
Cheers.
Arnold

Consider that a phone call needs to pop-up right away. Why waste the processing speed to show a full resolution image?
Note: I think an update that went around to some regions cleaned up the resolution a bit.

iead1 said:
Consider that a phone call needs to pop-up right away. Why waste the processing speed to show a full resolution image?
Note: I think an update that went around to some regions cleaned up the resolution a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not the brazilian update.

I'm willing to swear that it's a donut issue... mainly because going the Android way in is ugly, and the SE way in is on the money...
You'll also notice the Android way gives you a square pic, and the SE way gives you an elongated pic to fit with their interface...
iead1 said:
Consider that a phone call needs to pop-up right away. Why waste the processing speed to show a full resolution image?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed that it might be low res for this reason, but the x10 can handle the hi res just as good - and considering the contact pics are so large, you definitely want them full res.
Hopefully SE do some updates to improve this... Hopefully...

k1sr said:
You'll also notice the Android way gives you a square pic, and the SE way gives you an elongated pic to fit with their interface...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Problem is, I don't wan't the elongated pic or the square pic.
With WinMo I could put any pic format.
Why should I be restricted in Android?

Only 2 questions I couldn't find the answer to...

I came from an HD2, and what HTC wrote over in WinMo 6.5 I thought was great, especially the gallery app, which cleared up an image when you zoomed in. I've noticed that this phone does not do that. When I zoom in on a picture I took it just turns all fuzzy, like it's been compressed or something. I know the pics are high res cause they look great on my computer, but I just can't understand why they don't clear up when you zoom in. Anyone else experience this? The only other issue I've noticed is that every once in a while I'll open an app up, lets say the web browser, and it pops up and then just force closes. Several others I know with a Vibrant/Captivate are having this problem as well, and I was just curious if anyone knew the cause. I'm totally new to Android so please pardon me if these are dumb questions.

for the second half of your post you should get your phone replaced.
there have been a couple people on here that had that issue with "sticking" buttons so apps would randomly close or settings would popup.

As for your first issue, it sounds to me as though you are zooming into the thumbnail version of the picture. Perhaps the full high-res version is actually found in another pile/folder under the gallery. I don't think the thumbnails are generally viewable separately, though I do see a lot of other media gathered up from various apps which can be kinda annoying.

No I promise I'm not zooming on the thumbnails, I'm clicking the folder with all of my pictures in it, and it'll let me zoom in on them, but they never clear up. It's not the camera cause the resolution is right, just the zooming isn't working properly. it's weird, and frustrating.

I definitely don't have the camera problem. I tested it with photos I took as well as wallpapers in my gallery. I assume you are using the gallery app, right?
If you're getting FCs on stock apps you may want to just do a factory data reset (settings/privacy). It happens occasionally to all android phones and the only sure fix I've seen is a reset. Make sure you're not using task killers or home replacement apps (pandahome, openhome, etc) as they can cause a lot of FCs in my experience.

You might have your camera resolution on lowest settings. Try a higher setting and let us know. The default resolution is 640x480.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Checked the resolution of the camera and the pictures themselved and they're both 5MP, so I really don't know what the problem is now. It is rather frustrating though, when I zoom I want to see the details of the image not a fuzzy picture. Another thing I've just had happen to me is trying to copy over a 4.5GB MKV file at 720p I got the message "The file 'Up' is too large for the destination file system" I don't get that cause I have 6GB free on the phone and 6GB free on the 16GB micro SD. My phone hates me :'(

the 4.5gb MKV isn't a Samsung issue. It's a filesystem issue, relating to the default filesystem used on the sd card memory. FAT32 has a file size limit of 4gb.
It might seem a bit frustrating that you will have to re-encode that huge MKV, but considering that you can count on the fingers of one hand the smartphones that would even be able to smoothly play the video in that container in the first place, it's a small price to pay.

I know the phone could play it, it chews through my 720p copies of Top Gear without so much as a hiccup, and they're nearly the same bit-rate. I think you're right about counting the phones that could do that though because my HD2 didn't have a chance. I didn't know fat32 had a file size limit though, that's very useful information and thank you very much for that. Any ideas on the gallery app problem?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I had/have a HD2, and now a Vibrant that I am using.
I know what you are talking about with the pictures looking pixelated on the Vibrant when you zoom in, but look fine on the HD2. I too, would like a solution to this. Maybe another app does this.

I know exactly what you're talking about and it really is quite annoying. As if losing the flash wasn't bad enough, now even my old photos look bad on it. I've figured out firstly that the stock android gallery app has a 16 bit limit but that's not the issue I'd imagine. What I believe to be the culprit is that, as far as I can tell, what the image viewer does is it actually automatically downsizes all your photos which would explain the pictures' butchered quality. Of course it's just a theory but it seems to check out. Unfortunately I have yet to find a decent replacement app or a solution thus far. And not to dash your hopes but I hear the problem also exists in froyo. Kinda disheartening for such an awesome multimedia phone.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App with swype

+1.. I also know what you mean, I had the HD2 and zooming in on the pictures on this phone sucks!. I am sure there is an image viewer somewhere that would work well

Yes! Glad to hear I'm not the only one with this issue. I was beginning to think I was alone! I am by no means a developer, but I think it's probably the scaling algorithim, though it would be interesting to check it out on another phone running 2.1. Next time I activate a Captivate at work I'll check that as well, it'd be really weird if that one worked correctly!!

I've figured something out. When you look at photos in the actual camera app, and zoom in that viewer, the pictures look fine, it's only in the actual gallery app where the zoom doesn't work properly...

I definetly do not have the issue with zooming in on pictures (camera or gallery) and I have yet to have a FC on any app. You mentioned the browser, any other apps FC'ing on you?
Have you done anything (other than root if you have)?
Are you using a TK?
Can you give more details?

I know what you mean by zooming the pics. Try image viewer, its awesome and zooms in great
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Well it's only the browser that's done it, and it's only happened once to me, so I'm really not worried about that one. A power cycle took care of it right then and there. As for the zooming, like I said in the camera app itself it works fine, but in the gallery app it's not too good. I'm not rooted (yet), and I have no task killer because I've heard more bad things than good things about those. Idk how else to describe the problem, it just seems like when I zoom in it's like the file is a very low resolution and gets very pixelated and when I check the properties I know it's a 5MP picture, so idk what's going on.

Something I never noticed so I just tested and you're right!
It's the way the built in gallery app works. It creates a thumbnail of all images and that's what it displays. You can even see the thumbnail images if you explore the phone memory. The only way around it is to download and use a different image viewer.

I suggest large image viewer! It is a bit spartan in terms of features and ui but it has the best image viewing of all the apps I tried! Btw the default image viewer basically makes a lower res bitmap of all your pictures and it's impossible (I think) to actually view the original images from within the gallery app. Why it would do this? I have no clue, seems like poor programming to me. Perhaps it's the cost we pay for the nifty though relatively pointless 3d effects.
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using the XDA app. You may thank Swype for any and all grammar errors.

[Q] How to fix screen resolution?

Hi everyone, this is my first post, I'm not sure if it's been posted yet. I'm a photographer and I do not use the camera on my HD2 because I just import my photos to the phone so I can display samples of my work to potential clients. The sharpness of my photos when displayed on the device was the main driving point for me purchasing this phone. One thing I noticed however, since flashing my photo to Windows Phone 7, my pictures are not sharp at all anymore. I just loaded a picture on to my friend's WinMo 6.5 HD2, and there is a drastic difference. I've seen posts about the camera taking blurry pictures, but I haven't seen any that just indicated general blurriness on the screen. Is there a fix for this or will I have to give up my WP7?

That's odd, my transferred pix are excellent, maybe you should reload WP7? Not much help I'm sorry but it doesn't take long to reinstall...

what res are the pictures?

I had the same problem but it seemed to only happen with photos that I transferred to the phone. I never found a fix, though I do not think it is a resolution problem with WP7. The issue might exist in the file transfer itself; perhaps a Zune issue? Anyway, I never found a solution so I'm back on 6.5.

Try this:
In the Zune software, go to
Settings > Phone > Pictures and Video
and set "Image Quality" to "Original"

I tried the settings in Zune and those settings were already selected. The resolution is 3744 x 5616, but it doesn't matter the photo size, they all still aren't crisp as they were before.

try changing them to 1024x1024, maybe wp7 is lowering them automatically because of how large they are

even the ones i had at 950 are blurry, no matter what photo I load into it...same result.

**Update**
Since my last post, I have flashed back to 6.5, loaded some photos on. Image resolution is far superior. Loaded WP7 back on, [a different ROM], and still photos are still not a sharp. Is it possible that the photos do not render as well in WP7 as they did in 6.5?

strange, i use both zune for pc and windows phone connector for mac to transfer my 12mp photos from my cannon450d and they are reasonably sharp for a screen with limited pixels.
Even my photos from facebook look reasonably good (not much difference on the small screen to be honest)

Yeah for me, whether it's from my Canon 5D Mark II, or my 50D, same problem. At this point, I just won't load any photos on the device! It sucks because my main reason for purchasing this phone was photos, and also that ability to put different ROMS on it.

PrettyBoySlim said:
Yeah for me, whether it's from my Canon 5D Mark II, or my 50D, same problem. At this point, I just won't load any photos on the device! It sucks because my main reason for purchasing this phone was photos, and also that ability to put different ROMS on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Email a photo to yourself, and save it on the phone. See it works that way.

It may be that the stock wp7 picture viewer doesn't display them as sharp. Maybe you can find another photo viewing app in app store and see if that makes any difference.

how could samsung screw up the camera THIS badly..

besides unnecessary parental control put in place on the camera, like battery limitations, forcing your music to stop when its loaded, and inability to function when mediascanner is running, theyve also, and made a unmutable shutter sound and auto focus sound, and removed the option to adjust saturation, sharpness, and brightness.. and in the video camera, removed the the ability to pause the video, now you have to straight out stop it and take another one.
why did they do this you might ask? because they added extremely watered down picture editor, and video clip editor. and they somehow think that adding these after picture/video editors was such a good idea, that they should just remove them from the camera entirely.. wtf samsung?
now what i wanna know is what WE can do to fix this? is it possible to take these settings from the galaxy s1's camera app, and add them in to the s2's? the camera apps are extremely similar
EDIT: a solution?
i really think these things can be fixed, maybe not adding the saturation, sharpness, and brightness back, that seems like alot of hard work, and i guess it isnt TOO hard to edit the picture afterwards.. but i think removing the 'parental controls' put in place, is simply a matter of deleting that area of the app's code. i wonder if adding the ability to pause the video would be hard, it seems like a simple enough thing to do.. but i dont fully understand how one would go about doing this..
for SGS1 owners, do you guys remember Fr4gg0r? he created a hacked camera app that removed the battery limitation, music from stopping when camera loads, and even added the ability to use the hardware lockkey as a camera shutter button!, and he added a thumbnail of recently taken picture in the bottom right hard corner (which we now see built in to the sgs2). really amazing work! however i spoke with him, and he doesnt plan to get the sgs2, but i wonder if we looked at his changelog from the origional apk to the modded, if then we could just make the same mods to the s2..
can anyone a little more knowledgeable than me give me their thoughts?
SGS [APP] Hacked Camera.apk <- link to his thread for original hacked camera app

Modding the camera app is very difficult since it's closed source. Might be able to take the AOSP camera app and hook the driver up, but that's hard too... amount of work depends on how good the camera driver meshes with the AOSP camera app.. I think?
I've never tried to do anything with the camera so hopefully someone with more knowledge of it can pitch in!
As to your complaint about the settings... do you really sit there before taking a picture on a phone camera and fiddle with contrast/brightness settings? I wish I had your dedication to taking good pictures!

I'm guessing suspending other applications when the camera's running is to preserve resources. I don't think I've ever been listening to music when I've used my phone as a camera. I don't agree with taking away flexibility but I think the percentage of people impacted isn't going to be high.

I can understand your concern but I don't think these restrictions justify saying they screwed up the camera badly.. maybe if they used a crappy sensor, but judging from the photos and video's I've seen posted quality looks very acceptable!

the reason i expect u cant use camera whilst media scanner is running is due to the fact samsungs internal memory, where pics are stored by default, is mounted like an SD card... also ive only ever had media scanner running once re-mounting from mass storage or when turning phone on... although ive never actually tested this senario as my phone is always on and storage mounted...
neither of those issues are a problem for me though... at least ive never encountered them during usage...
Dickie

i know removing the battery limit requires deleting some lines of code, same goes for it killing music, and forcing a shutter sound and focus sound, but would it be incredibly hard work to add the ability to pause a video, as i find this really necessary when taking videos

soraxd said:
i know removing the battery limit requires deleting some lines of code, same goes for it killing music, and forcing a shutter sound and focus sound, but would it be incredibly hard work to add the ability to pause a video, as i find this really necessary when taking videos
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree about pausing a video recording. I've often used that feature on my SGS, and find it very puzzling, and annoying, that they would eliminate it. Quite odd.

i really think these things can be fixed, maybe not adding the saturation, sharpness, and brightness back, that seems like alot of hard work, and i guess it isnt TOO hard to edit the picture afterwards.. but i think removing the 'parental controls' put in place, is simply a matter of deleting that area of the app's code. i wonder if adding the ability to pause the video would be hard, it seems like a simple enough thing to do.. but i dont fully understand how one would go about doing this..
for SGS1 owners, do you guys remember Fr4gg0r? he created a hacked camera app that removed the battery limitation, music from stopping when camera loads, and even added the ability to use the hardware lockkey as a camera shutter button!, and he added a thumbnail of recently taken picture in the bottom right hard corner (which we now see built in to the sgs2). really amazing work! however i spoke with him, and he doesnt plan to get the sgs2, but i wonder if we looked at his changelog from the origional apk to the modded, if then we could just make the same mods to the s2..
can anyone a little more knowledgeable than me give me their thoughts?
SGS [APP] Hacked Camera.apk <- link to his thread for original hacked camera app

screw camera up??? except for the battery and music "issue" in my opinion this is one of the best cameras on a mobile, i tried many different modes and the pictures are quite good ))
unfortunately we cannot always have everything in just one gadged )))

well we may not be able to have everything, but i wont stop until i get some results.. ive been talking to a clever developer lately, whos on board to help me modify this app

I've started modding the camera app for battery level etc. Will take a look more today

These mods shouldn't be hard to implement and there is no closed source when it comes to android. We have apktool and smali / baksmali, we don't need source code from Samsung for this.

S8 Gallery app - Story Mode

So, I have just upgraded myself from G3 to this Beast phone (love it)
Native Galaxy Gallery App there is a Story Mode/ selection that puts together all the pictures you have then in a given day or location and adds background music & some effects but, in doing so it cuts the pictures so you end up with half the face or picture to see.
Are there any settings the I need to change to make the pictures show in full or is there any fix for this.
I tried searching the forums but found nothing. In case I was wrong please direct me to the correct post

I'm finding that I have the same results and can't find any settings to change the way it seems to zoom in on each photo. Really nice idea but poor execution...
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

No one else seems to have this issue or care for this feature
or they are too busy rooting/ unlocking the SD version of the phone

Can't say about others, but in my case: 1. easy enough to do it manually just the way I want it 2. it almost never works properly, besides cutting off the frame. Case in point, my phone created album called "at the beach", after we went to the beach. Well, most of the pictures in this album are not from anywhere near the beach and since I have location embedded in every picture and phone already correctly identified I was at the beach including particular field, not sure why it added pictures taken at home and many other locations. Bottom line: useless function personally I don't care about.