How can I view and delete photos on my iPhone using my windows 7 computer

Question

Deleting photos on my iPhone 4 is slow and the small screen limits my ability to assess the photo quality. I would like to use view and delete bad photos which are on the iPhone with the convenience of my mouse and big monitor.

I have Picasa and Microsoft Office Picture Manager installed, but neither seem to be able to view the photos without first importing them. Managing photos after they've been imported defeats the purpose, which is selectively removing pictures from my phone.

Windows explorer almost works but it seems to display a considerably compressed version of the pictures which makes it harder to evaluate picture quality than it is when I simply view the pictures on my phone.

Update: Windows Photo Viewer a serviceable option in that it displays the photos at high resolution, has buttons to advance through the photos and delete. What it lacks is the ability to view multiple (perhaps 4) photos simultaneously so I could quickly compare the photos against each other.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Solution 1

When you open up the folder containing the photos in Windows Explorer, click the down arrow next to the button I circled on the top right of the window, and choose "Extra Large Icons":

This will zoom in your photos to a much larger size.

If you want to quickly evaluate a photo without opening a new program, you can also click the button to the right of the previous one mentioned (circled here):

This will enable the preview pane to be visible on the right side of the Explorer window. When you select an image, it will load a higher-resolution preview of the photo on the right side. You can resize the preview pane to get a better view of the photo, as needed.

It is worth noting, based on your previous comments, that this solution will display the images in as high of a resolution as the zoomed size will permit. This includes the preview pane. Conceptually, the preview pane, if resized to be large enough, will display the photo in full resolution.

Solution 2

Plug in the iPhone to the Windows 7 computer. Open Computer, double click the iPhone in the Computer view. Navigate through the folders until you find I believe the DCIM folder. I don't recall the exact path, but there are only a couple to look through, you should find it relatively quickly. This will have your photos. Highlight and delete as you would from any other folder on your computer.

If you have a keypad lock on your iPhone, the phone will have to be unlocked to view the contents of the folders.

Comments

[Michael Bishop]

Thanks for trying to help, but as I indicated in the original post, viewing photos that way shows me a low resolution version of the photos which makes it hard to judge. This is true whether I use "extra large icons" or view the photos in the content panel by highlighting them.

[opsin]

Michael, double click the files in the 'Computer\Apple iPhone\Internal Storage\DCIM\XXXXXXX' folder. This will open the photo gallery the images will take up your whole screen (if they don't, click the maximize icon in the upper right hand corner of the photo gallery). You can then click the RED X and delete them or click the left and right arrow keys to view the next one. But, you can only see one at a time.

[Michael Bishop]

@opsin, you don't specify exactly what program you're referring to. I may not have it, or not have it as the default. Mine opens in windows photo viewer which seems to only show one photo at a time. It's not ideal, though its the best I've found so far.

[Michael Bishop]

The preview pane on my computer does not show the photos at high resolution. Making the preview pane bigger expands the size of the photos but the resolution is still low. So far, windows photo viewer is the best application I've found.

[user3359503]

@MichaelBishop That is odd. On my computer, it shows it at the full resolution of the image. Unless there is some resolution cap that I've never hit? What resolution are your photos?

[Michael Bishop]

2592x1936... When I copy the photos to my hard drive in the way you suggest, I don't have the resolution problem. Maybe it scales them down because reading data off the iPhone is slower.

[user3359503]

@MichaelBishop That makes sense. I believe it actually would show it at the full resolution, but it may only show a compressed version while it's loading the full image. I don't work with images that large on USB2.0 devices, but that's my guess as to what's happening.