Develop Bugs

[Q] High resolution contact photos?

Has anyone got High resolution contact photos working?
I'm using SyncMyPix (with the "best quality" option set) but I still end up with tiny 96x96 images all blown up to pixelly horridness.
I saw this post which suggest it... well, just works.
Any ideas?

all of my contacts pictures are pixellated.
annoying.

This is what I am curious about is the high res contact pics are meant to be at 256x256, correct me if I am wrong. But did Google set up Gmail contacts sync to account for this? Meaning, if I add a contact picture on my phone that is high res, will it sync to my gmail account, be converted to low res and then sent back to my phone?

Lootes said:
This is what I am curious about is the high res contact pics are meant to be at 256x256, correct me if I am wrong. But did Google set up Gmail contacts sync to account for this? Meaning, if I add a contact picture on my phone that is high res, will it sync to my gmail account, be converted to low res and then sent back to my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that's what's happening, yeah- so you add a high res contact, then when it syncs it reduces it again.
To test, I just turned off contact syncing in accounts & sync, deleted picture cache in SyncMyPics and re-synced.
Now I have higher resolution images. Not brialliant though...
Gonna turn on sync and see if that breaks...
<wait>
Hmm, now they seem okay...
Not super high res but that may be the FB pics... some are pixelly though?
Errrr
I dunno

How do you get Facebook pics synching? Ive never worked that out since I ditched Sense on my old Desire

I swear to god, my phone picks the lowest res pic of all connected social media photos. Hah! Trollphone.
It sticks with the Google Contact photo over the others I think, so delete that and see if it switches to higher res ones from G+ etc.

I set high res pictures to the contacts via the People app on the phone and they have synced back to my Google Contacts and they remain high res.
How do yuo guys get FB to sync. I've got Twitter, G+ and LinkedIN to connect with contacts but not FB.

FB itself isn't working due to the missing menu bug, although someone patched that - I've not tried it yet.
I'm using "SyncMyPix" (free app in the market) to do it.

I also have this problem, I use syncmypix its a great apply but the only way to get high res is to turn off the crop 96px square option. This gives higher resolution pics in the people apply but means they are not square in the contact thumbnails which looks pretty shocking. I want hi-res in my people application and square thumbnails everywhere else too!

Has anyone figured out a way to get high resolution photos to display on an incoming call?
I deleted my contact photos because I couldn't stand the low resolution.

If your contact uses Google +1 you can get their profile picture from that, much clearer. However if you are relying on photos from Google contacts I would imagine you need to retake the photo again as someone has mentioned earlier, Google now allow 256x256px (still pants ) images instead of 96.

What if they don't have a Goolge + account? Can I make contact entry for them even if they don't?

ferris2375 said:
What if they don't have a Goolge + account? Can I make contact entry for them even if they don't?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can still make a Google contact instead but the image will only be 256x256px in size.

What determines the resolution of the contact photo? Say I take a high resolution photo and import it into Google, does it default to 256?
Why the hell can't I select a photo locally on my phone and opt not to have my online contact photo synced. grrr...

ferris2375 said:
... Why the hell can't I select a photo locally on my phone and opt not to have my online contact photo synced. grrr...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly! or even take space off your gmail allocation to store the high-res images... no, that's too logical so instead make them think they've got a hi-res photo when the user has just taken the photo, then sync the contact and give them a pants, degraded photo in exchange.

Are you sure?
I meant, are you really really sure?
Because, if you sync back with Google Contacts, you will get low resolution.
Thats what happen with my Nexus S running the latest 2.3.
Other users with GN can test this?
ShiroEd said:
I set high res pictures to the contacts via the People app on the phone and they have synced back to my Google Contacts and they remain high res.
How do yuo guys get FB to sync. I've got Twitter, G+ and LinkedIN to connect with contacts but not FB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

gogol said:
Are you sure?
I meant, are you really really sure?
Because, if you sync back with Google Contacts, you will get low resolution.
Thats what happen with my Nexus S running the latest 2.3.
Other users with GN can test this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They do not remain hi-res, was one of the first things I did when I got the phone as it was one of the main annoyances with android for me.

You can try jKalvins workaround. If it works, all you have to do is change a setting in Google contacts and the sync to low res pictures should stop.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google Mobile/thread?tid=4fe466bb19e3f875&hl=en&start=44
It's from an apple group so no idea if it will work, but maybe still worth a try.

That wont work anymore, I read the whole thread.
I wish there is and app that we can use to replace contact photos all at once.
First we tell the app which image for each contact.
Then, one button click to replace all.
That would be a nice workaround AFTER synched.
Please someone make this kind of app, I will pay ... Big time!
gokpog said:
You can try jKalvins workaround. If it works, all you have to do is change a setting in Google contacts and the sync to low res pictures should stop.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google Mobile/thread?tid=4fe466bb19e3f875&hl=en&start=44
It's from an apple group so no idea if it will work, but maybe still worth a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

gogol said:
That wont work anymore, I read the whole thread.
I wish there is and app that we can use to replace contact photos all at once.
First we tell the app which image for each contact.
Then, one button click to replace all.
That would be a nice workaround AFTER synched.
Please someone make this kind of app, I will pay ... Big time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to do my syncing via SyncMyPix, but recently did a sync with Friendcaster (the great Facebook app). It has a contact pic sync option and you can choose HD.
After the sync the pictures seemed significantly sharper. It's worth a try.

Low resolution photo in People App (contacts)

Hi,
I read somewhere that ICS can have high res contact photo in the People App, but only when synced with Google+.
Is that true?
That means, if you don't sync with Google+, and utilizing only Google Contacts (GMAIL Contacts), you will get low resolution 96x96 from Google Contacts.
So, how do you add the Google+ profile of your contact in the People App?
Do you add it manually? Or the People App will automatically search and pick one for you?
Because, if we can add the G+ profile manually, I think we can have workaround by creating G+ profile for them manually !

This is a right f**k up pain in the ar5e problem that could probably be easily fixed by google.
I used an external app to link all my google contacts to my facebook contacts thus providing pictures, its better to do it that way because if I install a custom rom that requires a wipe I dont have to re-link the contacts.
Unfortunately about 0.5% of my phone contacts and facebook friends have google plus so i've no idea how to get around it.
ICS looks so cool and polished only for someone to ring me and present me with a picture that looks like its come out of a 1980's pong game. grrr
Rant over

gogol said:
So, how do you add the Google+ profile of your contact in the People App?
Do you add it manually? Or the People App will automatically search and pick one for you?
Because, if we can add the G+ profile manually, I think we can have workaround by creating G+ profile for them manually !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make sure you have your IRL friend in your normal Android/Google contacts, then if you add your manually created "friend" on Google+ there will be 2 separate contacts on your phone - one for phone, one for G+.
If you go to the "phone" contact and select "edit" in the menu then on the next page there will be an option to "Join" in that menu.
If you then select the G+ contact, it will be joined to the phone contact as one user with phone number and G+ pic!
Or I think you can just manually add a photo to the contact but I haven't tested whether that is definitely hires or not.

All my contacts are on Google Contacts. I've assigned photos from Picasa but they still look crap...
Why Why Why..

I think you can manually change contact photo with high res one.
But, once you synced with Google Contacts, it will be replaced with the low res from Google Contacts.
I wish there is an option to just disable contact photo sync, photo only.
Or, is there any clever developer who could create an app to simply replace all contact photos with user selected one?
I could imagine the app would work like this:
. The app works like the contact app, when started it will show you contact list
. Then you can assign photo manually to each contact
. App will remember this assigment
. Woth one button hit, the app replaced all contacts pgoto with the assigned one
So, every time after we synced with Google Contact, we simply run the app, hit the replace all contact photos button, and we are done!
Okay, any dev out there? I will pay premium for this kind of app!

Stretlow said:
This is a right f**k up pain in the ar5e problem that could probably be easily fixed by google.
I used an external app to link all my google contacts to my facebook contacts thus providing pictures, its better to do it that way because if I install a custom rom that requires a wipe I dont have to re-link the contacts.
Unfortunately about 0.5% of my phone contacts and facebook friends have google plus so i've no idea how to get around it.
ICS looks so cool and polished only for someone to ring me and present me with a picture that looks like its come out of a 1980's pong game. grrr
Rant over
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Know what you mean, completely lets the phone down. Which app did you use to do the google --> Facebook linking?

SnowmanAndy said:
Know what you mean, completely lets the phone down. Which app did you use to do the google --> Facebook linking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://heartofangel.com/google-contact-sync/

gogol said:
Hi,
I read somewhere that ICS can have high res contact photo in the People App, but only when synced with Google+.
Is that true?
That means, if you don't sync with Google+, and utilizing only Google Contacts (GMAIL Contacts), you will get low resolution 96x96 from Google Contacts.
So, how do you add the Google+ profile of your contact in the People App?
Do you add it manually? Or the People App will automatically search and pick one for you?
Because, if we can add the G+ profile manually, I think we can have workaround by creating G+ profile for them manually !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a much easier way is to get a decent sized pic of your contact and save it to your phone and then edit contact > edit pic > select new pic. simples! - they DO NOT have to be from Google+ at all!
Hope that helps!

MrYuzhai said:
a much easier way is to get a decent sized pic of your contact and save it to your phone and then edit contact > edit pic > select new pic. simples! - they DO NOT have to be from Google+ at all!
Hope that helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite true. As soon as you sync your contacts with Google it sends them to the cloud which uses 96x96 photos. For some reason these then get used on the phone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Evostance said:
Not quite true. As soon as you sync your contacts with Google it sends them to the cloud which uses 96x96 photos. For some reason these then get used on the phone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right. The same happened to me. I felt stupid wasting so much time and energy to change things one by one.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Evostance said:
Not quite true. As soon as you sync your contacts with Google it sends them to the cloud which uses 96x96 photos. For some reason these then get used on the phone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my experience the phone will keep the high res contact picture, but if you delete your contacts for whatever reason (e.g. factory reset) then restoring from Google Contacts will bring back the low res versions.
The Google+ versions seem to work with high res photos, but since only about 4 or 5 of my "real life" friends actually use Google+ this is a bit pointless for me.
This is a problem with Google Contacts only saving low res pics, and it has been a request from the community to upgrade these for absolutely ages. So far it has gone unnoticed, which I presume is because of the focus on using Google+.
There seems to be a lot of duplicated features now G+ has come out, such as Picasa/G+ Photos; GTalk/Messenger; Google Contacts/G+ Contacts; and these really need to be consolidated which will hopefully iron out issues such as these.

guys how do I edit a contact on the phone?
Ive gone into the people app, gone into the contact and even long pressed but I cant see to edit the contact?
I want to assign a high res photo to the contact from a photo in my gallery. Is this possible?

winwiz said:
guys how do I edit a contact on the phone?
Ive gone into the people app, gone into the contact and even long pressed but I cant see to edit the contact?
I want to assign a high res photo to the contact from a photo in my gallery. Is this possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Open the contact and hit the settings button

winwiz said:
guys how do I edit a contact on the phone?
Ive gone into the people app, gone into the contact and even long pressed but I cant see to edit the contact?
I want to assign a high res photo to the contact from a photo in my gallery. Is this possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really don't understand why they didn't turn long press on in the People App. Having to reach all the way at the top of the screen to get to "Menu" icon and then "Edit" takes a lot more effort especially when you have to edit a lot of contacts.
Anyhow. Do you guys know whether all the "linking" I made to each and every single contact to its Twitter or Google+ account will be sync'ed or backed up on Google's server? Thinking about installing custom ROM.

Does anyone know how to link contacts from within the phone (like when you have multiple contacts like with Whatsapp adding its own version of the contact)?

Jebus99 said:
Does anyone know how to link contacts from within the phone (like when you have multiple contacts like with Whatsapp adding its own version of the contact)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Took me a day to figure this out myself. Haha. Go to "Edit" under the menu button for that contact, then hit once you're in the edit mode, hit menu button once again, then hit "Join"

Low res contact pictures

Hi everyone. In the people app the pictures in ics are all low res. Anyone have any ideas to get the high res pictures? I find it odd that ics wouldnt go out and get the high res pics from facebook etc.

The only solution I've found so far is to manually change contact pictures using high res photos on the phone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Yes, but as soon as you sync with Google Contacts ... Those photos will become low res again.
And again, you must re-assign manually.
Stupid stupid stupid Google ...
So, is there any app or script that can we use to replace all contact photos at once?
First, we told the app ... "this is the image for this contact" ... for all contacts.
Then later, user can replace all with a button click!
Please ... please any developer can make this app? For sure a lot of people will buy to fix this stupid Google low res contact.
*begging* ... I will buy this kind of app, right away!
nyijedi said:
The only solution I've found so far is to manually change contact pictures using high res photos on the phone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
---------- Post added at 11:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 AM ----------
And this has been reported to Google since 2009!!!
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4147
Till this date, people are still having this issue ...

gogol said:
Yes, but as soon as you sync with Google Contacts ... Those photos will become low res again.
And again, you must re-assign manually.
Stupid stupid stupid Google ...
So, is there any app or script that can we use to replace all contact photos at once?
First, we told the app ... "this is the image for this contact" ... for all contacts.
Then later, user can replace all with a button click!
Please ... please any developer can make this app? For sure a lot of people will buy to fix this stupid Google low res contact.
*begging* ... I will buy this kind of app, right away!
---------- Post added at 11:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 AM ----------
And this has been reported to Google since 2009!!!
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4147
Till this date, people are still having this issue ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what gets me about Google - for all the good things they do, they are let down by silly details like this.

I have to agree. I was going over every item on the phone, and them my brother called and I was like, WTF ?

randypurcz said:
I have to agree. I was going over every item on the phone, and them my brother called and I was like, WTF ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My contact photos haven't changed at all since I changed them to high res ones a few days ago...

Surely it has something to do with how much OTA data would be needed to sync hi res photos from gmail contacts to your phone..... I would rather have numbers than have them not sync because the pics are say 20mb each.... Thats why you havetoo set them from the phone.

So, in Google Contacts we should not put any photos?
In this way, when we sync, Google Contacts will not replace the photos that we have set manually?
Danny80y said:
Surely it has something to do with how much OTA data would be needed to sync hi res photos from gmail contacts to your phone..... I would rather have numbers than have them not sync because the pics are say 20mb each.... Thats why you havetoo set them from the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

KiNG OMaR said:
My contact photos haven't changed at all since I changed them to high res ones a few days ago...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They won't change on the phone, but the pictures sync back to Google Contacts as a low res 96x96 version.
That means if you need to restore your contacts for whatever reason (such as a factory reset), then you will get a crappy low res version back.
---------- Post added at 04:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 PM ----------
Danny80y said:
Surely it has something to do with how much OTA data would be needed to sync hi res photos from gmail contacts to your phone..... I would rather have numbers than have them not sync because the pics are say 20mb each.... Thats why you havetoo set them from the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google seem to be happy using the instant upload feature of G+ to send high res pictures back and forth, so I don't see why they can't enable it with Google Contacts.
Contact pictures will take up far less space, as they are cropped from a full image.

Google said that the contacts app will download peoples pictures from Google+
maybe you don't have that turned on, or maybe thats the only way to truly get high-res pictures. luckily for me all my main friends are on it already.

neok44 said:
Google said that the contacts app will download peoples pictures from Google+
maybe you don't have that turned on, or maybe thats the only way to truly get high-res pictures. luckily for me all my main friends are on it already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it looks like that may be the only way. I assume Google Contacts will be merged into G+ at some point, so there is just one place for all your contacts and issues like this won't happen.
Unfortunately for me only a handful of people I know actually use G+, so I can't rely on it at the minute.

i had this problem on my thunderbolt with the facebook app. the contact pics were very low res
my solution was to sync pics with the "facebook for HTC sense" app, and it worked. pics were beautiful. have you guys tried using an app like syncmypix?

neok44 said:
Google said that the contacts app will download peoples pictures from Google+
maybe you don't have that turned on, or maybe thats the only way to truly get high-res pictures. luckily for me all my main friends are on it already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope they enable this for facebook too in the future. Although I'm no big fan of FB and I can understand Google considering the cometitive situation, FB is still far more widespread than G+ and most of my friends don't want to join yet another social network.
shawnn218 said:
i had this problem on my thunderbolt with the facebook app. the contact pics were very low res
my solution was to sync pics with the "facebook for HTC sense" app, and it worked. pics were beautiful. have you guys tried using an app like syncmypix?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Syncmypix syncs still in a quite low resolution, even if high res is enabled in the settings. And Syncmypix is definitely not optimized for 720p displays The actual app scales perfectly, but on the "crop" screen where you can edit the pics, every pic is really tiny. See screenshot below

People, lets complaint on GMail page on Google+
https://plus.google.com/u/0/103345707817934461425/posts/UA6rpCZgqwq

Complain about gmail contact picture resolution to google

Hi guys, have started a thread at google mobile support forum so we can get some attention on the low res contact picture problem
join in !
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=49e2b1adea1aa11c&hl=en

I wouldn't say my contacts that use a Google+ or have a profile with Google have hideous pictures. Although I would agree that Facebook syncing looks terrible but it's not really Googles problem.
Edit: Oh and you miss-spelt bigger

haha ups.. cant change it now..
Actually it is a Google issue. The gmail contact list, where the pictures are synced to, downgrade the resolution of the pictures

The pictures I changed in my phone, most of them, have remained at the higher resolution. However, once I wiped the phone to flash a new ROM, Google sync brought them all back at the lower resolution. Definite Google problem.

Now I get what your saying. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if Google releases that as a feature in the next few months anyway. Just sit tight
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

A Google Employee just answered
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The icons used in Google Contacts used to be a relatively low resolution, more of a thumbnail really. Those are the pictures that the phone pulls from first. There are a couple of ways you can bring higher resolution pictures in for your contacts.
1) Use your own high resolution photo. You can do this by opening a contact in the People app, tapping the menu, selecting Edit, then tapping on the photo icon. You'll be offered a choice to either take a photo right then, or pick a photo you've already got on your phone from the Gallery app.
2) Sync your contacts with Google+. If you and your contacts use Google+, you can launch the Google+ app on Android and set it to sync contacts from the app's settings. If your contact has a high resolution photo for their portrait in Google+ it'll get sync'd to your phone. Note that the initial contact photo sync from Google+ takes a little while to finish.
(Advanced note on #2: I was just playing with this a couple of days ago and noticed that the initial sync with Google+ prioritizes syncing a contact that you happen to be looking at. For example, if you're syncing 200 contacts but go look at your best friend immediately, it'll pull down your friend's photo right then and there before working on the rest of your contacts.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you ask me its not good enough we all want this fixed so we can have high res fb pictures...

So I guess we're stuck with these 2 options... I hope they put some kind of size difference in place. Like thumbnail size for Google Talk and high-res for phone sync.

I added my feedback there (NexusDude).
We can also open a new thread in the Official Google Contacts support forum:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/label?lid=3a63236689cf8dbd&hl=en
Anyone can write a good problem description in clear and good english language?
I am not that good in english ...

just added my comment as well. thanks for initiating the post.

I am also opening a question in StackOverflow.com for an application that we can use to replace contact photos easily using locally stored high-resolution image files.
Please, if you are Android developer, this kind of app will be very useful!
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...otos-using-local-image-files-programmatically
Think about it, your app will solve this on-going years of issue that will probably never be solved by Google.

Also put a request in the Android Software Development forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1391253

This may be a bit off topic, but does Kies sync Outlook 2010 (not exchange, but a local copy) to the phone?
I am coming from an HTC Desire and i hate the google contact sync.. i need my Outlock Sync back..

How this is still an issue with all the changes they made to contacts is just retarded.

gogol said:
I am also opening a question in StackOverflow.com for an application that we can use to replace contact photos easily using locally stored high-resolution image files.
Please, if you are Android developer, this kind of app will be very useful!
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...otos-using-local-image-files-programmatically
Think about it, your app will solve this on-going years of issue that will probably never be solved by Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure it will be updated eventually. Personally, I find it easier to just manually go update my contacts; I'm utterly anal about perfect organization of data, though. I posted a reply to your SO post as follows:
It's certainly possible, and wouldn't need root access. The problem is going to be that the user would need to properly name all the images first, consistently, accurately, and in a unique manner. For example, if you had three contacts named John Rodeo, then the naming convention of JohnRodeo.png or Rodeo_John.png would not work, as you could not have three images with the same name. Even if there was no duplication of data, you would need to make sure all names followed a consistent naming scheme (lastname_firstname.png for example). Of course, you could also add an algorithm to search filenames for likely variations and not have to worry about exact consistency.
It's certainly a feasible idea, but it would be much easier if Facebook would kiss and make up with Google already, and just play nice with the Contacts API. :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Thanks for your feedback,
Looking into the history of this issue, I don't think it will ever get updated. Come on, it has not been fixed since 2008 ... 3 years.
And if you read the answer from Google employee in that Google Mobile support forum? They won't listen. They want to push people to use Google+. Forcing the solution by syncing with Google+.
That is sad ... same with syncing Facebook, not all contacts are on Facebook / Google+.
Obviously, Google should know this issue, otherwise they don't test their software properly. They should be aware how ugly is the low resolution contact photos, especially when user receives a phone call.
I cannot think any reason, that design master, Matias Duarte would allow this to happen!
About your feedback on my question in StackOverflow:
Naming the file is not really a problem. User needs only to do it once. And for multiple contact with same names, well, you can add phone number into it as additional option. Oh by the way, this is not about Facebook contact sync, especially because not all contacts are on Facebook. This is mainly to workaround the low resolution contact photos after synced with GMail Contacts
=======
Too bad, even though I am a developer (PC software), I don't have experience with Android software development. I don't know, probably this would push me to learn it.
Solution that I could think of, that I am capable of doing it:
- Root the device
- Download the contacts database (I read this is just SQLite3 db)
- Create PC application to manipulate the blob photo data inside the contacts db
- Push back the contacts db to the device
Yeah, it would be much better if we can have this Android app.
And I am begging to any dev around this XDA ... please, make this app for us!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1391253
copkay said:
I'm sure it will be updated eventually. Personally, I find it easier to just manually go update my contacts; I'm utterly anal about perfect organization of data, though. I posted a reply to your SO post as follows:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I don't see how this is a Google problem when its simply grabbing the tiny photo off facebook.
Obviously the contact image supports high resolutions because I've added plenty of contact pictures myself from the camera. It saves them properly.
The problem is the SOURCE. If facebook has a bunch of 32x32 images for contacts, Google can't magically make them HD. Sure you can go in to a specific contacts photo album, download the picture, and add it manually... but there is no way to do this automatically.
Sync your contacts with a source which contains higher resolution images and your problem will be solved.
Facebook won't do it because Facebook uses the images all over the place. Images need to be small. Can you imagine trying to load a Facebook page with 500 HD pictures? It's facebook sync, not magic.
Blame it on the 4.63 HD resolution screen you have. On a tiny low res screen, the images don't look as stretched... but on a HD screen there will be lots of nasties.
So again, for HD pictures you'll need to find a source with HD images to sync with or add them manually. Have at it.

player911 said:
I don't see how this is a Google problem when its simply grabbing the tiny photo off facebook.
Obviously the contact image supports high resolutions because I've added plenty of contact pictures myself from the camera. It saves them properly.
The problem is the SOURCE. If facebook has a bunch of 32x32 images for contacts, Google can't magically make them HD. Sure you can go in to a specific contacts photo album, download the picture, and add it manually... but there is no way to do this automatically.
Sync your contacts with a source which contains higher resolution images and your problem will be solved.
Facebook won't do it because Facebook uses the images all over the place. Images need to be small. Can you imagine trying to load a Facebook page with 500 HD pictures? It's facebook sync, not magic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's syncing the PROFILE pictures. Facebook profile pictures are not 32x32! Mine is 728x688, for example. Facebook obviously has smaller versions to use for thumbnails on its own site. The problem is clearly not at Facebook's end.

player911 said:
I don't see how this is a Google problem when its simply grabbing the tiny photo off facebook.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it IS a google problem imho. Maybe Im just alone with this since I dont use fb, but I added pictures to my google contacts manually. (And I used the computer for it - not the phone )
I added a High Res photo to each contact, but the google contacts changed em to a crappy resolution. On my old phone (milestone) I had no problem with it ... but now? It just looks hideous :/
And since I still dislike the use of facebook I would have to search a good picture for each damn contact again :/

player911 said:
I don't see how this is a Google problem when its simply grabbing the tiny photo off facebook.
Obviously the contact image supports high resolutions because I've added plenty of contact pictures myself from the camera. It saves them properly.
The problem is the SOURCE. If facebook has a bunch of 32x32 images for contacts, Google can't magically make them HD. Sure you can go in to a specific contacts photo album, download the picture, and add it manually... but there is no way to do this automatically.
Sync your contacts with a source which contains higher resolution images and your problem will be solved.
Facebook won't do it because Facebook uses the images all over the place. Images need to be small. Can you imagine trying to load a Facebook page with 500 HD pictures? It's facebook sync, not magic.
Blame it on the 4.63 HD resolution screen you have. On a tiny low res screen, the images don't look as stretched... but on a HD screen there will be lots of nasties.
So again, for HD pictures you'll need to find a source with HD images to sync with or add them manually. Have at it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been seeing this for 3 years now, it is not the source!!! you could manually stick a 24526246HD res picture the...............it's what happens to the original picture after it syncs with Google servers.

See my comment:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=27930642&postcount=10
It's about an app I made that syncs the high resolution photos with picasaweb. Hope it helps.

Low Res images in the people app

Hi there, did a search but couldn't find anything.
Is there a reason why the image which appears on the top of each persons people contact is so low resolution? I have replaced some of the images of people on there with high resolution pictures but it just low res's them again!
Very annoying on a phone with such a nice screen.

Been wondering the same thing. There is no reason to make them low res, so it must be a bug of some sorts.
Verstuurd van mijn HTC One X met Tapatalk

Not sure what the exact solution to this is and I find it annoying too. I do however use haxsync and merge my phone contacts with their facebook profiles and that keeps them in a decent quality (well, as good as thier facebook profile picture at least). Not a ideal solution but it kinda works..
(Haxsynx also does other stuff, such as showing facebook status updates and history on contacts info but that part doesnt appear to work with the Sense people app, I was standard ICS contacts.. :/ )

StomUK said:
(Haxsynx also does other stuff, such as showing facebook status updates and history on contacts info but that part doesnt appear to work with the Sense people app, I was standard ICS contacts.. :/ )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The standard people app does it as well, if the phone contact is linked to the facebook one. I know for sure because I have spent an hour unlinking them one by one, as I hate FB messing with my phone contacts.

If you're on about pictures you sync yourself then they go to the Google server where they become nice los res pictures as Google has screwed it up. Syncing to Facebook is a bit better but not perfect...Google+ seems to be the best resolution for contact pictures IMO

Remove the picture and re-attach it. I dont know why it happens but after a few tries, it will attach your picture with the proper resolution

This was an issue for me as well, but Haxsync on Google Play fixes it beautifully. It can force/sync high quality photos from Facebook.

iamholam said:
Hi there, did a search but couldn't find anything.
Is there a reason why the image which appears on the top of each persons people contact is so low resolution? I have replaced some of the images of people on there with high resolution pictures but it just low res's them again!
Very annoying on a phone with such a nice screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try to create a new contact with the photo on "phone" (only photo in it), remove the photo from the "google" contact (if you already have one in it) and leave only the particulars like name and phone numbers, then link the "phone" contact to the "google" contact.
This means google will only sync the particulars from your "google" contact and leave the "phone" contact intact, so you will always have an uncompressed photo.

robosky55 said:
Remove the picture and re-attach it. I dont know why it happens but after a few tries, it will attach your picture with the proper resolution
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you do this you have to turn off contacts sync or it will just go low res again.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

joshnichols189 said:
If you do this you have to turn off contacts sync or it will just go low res again.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I manually re-attached hi res pictures and disabled Google contacts sync from Accounts & sync > Google > Sync contacts but they still look terrible when I open the contact details or I receive a call. Any ideas why the hi res pictures are not displayed? I also tried to take a picture directly whit the camera and use it as contact picture but still low res. I had the same issue with my Incredible S but manually re-attach hi res pictures worked in that case.

StomUK said:
Not sure what the exact solution to this is and I find it annoying too. I do however use haxsync and merge my phone contacts with their facebook profiles and that keeps them in a decent quality (well, as good as thier facebook profile picture at least). Not a ideal solution but it kinda works..
(Haxsynx also does other stuff, such as showing facebook status updates and history on contacts info but that part doesnt appear to work with the Sense people app, I was standard ICS contacts.. :/ )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do u also have to enable standard facebook account for haxsync to work?
Because it gets automatically enabled when u first log in to haxsync.
Thank you