RRH

Guys, not sure if we have any iPhone gurus on here?

I have a photo of my youngest daughter as my background pic. Can't remember where it came from, but I love it.

This may sound really daft, but I can't find it when I connect to the pc, but really want to get a copy of it off the iPhone so I can print or use for other photos etc.

Any ideas?

Simon

Markus

There are a couple of ways of getting the pictures from your iPhone onto your machine.

* On the iPhone itself, go into Photo's -> Camera Roll. Select the picture, click on the icon in the bottom left and it'll display some options, one of which should be "Email picture", select that and you can then email it to yourself.
Note: When using this method the picture will not be the full resolution version that is actually on the iPhone, it downsample's it somewhat. Looking at a file I have here, it scales it from the 2048 x 1536 (landscape) or 1356 x 2048 (portrait) size to 800 x 600 (landscape) or 600 x 800 (portrait). That will obviously reduce the quality somewhat.

* When you connect the iPhone to a machine (I'm guessing you're on a PC) it should pick it up as a camera, if not, there should be something in Control Panels to do with Cameras, go into that and it should allow you to pick up the iPhone as a camera, then it should show up in Explorer and you can copy the image from there. This details how to do it on XP, probably very similar on Vista too.

* You could use an application on the PC such as DiskAid (I use it on Mac, but there is a PC version). If using DA then you'd select the "Media Folder" from the popup in the bottom left. Then look for the DCIM folder, then inside that should be a "100APPLE" folder and inside there are your pictures, which you can then just copy off.

RRH

I've already tried that, its nowhere to be found on the phone- that's the wierd thing! Its obviously there somewhere, but can I find it... from the pc or within the iphone itself.

Thats what has me baffled.

Markus

Sounds as though you've set the wallpaper to the image and then deleted that image from the camera roll. The iPhone will still keep the wallpaper image as it was.


The file is named LockBackground.jpg and it's located on the root partition/folder of the iPhone at the following path:
/private/car/mobile/Library/

Now, that is eff all use to you unless the phone is Jailbroken as you cannot get to the root partition. I'm looking to see if there is an app that will allow you to copy this file from the iPhone to your PC

Have a read of this. Seems to detail the problem you might be having and a possible solution for it. This might also be worth a look too. Here is another app worth looking at as well.

RRH

You're a star Markus, thanks for your help. Not jailbroken, and really don't want to lose the pic.

Markus

No problem, oh, btw, the last app link, MobileSyncBrowser, it DOES allow you to get to the LockBackground.jpg file, but it wants you to register to actually copy it off the phone, cheeky bugger! Price is $20.

Markus

A little update for you. Go for the second link, the iPhone Backup Extractor thingy. I've downloaded it (and also downloaded and installed Mono) and it worked for me. I plugged in the iPhone, fired up the app, and then selected my backup from the list (You might want to launch iTunes, connect the phone, then right click on the phone icon under the Devices list and select the "Backup" option to get a current backup) and then clicked next.

I ensured the "Restore some or all files from backup manually" option was selected (was by default on my setup) then I clicked next. Look for the Library item and lick "+" to expand it's contents, then look for the file named LockBackground.jpg. select it, click next, then select where you want it saved. Once it's done click Finished.

It'll then create a folder named Library in the location you selected and inside that folder will be the LockBackground.jpg file which will be your wallpaper.

Easy when you know how!

DARB

Hi

Can you not just take a screenshot of your homescreen ?? ( press the bottom home button and the the top sleep button together for a second ) this takes a picture of whatever is on screen at the time, and it will save it to your camera roll

Markus

That's an interesting idea but it won't work, well, ok, it WILL work, as in you can take a screenshot of the "Slide to Unlock" and/or "Enter Passcode" screens, which is where you would see the picture. However, the screenshot will not be clear, by that I mean it takes a complete shot of everything, including the menu bar, the slide to unlock grahpic and the time, if it's on passcode lock screen you'll see the virtual keypad too.

DARB

Yeah I understand that, but could you not crop the picture once it's on the PC?
I know it ain't gonna be perfect but with the iPhone camera any picture taken will be poor quality anyway

Markus

depends how the picture is framed. If it's like my current wallpaper then it'd chop the top and bottom off, and the picture would make no sense whatsoever.