Convert HEIF photo to JPEG for uploading to backend

Question

I'm maintaining an app for uploading photos from iPhone to a backend service. Currently this service doesn't support the new HEIF format, so is there any way to have the Photos framework convert the photo data to jpeg?

I use PHImageManager.requestImageData(for:options:resultHandler:) to retrieve a Data object from the image which I then upload to a REST API.

mlidal · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-06T14:46:14.147

12

(new solution, the previous one didn't keep the EXIF information)

To get the image as a JPEG photo, with EXIF information, create a CIImage object from the HEIF image data and use CIContext.jpegRepresentation(of: to get the jpeg-encoded image as a Data object

let imageManager = PHImageManager.default()
var photo : PHAsset
var options : PHImageRequestOptions

imageManager.requestImageData(for: photo, options: options, resultHandler: {
                imageData,dataUTI,orientation,info in
let ciImage = CIImage(data: imageData!)
if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
    data = CIContext().jpegRepresentation(of: ciImage!, colorSpace: CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB())!
    // upload image data
}

edited Nov 06 '17 at 14:46

answered Oct 28 '17 at 15:46

mlidal

1,111
14
27

great solution, thanks! I was doing a huge dance of data -> extract exif -> UIImage -> UIIMageJPGRepresentation -> append exif -> save it. – Rog Jul 12 '18 at 07:50
Where should we pass our UIImage to this method? It's not clear – Tharindu Ketipearachchi Mar 10 '20 at 13:21
1

In this case you don't use UIImage at all, you can create a CIImage from a Data object and export it to a new Data object in jpeg format – mlidal Mar 11 '20 at 20:20
awesome solution, thanks, it helped a lot! – Alexander Jan 13 '22 at 16:17

Convert HEIF photo to JPEG for uploading to backend

1 Answers1