Optimizing 349 photos every time I sync

[Sivann]

I usually sync my iPad photos, music, videos etc with iTunes to keep it up to date. I remember when I did it for the first time, I had around 4000+ items that I have synchronized successfully without any issues. But recently when I tried the same thing, it is taking a lot of time for just 400 items. It says me that it is optimizing 349 photos. Can you tell me why it has to optimize those 349 photos which has already been optimized? And why does this process so long to finish?

[Grohu]

There is a small concept about iTunes optimizing photos.

1. A lot of people doesn't have much hard disk space in their computers. This is the main reason why iTunes don't save the optimized files on your hard disk since it occupy a lot of space. On the contrary the original file consumes less space and hence it is stored in its original format.

2. A lot of times we have seen that people don't go for 64 GB iPads. The high-end product is normally the least purchased since the cost incurred in the same. This takes us to the concept incurred in 1. Again, we are dealing with the problem of finite space on a device. This is pretty obvious that no one with be using their portable devices only for pictures, and thus all the files are compressed to save space.

3. The size of photos depends on the format of the file, image ratio, color, device through which the picture was taken, etc.. However, you will not find any file which exceeds 1 GB. So, even if you have 10 photos, you'd notice that about 1GB has been already utilized.

[Rkhon]

Try to remove iPod Photo Cache folder from iTunes and see if this helps.

1. From the Finder, choose Home from the Go menu.
2. Once there, open the Pictures folder and locate the iPhoto Library file.
3. Control-click the iPhoto Library file and choose Show Package Contents from the shortcut menu.
4. In the iPhoto Library window, locate the iPod Photo Cache folder and drag it to the Trash.
5. Close the iPhoto Library window.

[Ricky58]

Why don't you use Aperture to synchronize images with the iPad? With this you can control the image transfer through Preview setting under Preferences in Aperture. With Aperture you should be able to transfer file which is of resolution 2304 x 1536 to iPad. Any file whose resolution is more than that will only be optimized.

[Sivann]

But I already removed the cache folder from there and tried resynchronizing several times but it didn't worked at all. Recently I have found a solution which I think fixes my problem. What I did was I uncheck the include videos checkbox in Photos tab. Let's just hope it doesn't mess up when I sync the iPad.