Saving optimal JPEGs on iOS

Conventional wisdom for creating a JPEG version of a UIImage is first to turn it into an NSData and immediately write it to disk like so:

NSData *jpegRepresentation = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(image, 0.94);
[jpegRepresentation writeToFile:outputURL.path
                     atomically:NO];

Most of the time this is exactly right. However, if file size is important, Image IO is a great alternative. It is a powerful system framework to read and write images, and produces smaller files at the same compression level.

Why Image IO?

A project I am working on requires uploading photos en masse. Low upload bandwidth makes file size a limiting factor, so I sought out ways to reduce it.

I put together a test project to find the differences between the two methods. The results are pretty interesting:

• Image IO files are on average 20% (but up to 30%) smaller¹.
• Image IO takes about 2x longer.

The only discernible visual difference is the grain in the images, but even that is minor. Here’s a diff between two versions of the same original photo:

Using Image IO

First, you’ll need to add two new framework dependencies:

@import ImageIO; // to do the actual work
@import MobileCoreServices; // for the type defines

When creating your JPEG file, the first step is to create a CGImageDestinationRef specifying where to write the result:

CGImageDestinationRef destinationRef =
CGImageDestinationCreateWithURL((__bridge CFURLRef)outputURL,
                                /* file type */ kUTTypeJPEG,
                                /* number of images */ 1,
                                /* reserved */ NULL);

Image IO is able to produce files of a few different types² but my focus here is JPEGs. Next, we set up the properties of the output file, specifying a constant compression factor:

NSDictionary *properties = @{
  (__bridge NSString *)kCGImageDestinationLossyCompressionQuality: @(0.94)
};

CGImageDestinationSetProperties(destinationRef,
                                (__bridge CFDictionaryRef)properties);

And, importantly, we specify what is to be written out:

CGImageDestinationAddImage(destinationRef,
                           /* image */ image.CGImage,
                           /* properties */ NULL);

And finally, we write it to disk and clean up the reference:

CGImageDestinationFinalize(destinationRef);
CFRelease(destinationRef);