UIImagePickerController bug

Your question is "What's causing this?" So I'll focus on that instead of giving a workaround.This is definitely a bug in iOS 7 dealing with edited images in lower base SDKs. We can also rule out that XCode 5 & Base SDK 6.1 causing this because I'm getting the same issue with XCode 4.6.3 & 6.1 SDK running on iOS 7 Simulator.

The source of the problem is that the CropRect values that are calculated by the SDK are wrong.If you'll print out the info NSDictionary from imagePickerController:didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo you'll see that:

iOS 7 running any SDK lower than 7 we'll get:

UIImagePickerControllerCropRect = "NSRect: {{154, 495}, {1705, 1705}}";

While running iOS 6 or 5 with their SDK will give us:

UIImagePickerControllerCropRect = "NSRect: {{0, 149}, {1704, 1705}}";

You're probably saying, hmm, those y values are changing between SDKs too. Well, yea, if you'll slide your pic all the way down and select it you'll also get a black bar at the bottom of the picture.

Suggested Solutions:

1. File a bug report to Apple here ...Did that!

2. Don't use UIImagePickerControllerEditedImage and take the original picture instead.

3. Calculate and do the cropping your self.

4. Use a 3rd party cropping library such as PEPhotoCropEditor or SSPhotoCropperViewController

Edit - very simple solution added by fan of the answer!

Amazingly, it can be this simple and elegant to crop it yourself:

{// There is a bug in iOS. When using ALBUM, you must crop it yourself:fromAlbum = [info objectForKey:UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage];fromAlbum = [fromAlbum fixOrientation];CGRect crop = [[info valueForKey:@"UIImagePickerControllerCropRect"] CGRectValue];fromAlbum = [self ordinaryCrop:fromAlbum toRect:crop];}

Here's the whole routine ordinaryCrop:toRect:

-(UIImage *)ordinaryCrop:(UIImage *)imageToCrop toRect:(CGRect)cropRect { CGImageRef imageRef = CGImageCreateWithImageInRect([imageToCrop CGImage], cropRect); UIImage *cropped = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:imageRef]; CGImageRelease(imageRef); return cropped; }

Now as Jesse points out, it is critical to rotate the image properly. This absolutely incredible piece of code by Anomie does the job:

iOS UIImagePickerController result image orientation after upload

Fixing UIImage orientation .. UIImage+fixOrientation.h

It's that simple, hope it helps someone. Thanks again for the priceless answers here.

I believe we ended up working around similar issues by never asking for the edited image directly; ask for the original image and the crop information (UIImagePickerControllerCropRect) and do the cropping yourself. Note that you need to worry about rotations in the source image if you do the cropping yourself.

You might find the answer in this question helpful for implementing this work-around.

Try find and change mode (Aspect Fit, Aspect Fill, Scale to Fill) programmatically.