How to easily resize/optimize an image size with iOS?

Question

A couple of suggestions are provided as answers to this question. I had suggested the technique described in this post, with the relevant code:

+ (UIImage*)imageWithImage:(UIImage*)image 
               scaledToSize:(CGSize)newSize;
{
   UIGraphicsBeginImageContext( newSize );
   [image drawInRect:CGRectMake(0,0,newSize.width,newSize.height)];
   UIImage* newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
   UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

   return newImage;
}

As far as storage of the image, the fastest image format to use with the iPhone is PNG, because it has optimizations for that format. However, if you want to store these images as JPEGs, you can take your UIImage and do the following:

NSData *dataForJPEGFile = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(theImage, 0.6);

This creates an NSData instance containing the raw bytes for a JPEG image at a 60% quality setting. The contents of that NSData instance can then be written to disk or cached in memory.

The easiest and most straightforward way to resize your images would be this

float actualHeight = image.size.height;
float actualWidth = image.size.width;
float imgRatio = actualWidth/actualHeight;
float maxRatio = 320.0/480.0;

if(imgRatio!=maxRatio){
    if(imgRatio < maxRatio){
        imgRatio = 480.0 / actualHeight;
        actualWidth = imgRatio * actualWidth;
        actualHeight = 480.0;
    }
    else{
        imgRatio = 320.0 / actualWidth;
        actualHeight = imgRatio * actualHeight;
        actualWidth = 320.0;
    }
}
CGRect rect = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, actualWidth, actualHeight);
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(rect.size);
[image drawInRect:rect];
UIImage *img = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

The above methods work well for small images, but when you try to resize a very large image, you will quickly run out of memory and crash the app. A much better way is to use CGImageSourceCreateThumbnailAtIndexto resize the image without completely decoding it first.

If you have the path to the image you want to resize, you can use this:

- (void)resizeImageAtPath:(NSString *)imagePath {
    // Create the image source (from path)
    CGImageSourceRef src = CGImageSourceCreateWithURL((__bridge CFURLRef) [NSURL fileURLWithPath:imagePath], NULL);

    // To create image source from UIImage, use this
    // NSData* pngData =  UIImagePNGRepresentation(image);
    // CGImageSourceRef src = CGImageSourceCreateWithData((CFDataRef)pngData, NULL);

    // Create thumbnail options
    CFDictionaryRef options = (__bridge CFDictionaryRef) @{
            (id) kCGImageSourceCreateThumbnailWithTransform : @YES,
            (id) kCGImageSourceCreateThumbnailFromImageAlways : @YES,
            (id) kCGImageSourceThumbnailMaxPixelSize : @(640)
    };
    // Generate the thumbnail
    CGImageRef thumbnail = CGImageSourceCreateThumbnailAtIndex(src, 0, options); 
    CFRelease(src);
    // Write the thumbnail at path
    CGImageWriteToFile(thumbnail, imagePath);
}

More details here.

Best way to scale images without losing the aspect ratio (i.e. without stretching the imgage) is to use this method:

//to scale images without changing aspect ratio
+ (UIImage *)scaleImage:(UIImage *)image toSize:(CGSize)newSize {

    float width = newSize.width;
    float height = newSize.height;

    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(newSize);
    CGRect rect = CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height);

    float widthRatio = image.size.width / width;
    float heightRatio = image.size.height / height;
    float divisor = widthRatio > heightRatio ? widthRatio : heightRatio;

    width = image.size.width / divisor;
    height = image.size.height / divisor;

    rect.size.width  = width;
    rect.size.height = height;

    //indent in case of width or height difference
    float offset = (width - height) / 2;
    if (offset > 0) {
        rect.origin.y = offset;
    }
    else {
        rect.origin.x = -offset;
    }

    [image drawInRect: rect];

    UIImage *smallImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    return smallImage;

}

Add this method to your Utility class so you can use it throughout your project, and access it like so:

xyzImageView.image = [Utility scaleImage:yourUIImage toSize:xyzImageView.frame.size];

This method takes care of scaling while maintaining aspect ratio. It also adds indents to the image in case the scaled down image has more width than height (or vice versa).

If you have control over the server, I would strongly recommend resizing the images server side with ImageMagik. Downloading large images and resizing them on the phone is a waste of many precious resources - bandwidth, battery and memory. All of which are scarce on phones.

I developed an ultimate solution for image scaling in Swift.

You can use it to resize image to fill, aspect fill or aspect fit specified size.

You can align image to center or any of four edges and four corners.

And also you can trim extra space which is added if aspect ratios of original image and target size are not equal.

enum UIImageAlignment {
    case Center, Left, Top, Right, Bottom, TopLeft, BottomRight, BottomLeft, TopRight
}

enum UIImageScaleMode {
    case Fill,
    AspectFill,
    AspectFit(UIImageAlignment)
}

extension UIImage {
    func scaleImage(width width: CGFloat? = nil, height: CGFloat? = nil, scaleMode: UIImageScaleMode = .AspectFit(.Center), trim: Bool = false) -> UIImage {
        let preWidthScale = width.map { $0 / size.width }
        let preHeightScale = height.map { $0 / size.height }
        var widthScale = preWidthScale ?? preHeightScale ?? 1
        var heightScale = preHeightScale ?? widthScale
        switch scaleMode {
        case .AspectFit(_):
            let scale = min(widthScale, heightScale)
            widthScale = scale
            heightScale = scale
        case .AspectFill:
            let scale = max(widthScale, heightScale)
            widthScale = scale
            heightScale = scale
        default:
            break
        }
        let newWidth = size.width * widthScale
        let newHeight = size.height * heightScale
        let canvasWidth = trim ? newWidth : (width ?? newWidth)
        let canvasHeight = trim ? newHeight : (height ?? newHeight)
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(CGSizeMake(canvasWidth, canvasHeight), false, 0)

        var originX: CGFloat = 0
        var originY: CGFloat = 0
        switch scaleMode {
        case .AspectFit(let alignment):
            switch alignment {
            case .Center:
                originX = (canvasWidth - newWidth) / 2
                originY = (canvasHeight - newHeight) / 2
            case .Top:
                originX = (canvasWidth - newWidth) / 2
            case .Left:
                originY = (canvasHeight - newHeight) / 2
            case .Bottom:
                originX = (canvasWidth - newWidth) / 2
                originY = canvasHeight - newHeight
            case .Right:
                originX = canvasWidth - newWidth
                originY = (canvasHeight - newHeight) / 2
            case .TopLeft:
                break
            case .TopRight:
                originX = canvasWidth - newWidth
            case .BottomLeft:
                originY = canvasHeight - newHeight
            case .BottomRight:
                originX = canvasWidth - newWidth
                originY = canvasHeight - newHeight
            }
        default:
            break
        }
        self.drawInRect(CGRectMake(originX, originY, newWidth, newHeight))
        let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return image
    }
}

There are examples of applying this solution below.

Gray rectangle is target site image will be resized to. Blue circles in light blue rectangle is the image (I used circles because it's easy to see when it's scaled without preserving aspect). Light orange color marks areas that will be trimmed if you pass trim: true.

Aspect fit before and after scaling:

Another example of aspect fit:

Aspect fit with top alignment:

Aspect fill:

Fill:

I used upscaling in my examples because it's simpler to demonstrate but solution also works for downscaling as in question.

For JPEG compression you should use this :

let compressionQuality: CGFloat = 0.75 // adjust to change JPEG quality
if let data = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(image, compressionQuality) {
  // ...
}

You can check out my gist with Xcode playground.

For Swift 3, the below code scales the image keeping the aspect ratio. You can read more about the ImageContext in Apple's documentation:

extension UIImage {
    class func resizeImage(image: UIImage, newHeight: CGFloat) -> UIImage {
        let scale = newHeight / image.size.height
        let newWidth = image.size.width * scale
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSize(width: newWidth, height: newHeight))
        image.draw(in: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: newWidth, height: newHeight))
        let newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return newImage!
    }
}

To use it, call resizeImage() method:

UIImage.resizeImage(image: yourImageName, newHeight: yourImageNewHeight)