UIButton: set image for selected-highlighted state

Question

I found the solution: need to add addition line

[button setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"pressed.png"] forState:UIControlStateSelected | UIControlStateHighlighted];

You can do this in Interface Builder.

Select the UIButton you wish to set in IB then go to the attributes inspector.

In the screen shots,I am using a custom button type , but that does not matter.

Swift 3

// Default state (previously `.Normal`)
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image1"), for: [])

// Highlighted
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image2"), for: .highlighted)

// Selected
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image3"), for: .selected)

// Selected + Highlighted
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image4"), for: [.selected, .highlighted])

To set the background image we can use setBackgroundImage(_:for:)

Swift 2.x

// Normal
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image1"), forState: .Normal)

// Highlighted
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image2"), forState: .Highlighted)

// Selected
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image3"), forState: .Selected)

// Selected + Highlighted
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "image4"), forState: [.Selected, .Highlighted])

I think most posters here miss the point completely. I had the same problem. The original question was about the Highlighted state of a Selected button (COMBINING BOTH STATES) which cannot be set in IB and falls back to Default state with some darkening going on. Only working solution as one post mentioned:

[button setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"pressed.png"] forState:UIControlStateSelected | UIControlStateHighlighted];

If you have a good reason to do that, this will do the trick

add these targets:

[button addTarget:self action:@selector(buttonTouchDown:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchDown];
[button addTarget:self action:@selector(buttonTouchUp:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];


-(void)buttonTouchDown:(id)sender{
    UIButton *button=(UIButton *)sender;
    if(button.selected){
        [button setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"pressed.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    }
}

-(void)buttonTouchUp:(id)sender{
    UIButton *button=(UIButton *)sender;
    [button setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"normal.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
}

In Swift 3.x, you can set highlighted image when button is selected in the following way:

// Normal state
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "normalImage"), for: .normal) 

// Highlighted state (before button is selected)
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "pressedImage"), for: .highlighted)

// Selected state
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "selectedImage"), for:  .selected)

// Highlighted state (after button is selected)
button.setImage(UIImage(named: "pressedAfterBeingSelectedImage"), 
                for:  UIControlState.selected.union(.highlighted))

In swift you can do:

button.setImage(UIImage(named: "selected"), 
                forState: UIControlState.selected.union(.highlighted))