Photos sent at poor quality even with HD quality set to on, no metadata retained

[masangster]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

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Bug description

Photos sent using HD quality are still highly compressed, and the photos received are much darker than the originals for some reason. In addition all exif data is stripped.

Steps to reproduce

-Set media settings to high quality
-Send a photo using either the photos picker, or even send using the files picker. Can also send to yourself or from Mac OS and the same result occurs.

**Actual result:
A 10MB photo is compressed to less than 2MB and the exif data is stripped. If trying to send the photo as a file the same happens. When trying to send from MacOS, the files received are also much darker for some reason.

Expected result:
The HD mode should send the original files and retain all EXIF metadata, as well as file formats. EG if I send a HEIF format file using the file picker it should be received as HEIF not JPEG.

Screenshots

Device info

Device: iPhone 11

iOS version: 18.1.1

Signal version: 7.39

Link to debug log

[Zk2u]

The high quality mode only increases the quality from standard, it doesn't send the original (like iMessage would). And all EXIF data is stripped for all images (and maybe videos?). Both are for security reasons, as it means they can enforce a single image format on signal and also prevent people from accidentally revealing their location to others

[masangster]

I understand the security perspective, but why not let users decide when they intentionally want to send with the EXIF data intact? The message is encrypted anyway so this shouldn’t be a significant security concern if sent to known parties. This could also be done with or without preserving the original image quality, so the option to send the original with or without EXIF data would be a good solution. Is there anything preventing this still on signal’s end or is the image quality only due to Apple related limitations? Lastly, none of the above explains why images sent with the desktop app are darkened in the sending process. Can this be corrected, even independent of the above? Thanks! ***@***.*** +886 (0) 963 662 685

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________________________________ From: azz ***@***.***> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2024 7:49:11 AM To: signalapp/Signal-iOS ***@***.***> Cc: masangster ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [signalapp/Signal-iOS] Photos sent at poor quality even with HD quality set to on, no metadata retained (Issue #5919) The high quality mode only increases the quality from standard, it doesn't send the original (like iMessage would). And all EXIF data is stripped for all images (and maybe videos?). Both are for security reasons, as it means they can enforce a single image format on signal and also prevent people from accidentally revealing their location to others — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#5919 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJQJNBR7YO3M5K3NTM7FEMT2E54XPAVCNFSM6AAAAABTGCEPOCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDKMZTGI2DCNJZHE>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>