Camera Quickstart

Overview

This is a quickstart guide for using the taking a photo or picking an image from the camera roll using the stock camera and camera roll. In both cases, we'll modally present the UIImagePickerController class which has a delegate. The delegate has a method which is called after a user takes/picks a picture.

Taking a Picture

Step 1: Instantiate a UIImagePickerController

let vc = UIImagePickerController()
vc.delegate = self
vc.allowsEditing = true
vc.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceType.Camera

self.presentViewController(vc, animated: true, completion: nil)

Step 2: Implement the delegate

In the class interface, declare that it implements two protocols: UIImagePickerControllerDelegate and UINavigationControllerDelegate.

func imagePickerController(picker: UIImagePickerController,
    didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [String : AnyObject]) {
    let originalImage = info[UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage] as! UIImage
    let editedImage = info[UIImagePickerControllerEditedImage] as! UIImage
}

When the user finishes taking the picture, UIImagePickerController returns a dictionary that contains the image and some other meta data. The full set of keys are listed here.

Picking a Picture from the Camera Roll

Step 1: Instantiate a UIImagePickerController

let vc = UIImagePickerController()
vc.delegate = self
vc.allowsEditing = true
vc.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceType.PhotoLibrary

self.presentViewController(vc, animated: true, completion: nil)

Step 2: Implement the delegate

This is the same as Step 2 above.