Have you ever looked at contact photos on iOS, but found that somehow they readjusted themselves? There is a trick to readjust contact photos, and it doesn’t involve the contacts app. I’ve had this happen several times when I zoom in on a person’s face in a photo, and later it displays a different area of the image.
Using Photos
Instead of using contacts to set a picture, you can do it in Photos. When you browse to the picture you want for a contact, tap the share button on the bottom. Swipe left until you see a button that says Assign to Contact.
For some reason, this seems to “lock” pictures so that they don’t get messed up later, as opposed to setting the image in contacts.
Thanks for the tip Andrew! It would be nice if they could make things work more reliably. That images dont lock in, and that contacts sync … well sometimes, with some parts, and not others… Apple stuff just seems to break more than it works these days.