High-Resolution Photos

The capability to use photos with Lync contacts was introduced in Lync 2010, with the source of those photos limited to either the Active Directory user object (using the thumbnailPhoto attribute) or a URL reference to a public website. Although Active Directory was naturally the better choice for organizations seeking to standardize this feature, many Lync administrators held back from implementing photos in Lync due to concerns with how Active Directory replication would be impacted. For this very reason, limitations were also placed on the resolution of photos that could be used with Lync 2010.

In an effort to circumvent these limitations, Lync 2013 offers additional options for the use of photos by way of integration with Exchange 2013. Although the storage of limited-resolution photos (up to 48×48) using the Active Directory thumbnailPhoto attribute is still supported, for organizations that use both Lync and Exchange the use of high-resolution photos stored in Exchange is a much more attractive option. When Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 are configured for integration, photos of up to 648×648 resolution can be stored as a hidden item at the root of a user’s Exchange 2013 mailbox. The photos can be uploaded to the mailbox by the user using Outlook Web App, or by an Exchange administrator using the Set-UserPhoto cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell.

An additional benefit of this new feature is that the upload process stores the photo in an internal format that supports different resolutions for different platforms. For example, uploading a high-resolution photo using the Exchange Management Shell automatically updates the thumbnailPhoto attribute of the user’s Active Directory account with a 48×48 version of the photo.