As of Xcode 5, the debugger can show you the visual representation of UIImage/CGImageRef variables!
Xcode itself can't do it. I don't know about external tools.
What i'm doing to test images while debugging is to convert that raw data into an image-file format, like .png, and then saving it somewhere, and then i'm opening the image with any image viewing tool.
I have a piece of code for that purpose, which look basically like that:
Edit for Xcode 5: Now when you hover over an image variable name, there is an "eye" icon on the right. Just click it to see the current image!
NOTE: sometimes this fails in Xcode, even if the image is correct. If this happens, OR if you don't have a UIImage variable (e.g. it's a property of another object, you can still use the older answer:
Older answer: Starting with Avraham's answer, I tried a few experiments for displaying an iOS image from lldb without having to recompile or add it to a view. I finally came up with:
e [UIImagePNGRepresentation(myImage) writeToFile:@"/Users/<userName>/Desktop/myImage.png" atomically:NO];
I keep this string in a text editor and paste it when I need it. This stores the current image I'm interested in (in this case, "myImage") to a PNG file on the Desktop. Then I can just open this file with Preview.
If you're working on an iOS device, then you can use
e [UIImagePNGRepresentation(myImage) writeToFile:[NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES)[0] stringByAppendingString:@"/myImage.png"] atomically:NO];
Then you can use the Finder; select your device; "Files"; then your dev app, and copy the image to your Desktop to view it.
The variables Quick Look feature in the Xcode debugger allows you to obtain a quick visual assessment of the state of an object variable through a graphical rendering, displayed in a popover window either in the debugger variables view or in place in your source code.
This chapter describes how you implement a Quick Look method for your custom class types so that object variables of those types can also be rendered visually in the Quick Look popover window.