Jennifer Green, 25, and Steven Malcolm, 42, are both accused of trying to extract cash from the wife of Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney.
Both were arrested after Mrs Rooney's mobile phone went missing while at a concert at the MEN Arena in Manchester in May 2010, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Green and Malcolm both deny the charges.
Green's partner, Lee Platt, has already admitted handling stolen goods and blackmail.
Deborah Gould, prosecuting, said: "It would have been obvious to anyone who saw the contents of the memory card who the images on it were of and they they were personal family photographs of the Rooney family.
"Most importantly, however, they would have realised, and did, that their contents had a commercial value because of the fact of Coleen and Wayne Rooney's celebrity."
She explained that the gang made contact with Manchester United Football Club and initially tried to extract £1,000 from Coleen Rooney's agent for the return of the memory card and photographs.
They then upped the amount to £5,000 following some unpleasant publicity about Wayne Rooney and approached various magazines trying to sell the pictures, she said.
Ms Gould continued: "After Hello magazine informed Wayne Rooney's agent, a man called Paul Stretford, of the approach, the police were informed and decided to deploy an undercover police officer who pretended to be Coleen and Wayne Rooney's publicity agent."
That officer then met with Malcolm in a Manchester city centre hotel, and was presented with a black folder containing about 400 thumbnail-sized images from Mrs Rooney's camera, the court heard.
Police later found the fingerprints of both Green and her partner Platt on pages within the folder, the jury was told.
Mrs Rooney, who is mum to two-year-old Kai, is not expected to be called to give evidence, because she had no direct contact with the defendants.
The case continues
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