Photos Post Upside Down?

220629

Well-known member
Some info about why your photos might show upside down on the forum.
P.S. - You may want to disable GPS information when posting some pictures from your cell phone.

Thanks goes to Elemental, Israndy and future contributors. :thumbup:

Wow! Your awning is holding on really good, even upside down it doesn't fall off. :smirk:

AwningUpsideDown.jpg

-Randy

I know!!
A case of beer to the person who can figure out why my pic's are always up side down:thinking:

Btw, if you right click the image and click view image, it comes out right side up.
Chances are good that you are holding your device upside down from its "standard" orientation when you take picture, especially if you are using a mobile phone and not a camera. That, coupled with inconsistencies in how different software processes digital photos can lead to the results that you are seeing. If you are not holding it upside down, the software that you are using may be introducing the problem.

A digital photo is data stored in a file. There is a standard way of reading that data and displaying the image oriented as it was stored. Digital photos can also have metadata that adds things like date/time information, camera settings, descriptions, etc (EXIF metadata). One of the pieces of metadata is an orientation tag. The orientation tag can specify that the picture should be displayed "rotated" from how it is stored in the file. Newer cameras and mobile devices typically have an orientation sensor and use this to set the EXIF orientation tag. A device that doesn't have such a sensor will store the image from the point of view of the device without regard to the devices orientation; if it adds an orientation tag the tag will indicate no rotation is required (even if it is).

There are inconsistencies in how devices/software handle the tag. For example, if you take a picture with a camera that is physically rotated (from its standard orientation), the camera might store the image in the file without regard to orientation (i.e, the "default" view would show a rotated picture), but add the orientation tag to indicate that the picture should be rotated to its correct orientation when viewed (soft rotate). However, if you view a picture where the orientation tag specifies the image should be rotated upon display, but the software that you are using doesn't interpret the orientation tag, it will be oriented incorrectly because the software simply reproduces the picture as stored in the file.

It gets worse. If you use that same software (that doesn't handle the EXIF orientation tag) to correct the orientation, it will probably change how the data is stored in the file (hard rotate), but not update the orientation tag. If you next view the image using software that DOES interpret the orientation tag, that software will rotate the image from its default orientation, which will make it appear incorrect (despite the fact that you thought you had fixed it). [Soft rotate is generally preferred to hard rotate, because hard rotate can cause a recompression of digital data that reduces image quality. This is one of the reasons why the orientation tag is used instead of just flipping the bits around in the file all of the time.]

So... you will need to do some sleuthing. What is the "standard" orientation for your device? How does your device store the data - does it store the picture in the data file as if the device were not rotated but add an orientation tag? How do you extract photos from your device - some import software will rotate on import if there are orientation tags, some won't. What software do you use to process your pictures? Is this software "aware" of orientation tags and updates them if you use the software to rotate your picture? Here is some technical information on digital picture orientation handling. You can find more using Google using search terms like "EXIF orientation" or "digital photo orientation".

Since the above may not have been enough to earn the case of beer, I took a look at one of your images - "Awning 4.JPG". The EXIF data says that your iPhone 6s was being held upside down from its "default" orientation, and it has an orientation tag that specifies 180 degree rotation (Orientation "3") so that the pictures will display correctly when viewed by software that is "aware" of and properly handles the orientation tag. (Incidentally, your image also has all of its original GPS location information showing you were standing on the south side of E Esplanade in Vancouver at 4:37 pm on March 20th when you took the picture. In this case, not such a big deal, because the image itself shows a street sign that could be used to locate it. But if you have pictures taken other places, like your home, you might not want to include that GPS location when you put pictures up on the Internet.)

I haven't investigated how the forum is transmitting the images, but it seems probable that the orientation tag is not being used to rotate the image for initial display (i.e., doesn't support "soft rotate") so images must have a "hard rotate" in order for the initial display to appear correct).

I'll take Central City Red Racer IPA, thanks.
A hard rotate on the Mac can be completed by opening in Preview and clicking the rotate
View attachment 109813
icon. You can even do this just by highlighting the photo in Finder taping the spacebar to open Quickview and hitting the same icon.

On the iPhone when you go to edit the photo just hit the crop
AwningUpsideDown02.jpg
icon, and then the rotate icon.

Since you are trying to override what appears to be the correct orientation already but is actually a SOFT orientation you need to rotate the image 90° four times to save that as the new HARD orientation.

-Randy
:cheers: vic
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Not having to wrestle with a Mac, i just pull my photos into Windows' Paint (primarily for Forum pixel-limit adjustments) ... it does hard rotates and strips away the metadata.

There are Android apps that provide similar functions ("Photo Resizer" and various editors, for example), but i only use those when travelling (far) away from my laptop.

--dick
 
D

Deleted member 50714

Guest
I primarily use iPhone and these handy free apps to manipulate photos. The first, for rotation/cropping/resizing. Second, for Text. Third for arrows. The last is an example.

Only drawback is transitioning from one app to another. There's probably one app to do all three but these are FREEEEEEEE!!!

TIP: On iPhone, if you want to save a picture a member has posted, touch and slide photo up to save.
 

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OrioN

2008 2500 170" EXT
..............


P.S. - You may want to disable GPS information when posting some pictures from your cell phone.

............... :thumbup:





:cheers: vic
Yes, you don't want anyone to know you were at Yosemite when you post pictures of yourself being at Yosemite. :thumbup:
 

220629

Well-known member
Yes, you don't want anyone to know you were at Yosemite when you post pictures of yourself being at Yosemite. :thumbup:
:rolleyes:

... (Incidentally, your image also has all of its original GPS location information showing you were standing on the south side of E Esplanade in Vancouver at 4:37 pm on March 20th when you took the picture. In this case, not such a big deal, because the image itself shows a street sign that could be used to locate it. But if you have pictures taken other places, like your home, you might not want to include that GPS location when you put pictures up on the Internet.)

....
There's people who might be interested to know where those cute children or expensive items in the pictures are located... but they're probably all upstanding citizens.

:cheers: vic
 
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