What happened to all the data Sean and I gathered on this issue?
This is what I really don't get... you spent a lot of time doing that, and for what? It's disheartening to say the least, Samir. But maybe "Twoofy" (Greg) has access to that stuff at least. I hope so!
In the meantime, I have 3 working theories on what might be happening here. They all require great leaps of faith in the imagination department, but one of them was a fix for something I discovered a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure exactly when that fix went live, it was possible that it was after you uploaded your photos on Feb 8th - but it is live now for sure.
If the fix that went live is a possible theory on why the issue exists, I think that one could be ruled out since this problem has existed for over a year. What are the other theories?
I have a lot of uploading which I need to have completed by Sunday or Monday. I plan to try the new smugftp product for uploads, but may ultimately use html5 and simple depending on how that goes. If I run into a gallery that has rotation issues, I'll post a detailed link and list of steps I took.
This is what I really don't get... you spent a lot of time doing that, and for what? It's disheartening to say the least, Samir. But maybe "Twoofy" (Greg) has access to that stuff at least. I hope so!
Yeah, and I spent time with Sean at a really critical time, but I thought it was time spent for a solution. If that's gone to waste, so be it, but I find that very unprofessional. My time is valuable too.
If the fix that went live is a possible theory on why the issue exists, I think that one could be ruled out since this problem has existed for over a year. What are the other theories?
I have a lot of uploading which I need to have completed by Sunday or Monday. I plan to try the new smugftp product for uploads, but may ultimately use html5 and simple depending on how that goes. If I run into a gallery that has rotation issues, I'll post a detailed link and list of steps I took.
The fix that went live might have fixed this (and a couple of other issues) - it was not directly related to this.
If you want to point to it specifically I'll take a look.
- Greg
Sean had it because he has the queue information that he observed. :cry I only have the gallery and notes on the test we did. If that will help, I'll detail it and post it here.
Sean had it because he has the queue information that he observed. :cry I only have the gallery and notes on the test we did. If that will help, I'll detail it and post it here.
Why don't you PM it to me, if its large or technically complex - this thread is getting pretty lengthy.
Yep, I can upload some batches... I'm always behind-- possibly Fri.; if not, Sat.
Okay, please do keep in mind that I need them to remain in their mis-rotated (did I just invent a new word?) state. I'll make sure to keep an eye out over the weekend for an update from you.
In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and fix up the images that you previously reported. I've gotten all the useful data I can from the logs on them at this point.
Thank you, again, for being so patient. This is a very, very difficult bug.
Okay, please do keep in mind that I need them to remain in their mis-rotated (did I just invent a new word?) state. I'll make sure to keep an eye out over the weekend for an update from you.
In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and fix up the images that you previously reported. I've gotten all the useful data I can from the logs on them at this point.
Thank you, again, for being so patient. This is a very, very difficult bug.
I think that the cause of this bug has been sorted out. Thank you for everyone who has worked so hard to try and reproduce this and all of your generosity in posting critical details here. Without that effort, this would have been impossible. If I were to list the names of everyone who helped, it would a very long list - though I would like to personally thank Samir, WinsomeWorks, Andy, and Doc.
Anyways, so here are some details about what is going on:
When you click "rotate", this queues up the image to be rotated by the amount of degrees specified. Our servers come along and pick that up and start processing it. When it is done, it increments a version counter for that image. The purpose of this is that if the operation fails, when it retries later it will pull the earlier version and retry the operation. In this case there appears to be a very extreme edge-case where the image serial counter gets incremented - but it is not getting marked as a completed operation. So, when the system polls it finds the image and determines that it needs to be rotated again. But, because the version counter has been incremented it pulls the latest version - which has already been rotated.
...That sounds so simple when put that way.... *shrug*
I also would like to clarify one thing. I must have rotated 10k+ images during my testing. Sometimes I could do a batch of 10 and I'd end up 5 failures. Other times I could do a batch of 1,000 and end up with none. Sometimes I could test for 2+ hours and not have a single failure and other times I would have 5 fail within 60 seconds. The only thing that seems consistent is that this is somehow based on the number of threads that were processing images at a given time and even then it was very random.
I am doing some more testing on this still, but if this is correct (and I really think that it is) then we should be able to have a fix for this in this weeks release.
Thank you again, everyone, for your patient and all your help on this.
Absolutely brilliant work Greg! ivarthumblustbow:ivarlustthumbivarlust
There are SmugSorcerers and Gods. You sir, are a SmugGod. bowbowbowbowbow
The incrementation makes so much sense. And you and I both know how hard it is to find one of these incrementer bugs buried deep in a do-while or for loop of some sort. I remember in my college C-based data structures class--they would test our code for exactly this sort of thing, making sure we coded for every conceivable base case.
So now that hard part is partially started, I wish you continuing luck on finding the root cause of this issue. Thank you again Greg for your persistance and dedication.
Absolutely brilliant work Greg! ivarthumblustbow:ivarlustthumbivarlust
There are SmugSorcerers and Gods. You sir, are a SmugGod. bowbowbowbowbow
The incrementation makes so much sense. And you and I both know how hard it is to find one of these incrementer bugs buried deep in a do-while or for loop of some sort. I remember in my college C-based data structures class--they would test our code for exactly this sort of thing, making sure we coded for every conceivable base case.
So now that hard part is partially started, I wish you continuing luck on finding the root cause of this issue. Thank you again Greg for your persistance and dedication.
You are right, these are tough problems to find. This one was made more complex because we are also dealing with a locking system, imaging systems, caching, and database replication layers all that kind of hid the underlying incrementation problem. The good news is that I was actually reporting success in finding the root cause. It is solved by moving the place where the versions get incremented to the last step of the pipeline.
Thank you so much for the very kind words, I look forward to more bug hunting with ya'all. Especially if they are this interesting.
This is quite interesting. Even though I only marginally comprehend your explanation in technical terms, my non-computer-scientist head was picturing a version of this type of timing scenario as being the problem. Wow, good work! I hope it pans out. I'm sorry I didn't follow through over the wkend. I did a couple med.-sized uploads, but then didn't have time to do the necessary reporting. I can show you them now, however. I'd already created an Ocean Grove gallery awhile back. I don't think I've yet done any gallery settings on it, as it's still unlisted. I uploaded at least 6 pages worth of photos, & as usual I had to left-rotate a number of the vertical shots. Upon checking back later on, this one had rotated too far: http://www.winsomeworks.com/gallery/12095906_dY2Zf#1187041079_oivwC I've left it mis-rotated if you need to see it. (I've since deleted 3 pages of the photos, but none of them were over-rotated.
The other gallery I uploaded to had already been created earlier as well. I added 14 pages of photos to it. I'm not proud to show it yet, as I need to delete most of them. But I'll leave all pages for now so you can peek. This gallery had already had settings done previously, such as watermarking. Basically the same thing happened-- I rotated a whole bunch of verticals; all needed one 90 degree left-rotation just like that other gallery. When I returned later on, there were 4 photos that are over-rotated. Here's links to them:
1. http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel/New-Jersey/Asbury-Park-New-Jersey/9585019_tYMQr#1187044356_BuKRy
I really think this theory makes sense, because it allows for the fact of some rotations working fine. It also would help explain why some rotate farther a few minutes later, even after they've been watermarked or something. And it seems to explain why 1000s of photos could go w/o a hitch. Oh, and when I've needed to do 2 different types of rotation in the same gallery -- i.e. some right, some left, that's when I've seen the most exasperating problems, just like Samir has. I never know how long is "safe" to wait after rotating some to the left, if others need right-rotation. If versions are being grabbed at perhaps the wrong time in the system, when a gallery has had two different rotational operations done to it, I see how the outcome may be even more tangled up, almost as if wires got crossed. Well, Greg-Twoofy, I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear of your apparent progress, because one starts to feel like we were chasing ghosts. I'd really about given up. Now, if I could just figure out why my "Blue Lagoon" theme doesn't display correctly in these galleries and some others.... Ok, ok, will try elsewhere for that help!
It also would help explain why some rotate farther a few minutes later, even after they've been watermarked or something.
This is the most interesting example and what actually happened to me that led me down this strange path. because of that, let me walk through the process here so you can see.
Consider the following two imaging operations:
1. rotate the image
2. watermark the image
What is happening is:
1. Process #1 begins work in serial #000
2. Process #1 reports back success, serial is incremented to #001
3. When process #1 attempts to release the lock, it fails, leaving the serial number at #001 (the original image, no rotation) and the imaging operation in a state of "Ready" (waiting for processing)
4. Process #2 begins work on serial #001
5. Process #2 reports back success, serial is incremented to #002
6. Process #2 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
7. Because imaging operation #1 still has not completed successfully, it begins again
8. Process #1 begins work on serial #002 (an image that has already been rotated and watermarked)
9. Process #1 reports back success, serial is incremented to #002
10. Process #1 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
Now lets shuffle these around so they are in an atomic order (either the whole thing succeeds or the whole thing fails):
1. Process #1 begins work in serial #000
2. Process #1 reports back success
3. When process #1 attempts to release the lock, it fails, leaving the serial number at #000 (an image that has already been rotated) and the imaging operation in a state of "Ready" (waiting for processing)
4. Process #2 begins work on serial #000 (since it was never incremented)
5. Process #2 reports back success
6. Process #2 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
7. Process #2 serial is incremented to #001
8. Because imaging operation #1 still has not completed successfully, it begins again
9. Process #1 begins work on serial #001 (an image that has already been watermarked)
10. Process #1 reports back success
11. Process #1 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
12. Process #1 serial is incremented to #001
... The mystery is why the lock is failing to release properly. I think I've got a handle on that and it would improve things, but the system as a whole is now able to deal with that failure in right way, at least until I can get to the bottom of that... I think its related to two separate processes locking the same image for different operations, but when it releases the lock, it releases locks for both operations. So when the second one comes along it is unable to find its lock and complains.
One caveat on my above: when the imaging operation fails it actually leaves the imaging operation in a state of "Processing" and then it times out after 10 minutes and gets retried. I'm thinking about making the change, on a failure, to reset the state to Ready so it can be picked up a few seconds later instead of 10 minutes. But I didn't want to change too many things at one time.
Now, if I could just figure out why my "Blue Lagoon" theme doesn't display correctly in these galleries and some others.... Ok, ok, will try elsewhere for that help!
*lol* Thats waaaaay over my head...
Also, just to be clear, this fix is not live yet so it is expected that you'd still be seeing failures. It is in testing now, which I fully expect it to pass.
This is the most interesting example and what actually happened to me that led me down this strange path. because of that, let me walk through the process here so you can see.
Consider the following two imaging operations:
1. rotate the image
2. watermark the image
What is happening is:
1. Process #1 begins work in serial #000
2. Process #1 reports back success, serial is incremented to #001
3. When process #1 attempts to release the lock, it fails, leaving the serial number at #001 (the original image, no rotation) and the imaging operation in a state of "Ready" (waiting for processing)
4. Process #2 begins work on serial #001
5. Process #2 reports back success, serial is incremented to #002
6. Process #2 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
7. Because imaging operation #1 still has not completed successfully, it begins again
8. Process #1 begins work on serial #002 (an image that has already been rotated and watermarked)
9. Process #1 reports back success, serial is incremented to #002
10. Process #1 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
Now lets shuffle these around so they are in an atomic order (either the whole thing succeeds or the whole thing fails):
1. Process #1 begins work in serial #000
2. Process #1 reports back success
3. When process #1 attempts to release the lock, it fails, leaving the serial number at #000 (an image that has already been rotated) and the imaging operation in a state of "Ready" (waiting for processing)
4. Process #2 begins work on serial #000 (since it was never incremented)
5. Process #2 reports back success
6. Process #2 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
7. Process #2 serial is incremented to #001
8. Because imaging operation #1 still has not completed successfully, it begins again
9. Process #1 begins work on serial #001 (an image that has already been watermarked)
10. Process #1 reports back success
11. Process #1 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
12. Process #1 serial is incremented to #001
... The mystery is why the lock is failing to release properly. I think I've got a handle on that and it would improve things, but the system as a whole is now able to deal with that failure in right way, at least until I can get to the bottom of that... I think its related to two separate processes locking the same image for different operations, but when it releases the lock, it releases locks for both operations. So when the second one comes along it is unable to find its lock and complains.
One caveat on my above: when the imaging operation fails it actually leaves the imaging operation in a state of "Processing" and then it times out after 10 minutes and gets retried. I'm thinking about making the change, on a failure, to reset the state to Ready so it can be picked up a few seconds later instead of 10 minutes. But I didn't want to change too many things at one time.
How is this for transparency?
Cool. Love to hear about the inner workings that caused this bug. This is exactly how a hard-to-reproduce bug like this gets solved. A smart developer collects as much info as they can and then analyzes how this could possibly happen in the system and then builds defenses around it. Kudos to you Greg!
Yeah, I'd say that's pretty transparent, Greg! It all makes sense, even in its nonsensical-to-a-non-developer craziness, if that makes sense. I'll say one thing-- it sure does help a user appreciate the complexity that is going on behind the scenes there on the Smug servers to accomplish these seemingly little tasks that we Smuggers are demanding constantly. I had no idea... if this doesn't make a believer out of me, nothing will-- haha! Now here's one thing I'm wondering... not that I'm asking you to actually answer this, since you're focused on a specific task. But... as you're looking into the guts of this rotational beast, I wonder if you may come out with any suggestions to your fellow gurus there as to improving the experience of the rotational tool as a whole, and this wondering comes from my observation of two of its oddities as listed here:
1. The fact that left rotations, right rotations & 180 degree rotations need to be done as 3 separate steps in a gallery feels rather.... uh... I don't know... 2002 ??! Maybe I'm expecting too much, but to have to go completely out of the tool, then click again on the same stinkin' tool (2 clicks) just to get back into the same batch of photos to do the second type of rotation has seemed archaic to me ever since I landed here. Of course, with the glitch we've had, I was always left wondering whether I'd gone back in too soon to do the next rotation. (My thinking was that in going back too soon, I'd sent mixed messages somehow). At any rate, I guarantee you that gazillions of users have wondered about this same stuff, whether or not they've found this thread. We've all dealt with rotations elsewhere that are so much less complicated; I mean even stinkin' Mall-Wart makes it easy. I recall the first time I was faced with this oddity that I was a bit confused & thought I'd surely done it wrong.
2. The second fact... that if you have only one or two rotations that need fixing, you have to dig into a big freakin' heavy-duty tool that loads the whole batch, which can take awhile, just to fix 'em. It's a pain. Again, I hate to compare, but I can't think of another place where I need to do this. Elsewhere (I'll spare you the list), there's 3 little circular arrow icons or whatever under your photos when logged in, showing left 90, right 90 or 180 degrees rotation. You hit the correct arrow & voila... rotated. (often in seconds or less). Errrrmmm, couldn't we have that? In many galleries, all I typically need is a couple rotations. It would feel so amazingly 2011 !! How 'bout this-- we let you suggest it????! :tiptoe Thanks, Greg!
2. The second fact... that if you have only one or two rotations that need fixing, you have to dig into a big freakin' heavy-duty tool that loads the whole batch, which can take awhile, just to fix 'em. It's a pain. Again, I hate to compare, but I can't think of another place where I need to do this. Elsewhere (I'll spare you the list), there's 3 little circular arrow icons or whatever under your photos when logged in, showing left 90, right 90 or 180 degrees rotation. You hit the correct arrow & voila... rotated. (often in seconds or less). Errrrmmm, couldn't we have that? In many galleries, all I typically need is a couple rotations. It would feel so amazingly 2011 !! How 'bout this-- we let you suggest it????! :tiptoe Thanks, Greg!
I just trimmed some of your comment off to make it easier to reply to, but this applies to the whole thing
I could not agree with you more that the rotation thing needs to be improved. But (and I can almost imagine you groaning when i say this), the things everyone is working on right now are such a high priority. I definitely will advocate to get this on the list.
Just so you know what is technically involved in this - right now these imaging operations happen asynchronously to the user interface - that is to say you start the rotation process and go on about your business. If we did it real-time, the wait might be pretty substantial. Because it is not just rotating a single image - it is rotating all of the other versions of the image too. And then add on top of that other things, like maybe watermarking, that would need to re-applied. I am not saying we are doing this entirely the best way right now, but imagine if you did an image color correction + watermark + something else. Then you decided to rotate it in the UI. Technically speaking you would need to go back to the original image, rotate it, then apply the color correction + watermark + something else. Otherwise your watermark would be rotated too. And then it would have to apply these on the thumbnails and all of the other size of the images that you have.
Maybe I am over-thinking this a bit, but I tend to think about things in terms of the edge-cases that get created.
Another way to do it might be to have the UI just work on rotating the thumbnail then submit the rotations for the other versions of the images asynchronously.
All of this is off the top of my head, I'm just trying to give you a taste of some of the things we have to consider when revamping a tool like this. It is quite a bit more engineering then it might seem on the surface.
Don't get me wrong - I think we should improve the UI in many areas and if there's on mantra I've heard around SmugMug more then anything else since I've been here - its that.
Just to make sure I am following you completely: you are suggesting basically a tool that would allow you to rotate images directly off the gallery pages without going into any menu options? And the controls for this would be situated around the thumbnail - or the full-size version of the image (like maybe that hover-over that comes into focus where you can select to view the image in larger sizes)?
I just trimmed some of your comment off to make it easier to reply to, but this applies to the whole thing
I could not agree with you more that the rotation thing needs to be improved. .......
....Don't get me wr..ong - I think we should improve the UI in many areas and if there's on mantra I've heard around SmugMug more then anything else since I've been here - its that.
Just to make sure I am following you completely: you are suggesting basically a tool that would allow you to rotate images directly off the gallery pages without going into any menu options? And the controls for this would be situated around the thumbnail - or the full-size version of the image (like maybe that hover-over that comes into focus where you can select to view the image in larger sizes)?
- Greg
Ditto -- trimmed some off. Yes, I'm not under any delusion that changing this tool would happen shortly, or even that it really should, because I myself see lots of other things that have got to be priority, and I think in general Smug is able to discern the priorities fairly well. Also, users get really fed up when new stuff gets released too soon (i.e. before it seems 100% ready), and I can surely see now how complex any change to the rotate tools would be.
Yes, you heard me right about the one addition to the tool. For instance, on Facebook & other places, there's just a couple tiny icons right near the bottom of your photo when logged in. On FB, if you hover over one icon, it says "rotate left", etc. You click it & your photo rotates (but still lets you move on to the next photo before it's finished) The site owner only sees these icons when looking at a single photo, not the whole album. But as you noted, our galleries & tools here have lots more complexity; we have lots of choices in our displays such as thumbnail view, SmugMug view, journal view, etc. So those icons would have to be adjusted for each view & I do see the work that would take.
Probably the more needed part of a rotate tool revamp, however, would be the ability to make all the types of rotation in one fell swoop within that whole gallery tool. To me that's the more obvious oddity in the tool-- the need to go completely out of it & back to one's gallery before going back in again to use that same tool, just in a different direction. When you first encounter that, you say, huh?? I can envision how it probably "should" be: you select the mis-fits. You hit "left rotate", then you save that. If you forget to save, there's a prompt. Then you select some more mis-fits & hit "right rotate" for those, & save.... etc. You don't need to go back to the gallery & then dive back into the tool again to do all these.
Now that I've used Smug's tools for yrs. & similar tools elsewhere, I think I see what our main problem with tools is, overall. But don't get me wrong-- our tools here pretty much beat them all when it comes to sheer capability & sophistication; bulk keywording & captioning is, for instance, a dream here once you figure it out. And our arrange tools... wow. Color tools-- not so much!! They are in dire need, & no use going into detail on that. (we've needed a basic darken & lighten tool for yrs.) But here's where Smug probably got itself in a bit of trouble early on, & where some other sites have a simpler UI: We don't have a basic "edit" mode, where a lot of these basic tools could be done all on one edit page, negating the need for such detailed consideration for different types of gallery views, etc. (because in edit mode, it would be thumbnail only). One standard edit mode would work for several of the tools that are often done right away when we users are preparing a newly-uploaded gallery...you'd stay on one edit page to do several steps. Those tools might be: rotating, watermarking, deleting bad ones, & possibly some type of arrange. You'd still have the detailed tools available in some cases, but every "edit" page could have a more consistent look. The consistent look would also mean that on the edit pages, you could see your filenames, captions on hover, etc. Filenames wouldn't overlap, etc. On some tool's pages right now (some of the "arrange" tools, etc.) we can't even see filenames, so there's a lacking consistency.
I obviously don't understand the inner workings enough to see how different versions of the photo would be grabbed or saved by the system, but the most basic prime directive, I would hope, is that one edit would not affect another. I say this because a big problem we have now is that some edits do affect others, and it often brings users (even long-time ones!) here scratching their heads, because they haven't been warned upfront. For instance, if you've placed some watermarks individually as I often do (some at the top, some at the bottom) and then you later decide to crop that thumbnail or switch to square thumbs from original... tough luck! The system forgets that you'd placed your wm & you're outta luck... you have to re-do the wm on that photo or even a whole gallery. There are a couple of other glitchy tool interactions like this & you only know them if you've been around awhile. These types of odd tool interactions is not something I've experienced elsewhere, even where there are fairly detailed tools. So it seems that there must be a way to fix this.... not that I presume it's some easy fix. I'm sure it's hugely complex, more than my brain could begin to fathom.
It all makes me think that there's something needing a more global change in editing tools here at Smug, and it has to do with when/how/at what point edits are being noted or saved by the system and then introduced to one's photos, so as not to have these negative interactions between various tools. When these happen, sometimes you don't know it for a long time. You come back to your gallery weeks later & realize you've had a wacky or un-protected display for all that time & that's when we users get pretty unhappy. I only say all this though because it's the kind of feedback developers & others can probably only get from people who have been here a long time. Overall I love this place & wouldn't go anywhere else & just want us to continue to be the best. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our issues stem from having capabilities early on that weren't widespread, so therefore there weren't many other examples of how to handle the UI. And I know how we users scream when the UI changes too suddenly, no matter how great it is!
Yes, you heard me right about the one addition to the tool. For instance, on Facebook & other places, there's just a couple tiny icons right near the bottom of your photo when logged in.
It sure seems like the best solution here is to fix the rotation on your computer before upload. ALL programs one uses to prepare images on your computer have these quick little rotation icons and the effect is instant with none of the complexities of Smugmug. That's what I do. It's way, way, way, way faster than rotating on Smugmug and no matter how much Smugmug improves their tool, it will always be faster on the local computer.
I might understand if photos were going straight from a phone to Smugmug or something like that, but if they're going to your computer first, why not just fix them there where the perfect rotation tools already exist? There are very good free programs like Picasa (my wife uses it) that do this. I personally use Lightroom (which isn't free, but works well).
It sure seems like the best solution here is to fix the rotation on your computer before upload. ALL programs one uses to prepare images on your computer have these quick little rotation icons and the effect is instant with none of the complexities of Smugmug. That's what I do. It's way, way, way, way faster than rotating on Smugmug and no matter how much Smugmug improves their tool, it will always be faster on the local computer.
I might understand if photos were going straight from a phone to Smugmug or something like that, but if they're going to your computer first, why not just fix them there where the perfect rotation tools already exist? There are very good free programs like Picasa (my wife uses it) that do this. I personally use Lightroom (which isn't free, but works well).
Yeah, I know -- I'm way way behind on the entire ingesting/organizing process. I've resisted taking time to learn some of the freebie programs because I already have CS4 (but was using CS2 for a long time prior to that) and because I keep thinking that any week now I'll be able to purchase LR. (if only dryers & roofs would stop breaking :cry ) Learning the intricacies of new programs is very time-consuming & frustrating for me, esp. if I think it's only for the short-term. I got all screwed up on bulk processes in CS4 because I lost all of my bulk processes when I switched.
If I'm going to rotate, I have to know exactly what's going on w/ the rotate, because for now I mostly need to shoot jpgs & I don't work on jpgs & save changes. If I'm editing, I save to PSD, then save an edited PSD & a jpg copy. So yes, photos I've officially edited get rotated. These bulk uploads to Smug that are problematic w/ rotating are usually just galleries I want to get up & running pronto & can't take the time to run them through a bunch of bulk processes on my computer. Yes, I need to change all this... my entire work-flow, etc. Been reading & working on understanding how I should be doing it, but haven't implemented yet. I've also read about soft-rotations, but I'd have to re-read to recall how I'd implement a bulk process for that & in which program. I've had to start w/ the most critical parts of workflow change, such as safe backup. (and I'm still working on that) Once I have LR, the rest will start to follow & some of these tools will be history.... sorta!
As I told Andy a number of times though, none of this helps if you're traveling, or away from the programs you need to use for whatever reason. Last summer when I was across the country for a couple weeks & had stuff I was trying to make public real fast for other people, these tools were a real God-send... except when they had such issues! I'm typically in that situation at least a few times a year for an extended period, as I'm sure many folks are. I'm also in that situation for days or hours at a time, & then need to depend on tools working well here at Smug. There are always going to be people needing their tools at Smug, so I want to improve the situation for all, not just me.
These bulk uploads to Smug that are problematic w/ rotating are usually just galleries I want to get up & running pronto & can't take the time to run them through a bunch of bulk processes on my computer.
There's no new workflow or bulk processes to learn at all. If you have Bridge, then just point Bridge at the directory before you upload to Smugmug, multi-select all the images that need to go left 90 and hit the left 90 button. Do the same for any other rotations.
If these are the galleries you want up fast, this will get them done far, far faster than messing with the rotation tool on Smugmug - even if Smugmug massively improved it.
I've not used Bridge yet. To me, that is learning a new program. I've only used PS, usually one photo at a time, so I don't even know the very very basics of Bridge. I know you'll both think that's crazy! If you understood the bizarre way I plunged into digital photog. though, it may make more sense to you. I seriously put the cart before the horse in almost every way, and it only happened because I got into selling digital stock before I even had a DSLR, had ever heard of DAM, or knew piddly-squat about PS. (I only had CS2 & CS4 'cuz my spouse gets a free home copy) I know a lot of intricate processes in PS, and was pretty adept in the traditional darkroom, but my digital knowledge & workflow has great gaping holes. I'm quite aware of them, but I'm on a weird roller-coaster of stopping up the gaping holes & still trying to move ahead. (sometimes I can commiserate w/ GM!) Since the big gaping holes still include things like sorting/digitalizing 35+ yrs of negs/ slides & managing bulk processes, lots of small holes emerge everywhere I look.
But really-- thank you both for the suggestions, and the screen capture helps a lot. Does this do a soft-rotation on the photos then, or actual? And do soft-rotations get recognized by Smug? I don't recall at all what I read about that. If so, I'll try it out. Andy, I still haven't found a setting on the Nikon that will change what comes out. All my settings got changed when they put in a new shutter. But nothing changed in any apparent way as far as rotating goes. That's why I think my brother originally had it set at whatever highest capability the camera had for rotating. Just please remember though that when someone is traveling or is dependent on online processes for some reason, most of the above is a moot point.
I've not used Bridge yet. To me, that is learning a new program. I've only used PS, usually one photo at a time, so I don't even know the very very basics of Bridge. I know you'll both think that's crazy! If you understood the bizarre way I plunged into digital photog. though, it may make more sense to you. I seriously put the cart before the horse in almost every way, and it only happened because I got into selling digital stock before I even had a DSLR, had ever heard of DAM, or knew piddly-squat about PS. (I only had CS2 & CS4 'cuz my spouse gets a free home copy) I know a lot of intricate processes in PS, and was pretty adept in the traditional darkroom, but my digital knowledge & workflow has great gaping holes. I'm quite aware of them, but I'm on a weird roller-coaster of stopping up the gaping holes & still trying to move ahead. (sometimes I can commiserate w/ GM!) Since the big gaping holes still include things like sorting/digitalizing 35+ yrs of negs/ slides & managing bulk processes, lots of small holes emerge everywhere I look.
But really-- thank you both for the suggestions, and the screen capture helps a lot. Does this do a soft-rotation on the photos then, or actual? And do soft-rotations get recognized by Smug? I don't recall at all what I read about that. If so, I'll try it out. Andy, I still haven't found a setting on the Nikon that will change what comes out. All my settings got changed when they put in a new shutter. But nothing changed in any apparent way as far as rotating goes. That's why I think my brother originally had it set at whatever highest capability the camera had for rotating.
It's up to you if you want to open a new program or not. But, Bridge is darn simple. You run it. You pick the desired directory of images in the left pane. You wait a short bit while it scans what's in that directory and builds previews. Then, you select the images you want to rotate and hit the rotate button. It is a real rotation that any application including Smugmug will see (the image is actually rotated). Done.
FWIW, if you're using a modern camera and you aren't shooting at weird angles (like nearly straight down or nearly straight up), your camera can correctly identify the rotation for you and you should never have to manually rotate normal portrait or landscape oriented images.
I shot 900 images this weekend (of a rowing regatta) in both orientations and didn't have to manually rotate any of them (not a single one). My Nikon D300 and D2Xs automatically tagged the images with the right rotation and Lightroom automatically recognized the rotation tag and fixed their orientation for me. Bridge/Photoshop will do the same. As long as you are using a modern camera that tags photos this way (anything made in the last 5-7 years) and you haven't explicitly disabled that function, you shouldn't have to rotate images at all.
It's up to you if you want to open a new program or not. But, Bridge is darn simple. You run it. You pick the desired directory of images in the left pane. You wait a short bit while it scans what's in that directory and builds previews. Then, you select the images you want to rotate and hit the rotate button. It is a real rotation that any application including Smugmug will see (the image is actually rotated). Done.
FWIW, if you're using a modern camera and you aren't shooting at weird angles (like nearly straight down or nearly straight up), your camera can correctly identify the rotation for you and you should never have to manually rotate normal portrait or landscape oriented images.
I shot 900 images this weekend (of a rowing regatta) in both orientations and didn't have to manually rotate any of them (not a single one). My Nikon D300 and D2Xs automatically tagged the images with the right rotation and Lightroom automatically recognized the rotation tag and fixed their orientation for me. Bridge/Photoshop will do the same. As long as you are using a modern camera that tags photos this way (anything made in the last 5-7 years) and you haven't explicitly disabled that function, you shouldn't have to rotate images at all.
Thanks for that info., John. I will try out Bridge when I get some spare minutes. It does look easy, & I've cracked it open a time or two & like the look of it. I'm thinking I could get a trial version of LR, too, & maybe that'll get me to the point of not being able to live w/o it. We're in that college-funding stage of life & one getting married this summer, so everything "extra" needs lots of justification!
I do have to rotate images all the time, & I'm sure it's because the camera is not from the last 5-7 yrs! I'm using my brother's old backup, a D1X. (He's got the D3, drool drool) One thing that seems odd to me is that for nearly all vertical shots, I've now gotten used to using the camera's second shutter (I imagine your D2X also has that)-- the one on the short end of the camera. But many of those shots still need rotation. You would think they'd get read correctly. But, ya know-- that was a very early generation DSLR-- 2001 I believe. Even when I was using the Olympus E-500 though, which was probably a 2007 camera, I had plenty of rotations to do. And sometimes I carry one of my kids' smaller cameras, all Canon Powershots, and have had rotations to do from them too. I do shoot at weird angles pretty frequently, but lots of my rotations are needed on straightforward shots. I really think this is pretty common though w/ certain cameras... I sure see a lot of photos on FB, where people haven't gotten around to rotating yet, and they're mis-rotated.
I'm still worried the rotation that Bridge does is not a soft rotation. That's what I actually want, because it doesn't introduce more compression to jpgs. It's like an external message tag telling the photo what orientation it should be in. It seems to me that LR can do soft rotations but Bridge can't. I couldn't find that info in a quick look-up just now, but I know it's in my DAM book. I know that what I'm doing in PS when editing is a normal rotation, but that's OK because I'm not saving that info. back to the original jpg. Hopefully someday I'll get a modern DSLR & will shoot RAW or whatever & then this won't be an issue. Maybe I sound like a freak about compression, but that's what stock does to you. They won't tolerate it at all in those companies. It's not that most of my stuff is gonna get sold; lots of my Smug stuff is in the snapshot category, but most of it will probably get edited sometime, & the fewer re-saves, the better.
Feel free to post here if you continue to have any issues with it.
- Greg
Wow! Seriously?? That was fast!! Can't wait to try it out! Samir seems to do enormous batches at a time, so he ought to be able to give it a run for its money! Thanks for letting us know.
I'm still worried the rotation that Bridge does is not a soft rotation. That's what I actually want, because it doesn't introduce more compression to jpgs
It is possible to physically rotate a JPEG image in 90-degree increments without losing quality. Other things can be done too like cropping, flipping, and converting to greyscale. I do not know if Lightroom does this (I would be surprised if they don't), but the way to test it would be to rotate it, save it as a new file, rotate it back, save it as a new file. Then compare bits to the original.
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I have a lot of uploading which I need to have completed by Sunday or Monday. I plan to try the new smugftp product for uploads, but may ultimately use html5 and simple depending on how that goes. If I run into a gallery that has rotation issues, I'll post a detailed link and list of steps I took.
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If you want to point to it specifically I'll take a look.
- Greg
The fix that went live might have fixed this (and a couple of other issues) - it was not directly related to this.
- Greg
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Why don't you PM it to me, if its large or technically complex - this thread is getting pretty lengthy.
- Greg
I am not overly optimistic on this one, but it is conceivably related.
- Greg
Okay, please do keep in mind that I need them to remain in their mis-rotated (did I just invent a new word?) state. I'll make sure to keep an eye out over the weekend for an update from you.
In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and fix up the images that you previously reported. I've gotten all the useful data I can from the logs on them at this point.
Thank you, again, for being so patient. This is a very, very difficult bug.
- Greg
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I think that the cause of this bug has been sorted out. Thank you for everyone who has worked so hard to try and reproduce this and all of your generosity in posting critical details here. Without that effort, this would have been impossible. If I were to list the names of everyone who helped, it would a very long list - though I would like to personally thank Samir, WinsomeWorks, Andy, and Doc.
Anyways, so here are some details about what is going on:
When you click "rotate", this queues up the image to be rotated by the amount of degrees specified. Our servers come along and pick that up and start processing it. When it is done, it increments a version counter for that image. The purpose of this is that if the operation fails, when it retries later it will pull the earlier version and retry the operation. In this case there appears to be a very extreme edge-case where the image serial counter gets incremented - but it is not getting marked as a completed operation. So, when the system polls it finds the image and determines that it needs to be rotated again. But, because the version counter has been incremented it pulls the latest version - which has already been rotated.
...That sounds so simple when put that way.... *shrug*
I also would like to clarify one thing. I must have rotated 10k+ images during my testing. Sometimes I could do a batch of 10 and I'd end up 5 failures. Other times I could do a batch of 1,000 and end up with none. Sometimes I could test for 2+ hours and not have a single failure and other times I would have 5 fail within 60 seconds. The only thing that seems consistent is that this is somehow based on the number of threads that were processing images at a given time and even then it was very random.
I am doing some more testing on this still, but if this is correct (and I really think that it is) then we should be able to have a fix for this in this weeks release.
Thank you again, everyone, for your patient and all your help on this.
- Greg
There are SmugSorcerers and Gods. You sir, are a SmugGod.
The incrementation makes so much sense. And you and I both know how hard it is to find one of these incrementer bugs buried deep in a do-while or for loop of some sort. I remember in my college C-based data structures class--they would test our code for exactly this sort of thing, making sure we coded for every conceivable base case.
So now that hard part is partially started, I wish you continuing luck on finding the root cause of this issue. Thank you again Greg for your persistance and dedication.
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You are right, these are tough problems to find. This one was made more complex because we are also dealing with a locking system, imaging systems, caching, and database replication layers all that kind of hid the underlying incrementation problem. The good news is that I was actually reporting success in finding the root cause. It is solved by moving the place where the versions get incremented to the last step of the pipeline.
Thank you so much for the very kind words, I look forward to more bug hunting with ya'all.
- Greg
The other gallery I uploaded to had already been created earlier as well. I added 14 pages of photos to it. I'm not proud to show it yet, as I need to delete most of them. But I'll leave all pages for now so you can peek. This gallery had already had settings done previously, such as watermarking. Basically the same thing happened-- I rotated a whole bunch of verticals; all needed one 90 degree left-rotation just like that other gallery. When I returned later on, there were 4 photos that are over-rotated. Here's links to them:
1. http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel/New-Jersey/Asbury-Park-New-Jersey/9585019_tYMQr#1187044356_BuKRy
2. http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel/New-Jersey/Asbury-Park-New-Jersey/9585019_tYMQr#1187044674_yZ8pe
3. http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel/New-Jersey/Asbury-Park-New-Jersey/9585019_tYMQr#1187049839_oon6s
4. http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel/New-Jersey/Asbury-Park-New-Jersey/9585019_tYMQr#1187057230_z3FJ4
I really think this theory makes sense, because it allows for the fact of some rotations working fine. It also would help explain why some rotate farther a few minutes later, even after they've been watermarked or something. And it seems to explain why 1000s of photos could go w/o a hitch. Oh, and when I've needed to do 2 different types of rotation in the same gallery -- i.e. some right, some left, that's when I've seen the most exasperating problems, just like Samir has. I never know how long is "safe" to wait after rotating some to the left, if others need right-rotation. If versions are being grabbed at perhaps the wrong time in the system, when a gallery has had two different rotational operations done to it, I see how the outcome may be even more tangled up, almost as if wires got crossed. Well, Greg-Twoofy, I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear of your apparent progress, because one starts to feel like we were chasing ghosts. I'd really about given up. Now, if I could just figure out why my "Blue Lagoon" theme doesn't display correctly in these galleries and some others.... Ok, ok, will try elsewhere for that help!
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This is the most interesting example and what actually happened to me that led me down this strange path. because of that, let me walk through the process here so you can see.
Consider the following two imaging operations:
1. rotate the image
2. watermark the image
What is happening is:
1. Process #1 begins work in serial #000
2. Process #1 reports back success, serial is incremented to #001
3. When process #1 attempts to release the lock, it fails, leaving the serial number at #001 (the original image, no rotation) and the imaging operation in a state of "Ready" (waiting for processing)
4. Process #2 begins work on serial #001
5. Process #2 reports back success, serial is incremented to #002
6. Process #2 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
7. Because imaging operation #1 still has not completed successfully, it begins again
8. Process #1 begins work on serial #002 (an image that has already been rotated and watermarked)
9. Process #1 reports back success, serial is incremented to #002
10. Process #1 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
Now lets shuffle these around so they are in an atomic order (either the whole thing succeeds or the whole thing fails):
1. Process #1 begins work in serial #000
2. Process #1 reports back success
3. When process #1 attempts to release the lock, it fails, leaving the serial number at #000 (an image that has already been rotated) and the imaging operation in a state of "Ready" (waiting for processing)
4. Process #2 begins work on serial #000 (since it was never incremented)
5. Process #2 reports back success
6. Process #2 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
7. Process #2 serial is incremented to #001
8. Because imaging operation #1 still has not completed successfully, it begins again
9. Process #1 begins work on serial #001 (an image that has already been watermarked)
10. Process #1 reports back success
11. Process #1 successfully releases the lock and sets the imaging operation to "Complete"
12. Process #1 serial is incremented to #001
... The mystery is why the lock is failing to release properly. I think I've got a handle on that and it would improve things, but the system as a whole is now able to deal with that failure in right way, at least until I can get to the bottom of that... I think its related to two separate processes locking the same image for different operations, but when it releases the lock, it releases locks for both operations. So when the second one comes along it is unable to find its lock and complains.
One caveat on my above: when the imaging operation fails it actually leaves the imaging operation in a state of "Processing" and then it times out after 10 minutes and gets retried. I'm thinking about making the change, on a failure, to reset the state to Ready so it can be picked up a few seconds later instead of 10 minutes. But I didn't want to change too many things at one time.
How is this for transparency?
*lol* Thats waaaaay over my head...
Also, just to be clear, this fix is not live yet so it is expected that you'd still be seeing failures. It is in testing now, which I fully expect it to pass.
- Greg
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1. The fact that left rotations, right rotations & 180 degree rotations need to be done as 3 separate steps in a gallery feels rather.... uh... I don't know... 2002 ??! Maybe I'm expecting too much, but to have to go completely out of the tool, then click again on the same stinkin' tool (2 clicks) just to get back into the same batch of photos to do the second type of rotation has seemed archaic to me ever since I landed here. Of course, with the glitch we've had, I was always left wondering whether I'd gone back in too soon to do the next rotation. (My thinking was that in going back too soon, I'd sent mixed messages somehow). At any rate, I guarantee you that gazillions of users have wondered about this same stuff, whether or not they've found this thread. We've all dealt with rotations elsewhere that are so much less complicated; I mean even stinkin' Mall-Wart makes it easy.
2. The second fact... that if you have only one or two rotations that need fixing, you have to dig into a big freakin' heavy-duty tool that loads the whole batch, which can take awhile, just to fix 'em. It's a pain. Again, I hate to compare, but I can't think of another place where I need to do this. Elsewhere (I'll spare you the list), there's 3 little circular arrow icons or whatever under your photos when logged in, showing left 90, right 90 or 180 degrees rotation. You hit the correct arrow & voila... rotated. (often in seconds or less). Errrrmmm, couldn't we have that? In many galleries, all I typically need is a couple rotations. It would feel so amazingly 2011 !!
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I just trimmed some of your comment off to make it easier to reply to, but this applies to the whole thing
I could not agree with you more that the rotation thing needs to be improved. But (and I can almost imagine you groaning when i say this), the things everyone is working on right now are such a high priority. I definitely will advocate to get this on the list.
Just so you know what is technically involved in this - right now these imaging operations happen asynchronously to the user interface - that is to say you start the rotation process and go on about your business. If we did it real-time, the wait might be pretty substantial. Because it is not just rotating a single image - it is rotating all of the other versions of the image too. And then add on top of that other things, like maybe watermarking, that would need to re-applied. I am not saying we are doing this entirely the best way right now, but imagine if you did an image color correction + watermark + something else. Then you decided to rotate it in the UI. Technically speaking you would need to go back to the original image, rotate it, then apply the color correction + watermark + something else. Otherwise your watermark would be rotated too. And then it would have to apply these on the thumbnails and all of the other size of the images that you have.
Maybe I am over-thinking this a bit, but I tend to think about things in terms of the edge-cases that get created.
Another way to do it might be to have the UI just work on rotating the thumbnail then submit the rotations for the other versions of the images asynchronously.
All of this is off the top of my head, I'm just trying to give you a taste of some of the things we have to consider when revamping a tool like this. It is quite a bit more engineering then it might seem on the surface.
Don't get me wrong - I think we should improve the UI in many areas and if there's on mantra I've heard around SmugMug more then anything else since I've been here - its that.
Just to make sure I am following you completely: you are suggesting basically a tool that would allow you to rotate images directly off the gallery pages without going into any menu options? And the controls for this would be situated around the thumbnail - or the full-size version of the image (like maybe that hover-over that comes into focus where you can select to view the image in larger sizes)?
- Greg
Yes, you heard me right about the one addition to the tool. For instance, on Facebook & other places, there's just a couple tiny icons right near the bottom of your photo when logged in. On FB, if you hover over one icon, it says "rotate left", etc. You click it & your photo rotates (but still lets you move on to the next photo before it's finished) The site owner only sees these icons when looking at a single photo, not the whole album. But as you noted, our galleries & tools here have lots more complexity; we have lots of choices in our displays such as thumbnail view, SmugMug view, journal view, etc. So those icons would have to be adjusted for each view & I do see the work that would take.
Probably the more needed part of a rotate tool revamp, however, would be the ability to make all the types of rotation in one fell swoop within that whole gallery tool. To me that's the more obvious oddity in the tool-- the need to go completely out of it & back to one's gallery before going back in again to use that same tool, just in a different direction. When you first encounter that, you say, huh?? I can envision how it probably "should" be: you select the mis-fits. You hit "left rotate", then you save that. If you forget to save, there's a prompt. Then you select some more mis-fits & hit "right rotate" for those, & save.... etc. You don't need to go back to the gallery & then dive back into the tool again to do all these.
Now that I've used Smug's tools for yrs. & similar tools elsewhere, I think I see what our main problem with tools is, overall. But don't get me wrong-- our tools here pretty much beat them all when it comes to sheer capability & sophistication; bulk keywording & captioning is, for instance, a dream here once you figure it out. And our arrange tools... wow. Color tools-- not so much!! They are in dire need, & no use going into detail on that. (we've needed a basic darken & lighten tool for yrs.) But here's where Smug probably got itself in a bit of trouble early on, & where some other sites have a simpler UI: We don't have a basic "edit" mode, where a lot of these basic tools could be done all on one edit page, negating the need for such detailed consideration for different types of gallery views, etc. (because in edit mode, it would be thumbnail only). One standard edit mode would work for several of the tools that are often done right away when we users are preparing a newly-uploaded gallery...you'd stay on one edit page to do several steps. Those tools might be: rotating, watermarking, deleting bad ones, & possibly some type of arrange. You'd still have the detailed tools available in some cases, but every "edit" page could have a more consistent look. The consistent look would also mean that on the edit pages, you could see your filenames, captions on hover, etc. Filenames wouldn't overlap, etc. On some tool's pages right now (some of the "arrange" tools, etc.) we can't even see filenames, so there's a lacking consistency.
I obviously don't understand the inner workings enough to see how different versions of the photo would be grabbed or saved by the system, but the most basic prime directive, I would hope, is that one edit would not affect another. I say this because a big problem we have now is that some edits do affect others, and it often brings users (even long-time ones!) here scratching their heads, because they haven't been warned upfront. For instance, if you've placed some watermarks individually as I often do (some at the top, some at the bottom) and then you later decide to crop that thumbnail or switch to square thumbs from original... tough luck! The system forgets that you'd placed your wm & you're outta luck... you have to re-do the wm on that photo or even a whole gallery. There are a couple of other glitchy tool interactions like this & you only know them if you've been around awhile. These types of odd tool interactions is not something I've experienced elsewhere, even where there are fairly detailed tools. So it seems that there must be a way to fix this.... not that I presume it's some easy fix. I'm sure it's hugely complex, more than my brain could begin to fathom.
It all makes me think that there's something needing a more global change in editing tools here at Smug, and it has to do with when/how/at what point edits are being noted or saved by the system and then introduced to one's photos, so as not to have these negative interactions between various tools. When these happen, sometimes you don't know it for a long time. You come back to your gallery weeks later & realize you've had a wacky or un-protected display for all that time & that's when we users get pretty unhappy. I only say all this though because it's the kind of feedback developers & others can probably only get from people who have been here a long time. Overall I love this place & wouldn't go anywhere else & just want us to continue to be the best. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our issues stem from having capabilities early on that weren't widespread, so therefore there weren't many other examples of how to handle the UI. And I know how we users scream when the UI changes too suddenly, no matter how great it is!
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I might understand if photos were going straight from a phone to Smugmug or something like that, but if they're going to your computer first, why not just fix them there where the perfect rotation tools already exist? There are very good free programs like Picasa (my wife uses it) that do this. I personally use Lightroom (which isn't free, but works well).
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If I'm going to rotate, I have to know exactly what's going on w/ the rotate, because for now I mostly need to shoot jpgs & I don't work on jpgs & save changes. If I'm editing, I save to PSD, then save an edited PSD & a jpg copy. So yes, photos I've officially edited get rotated. These bulk uploads to Smug that are problematic w/ rotating are usually just galleries I want to get up & running pronto & can't take the time to run them through a bunch of bulk processes on my computer. Yes, I need to change all this... my entire work-flow, etc. Been reading & working on understanding how I should be doing it, but haven't implemented yet. I've also read about soft-rotations, but I'd have to re-read to recall how I'd implement a bulk process for that & in which program. I've had to start w/ the most critical parts of workflow change, such as safe backup. (and I'm still working on that) Once I have LR, the rest will start to follow & some of these tools will be history.... sorta!
As I told Andy a number of times though, none of this helps if you're traveling, or away from the programs you need to use for whatever reason. Last summer when I was across the country for a couple weeks & had stuff I was trying to make public real fast for other people, these tools were a real God-send... except when they had such issues! I'm typically in that situation at least a few times a year for an extended period, as I'm sure many folks are. I'm also in that situation for days or hours at a time, & then need to depend on tools working well here at Smug. There are always going to be people needing their tools at Smug, so I want to improve the situation for all, not just me.
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Yes you do. I've said it a number of times in the past, and John just said it. Rotating in Bridge is dead simple:
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If these are the galleries you want up fast, this will get them done far, far faster than messing with the rotation tool on Smugmug - even if Smugmug massively improved it.
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But really-- thank you both for the suggestions, and the screen capture helps a lot. Does this do a soft-rotation on the photos then, or actual? And do soft-rotations get recognized by Smug? I don't recall at all what I read about that. If so, I'll try it out. Andy, I still haven't found a setting on the Nikon that will change what comes out. All my settings got changed when they put in a new shutter. But nothing changed in any apparent way as far as rotating goes. That's why I think my brother originally had it set at whatever highest capability the camera had for rotating. Just please remember though that when someone is traveling or is dependent on online processes for some reason, most of the above is a moot point.
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FWIW, if you're using a modern camera and you aren't shooting at weird angles (like nearly straight down or nearly straight up), your camera can correctly identify the rotation for you and you should never have to manually rotate normal portrait or landscape oriented images.
I shot 900 images this weekend (of a rowing regatta) in both orientations and didn't have to manually rotate any of them (not a single one). My Nikon D300 and D2Xs automatically tagged the images with the right rotation and Lightroom automatically recognized the rotation tag and fixed their orientation for me. Bridge/Photoshop will do the same. As long as you are using a modern camera that tags photos this way (anything made in the last 5-7 years) and you haven't explicitly disabled that function, you shouldn't have to rotate images at all.
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Feel free to post here if you continue to have any issues with it.
- Greg
I do have to rotate images all the time, & I'm sure it's because the camera is not from the last 5-7 yrs! I'm using my brother's old backup, a D1X. (He's got the D3, drool drool) One thing that seems odd to me is that for nearly all vertical shots, I've now gotten used to using the camera's second shutter (I imagine your D2X also has that)-- the one on the short end of the camera. But many of those shots still need rotation. You would think they'd get read correctly. But, ya know-- that was a very early generation DSLR-- 2001 I believe. Even when I was using the Olympus E-500 though, which was probably a 2007 camera, I had plenty of rotations to do. And sometimes I carry one of my kids' smaller cameras, all Canon Powershots, and have had rotations to do from them too. I do shoot at weird angles pretty frequently, but lots of my rotations are needed on straightforward shots. I really think this is pretty common though w/ certain cameras... I sure see a lot of photos on FB, where people haven't gotten around to rotating yet, and they're mis-rotated.
I'm still worried the rotation that Bridge does is not a soft rotation. That's what I actually want, because it doesn't introduce more compression to jpgs. It's like an external message tag telling the photo what orientation it should be in. It seems to me that LR can do soft rotations but Bridge can't. I couldn't find that info in a quick look-up just now, but I know it's in my DAM book. I know that what I'm doing in PS when editing is a normal rotation, but that's OK because I'm not saving that info. back to the original jpg. Hopefully someday I'll get a modern DSLR & will shoot RAW or whatever & then this won't be an issue. Maybe I sound like a freak about compression, but that's what stock does to you. They won't tolerate it at all in those companies. It's not that most of my stuff is gonna get sold; lots of my Smug stuff is in the snapshot category, but most of it will probably get edited sometime, & the fewer re-saves, the better.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
It is possible to physically rotate a JPEG image in 90-degree increments without losing quality. Other things can be done too like cropping, flipping, and converting to greyscale. I do not know if Lightroom does this (I would be surprised if they don't), but the way to test it would be to rotate it, save it as a new file, rotate it back, save it as a new file. Then compare bits to the original.
FYI, I believe Picasa uses a lossless rotation method, but not when cropping. http://sylvana.net/jpegcrop/losslessapps.html
....You may be pleased to know that here at SmugMug we employ this lossless technique when doing image rotations....
- Greg