Trouble with 20D, or Smugmug?

mercphoto

Notice that my photos are not being rotated in this gallery: http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/1305105
They do show up rotated in Photoshop, Preview, etc. But not in my gallery. One thing I have noticed recently, however, is that sometimes my 20D has stopped auto-rotating altogether. Hence I'm not sure if this is a Smugmug issue, or a problem with my camera.

How to determine this?

Andy

I've never had any trouble on my (wife's) 20D or my previous bodies - set for autorotate and voila. I wonder if a hard reset would help?

DavidTO

Isn't the rotation simply stored in the EXIF or IPTC or whatever? Can't you just use PS or Bridge to read the IPTC and get the orientation? If it's proper in the file, but wrong on smugmug, that's one thing, and if the EXIF is wrong, then that's another!

Richard

DavidTO wrote:

Isn't the rotation simply stored in the EXIF or IPTC or whatever? Can't you just use PS or Bridge to read the IPTC and get the orientation? If it's proper in the file, but wrong on smugmug, that's one thing, and if the EXIF is wrong, then that's another!

The rotation is stored in the camera data section of the EXIF in the starting point field. PS uses it to display pics in the correct orientation, but does not report it in File->Info. I suggest you download a copy of EXIFUtils to help figure this out. The free demo version is all you need here. Since it supports JPG, TIFF and CR2, you should be able to look at every step of your workflow. PM me if you run into problems with it.

I find it strange that PS would display correctly and Smugmug would get it wrong. Please let us know what the problem was when you figure it out.

Cheers,

mercphoto

rsinmadrid wrote:

I find it strange that PS would display correctly and Smugmug would get it wrong. Please let us know what the problem was when you figure it out.

Cheers,

According to Bridge, the rotation is set correctly in the metadat for the JPG. So Smugmug appears to be ignoring it?

Andy

mercphoto wrote:

According to Bridge, the rotation is set correctly in the metadat for the JPG. So Smugmug appears to be ignoring it?

Bill, email me one photo please I'll check it out.

Andy

mercphoto

Andy wrote:

Bill, email me one photo please I'll check it out.

I did, and to make matters more strange, in my Mac Mail client the photo came up in the attachment unrotated. Odd huh? The thumbnail preview is rotated, its rotated in Preview, Bridge and CS2. Not rotated in the attachment to email nor on Smugmug. I'd reboot but I'm in the middle of a long upload. ALso wondering if my 20D is indeed auto-rotating incorrectly, perhaps something in the metadata, and would explain my prior rotation issue.

marsmark

Me too...
I hadn't really thought anything about it until I saw this post, but I've got the same problem. I've also got a Mac (hopefully that has nothing to do with it...), and my 20D images show up rotated fine in the Finder, Preview, and Photoshop (all automatically). But uploads to smugmug all require additional rotation, where pics from my wife's Powershot A95 do not.

Strange...

-Mark

docwalker

I actually had the same problem with photos from my D200. They show up rotated fine in Picasa and Bridge. I did no editing on them and when I loaded them to SM they show up not rotated.

I chalked it up to my mistake until I read this thread as well. With my KM 5d I had to rotate images in Picasa and Bridge manually and they appeared fine in SM after exporting or without editing. Now with the D200 SM appears to not like portrait orientation.

Andy

Bill,

I've test uploaded the file you sent me, to my SmugMug, my Flickr, my Exposuremanger, my Pbase accounts. They all upload NOT rotated. Very odd - so I'm calling this a localized camera issue -- get it checked out and let us know!

Doc,

If you'd send me ONE file, straight from camera jpg - I'll look at your issue, too send it to help, attn: Andy

mercphoto

Andy wrote:

Bill,

I've test uploaded the file you sent me, to my SmugMug, my Flickr, my Exposuremanger, my Pbase accounts. They all upload NOT rotated. Very odd - so I'm calling this a localized camera issue -- get it checked out and let us know!

I have unfortunately came to that same conclusion -- camera issue. And wondering if being in dusty motocross environments is a possible cause or just a coincidence. I'll be talking with my camera salesperson about this.

docwalker

Andy,

Photo sent.

Doc

Andy

docwalker wrote:

Andy,

Photo sent.

Doc

Hi Doc, got the file. Very very odd indeed. Bridge shows me the photo rotated. Upload to SmugMug or Flickr or Pbase and it's NOT rotated.

Check your camera settings for auto-rotate maybe?

-- Andy

docwalker

Andy wrote:

Check your camera settings for auto-rotate maybe?

-- Andy

I am positive that auto rotate is set. I set that from the very beginning and have not reset it. My photos show correctly on the camera.

I just checked... Yep it is set.



Doc

Andy

docwalker wrote:

I am positive that auto rotate is set. I set that from the very beginning and have not reset it. My photos show correctly on the camera.

I just checked... Yep it is set.



Doc

Dunno what to say - I'm loading the file to every photosharing service on the planet, and they all come up non-rotated.

docwalker

Thats weird. Why would it show up non-rotated in online services but show up rotated in software on the PC?

Maybe Nikon is using a non-standard coding for the EXIF? Applications written for the web are typically very strict about spaces, case, and special characters. Software on the PC can sometimes have more flexibility.

Now, back to the original posts. Are they having similar problems or have we narrowed it down to the cameras? Does their exif show correctly as well?

Andy

docwalker wrote:

Thats weird.

Maybe Nikon is using a non-standard coding for the EXIF?

Wouldn't be the first time -- on this.

docwalker

Is it possible to do a side by side comparison of several photos to see if we can see a difference between cameras displaying the problem and those without it?

I do not have access to any others at this time. I would be willing to look at the files or we can let someone do it that has more experience with exif data.

docwalker

Ok, Strange turn of events. I dug through my files and found a photo that a friend took using a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II. I verified the EXIF data contained the rotation information and it appears to be exactly the same as from my D200.

I just uploaded it to a test SM gallery and it is not rotated correctly. So something is going on. What it is, I have no clue?

Richard

docwalker wrote:

I would be willing to look at the files or we can let someone do it that has more experience with exif data.

I am not an expert but do have some experience picking apart EXIF data. Would be glad to help.

Cheers,

docwalker

Richard,

I have some photos standing by. Send me your email address in a PM and I will send them to you for eval.

Thanks for your offer to help.

Richard

docwalker wrote:

Richard,

I have some photos standing by. Send me your email address in a PM and I will send them to you for eval.

Thanks for your offer to help.

Done. I probably won't get to them till this evening, but I'll see what I can do.

Cheers.

mercphoto

Well, I discovered the problem last night. The problem only exists on in-camera JPGs straight from the camera. Canon sets a rotation flag with a value of -90 degrees, etc. Apparantly some applications understand this flag while others don't. Photoshop, for example, understands it. So you open in Photoshop and it is rotated correctly. Not all apps do so. Now if you open in Photoshop and then save back again now all applications do see it rotated. So Photoshop must be saving a rotated JPG in a different manner than the camera does.

Anyway, mystery solved.

docwalker

Cool. Now that the mystery is solved, is this something that can be dealt with?

There are some photos that I take straight from the camera. I would rather not have to open them in PS or something else. If all of the online systems have this problem, it would be a good move for SM to investigate a solution. This will become a bigger problem as the newer DSLRs become more poplular.

Luckily, for my artistic stuff I do shoot in RAW and take the time to edit. But, I take hundreds of photos a month for events and such that I do not have the time to rotate every one. I will do it for now but an automated solution would be great.

Good work on the research.

Edit... Wait, I reread your post. My photos show "Rotated 270 degrees" which is the correct format?

Richard

Doc: I am having problems downloading the email you sent. If Bill's findings do not explain your situation, feel free to send again, but this time send each pic in a separate message. Regarding the degree of rotation, 270 and 90 would be the same if the rotations are in opposite directions. I'm not sure that there is any consistency across software packages in this. The EXIF data that I am familiar with gives the starting point (upper left, upper right, etc.) not the degree of rotation.

Edit: Just reread Bill's post. -90 is the same as 270.

Cheers,

docwalker

I fully understand the degrees of rotation. My concern is if the api is not written to take this into consideration there will be problems... like we currently see.

I did some research and the exif.org documents show a totally different format. I looked further and see several other formats. Which is correct?

What orientation formats is SM programed to handle? Will -90 or 270 produce the same orientation when loaded to SM? It appears not at this time. What about "Top-Left" that I saw as one format?

This gets deep quick. I am sure that a solution can be found. It will probably take a while to handle as many caviats as possible. It would be better to get the camera builders to stick to a single specification. That will never happen.

mercphoto

docwalker wrote:

I did some research and the exif.org documents show a totally different format. I looked further and see several other formats. Which is correct? ..... It would be better to get the camera builders to stick to a single specification. That will never happen.

I think that is entirely the problem --- there are too many ways to specify the orientation of the image. I do not know the place to blame for this. Is it a vague spec? Was it rogue camera manufacturers? Did the spec change over time? Who knows.

docwalker

I say blame the manufacturers for wanting to do things their way. In the mean time, we need to ask Andy to take this to the SM engineers to look at. It should be fairly simple to code for most of the big maufacturers way of doing things. As it stands now Canon and Nikon may be the only ones doing it differently. The smaller guys may just follow the specs.