Rotate photo views?

sib · May 25, 2005

When I take pictures with my D70, I have it set to capture the orientation of the photo (basically, which corner is in the upper left; conceptually, whether it's in landscape or portrait mode.)

Most imaging applications recognize this "Orientation" field in the jpg exif data and automatically display the images (and create thumbnails) in the correct orientation.

It seems that the smugmug web apps do not recognize this field when creating thumbnails. Is this right or am I missing something in my setup?

Thanks!

onethumb · May 25, 2005

sib wrote:

When I take pictures with my D70, I have it set to capture the orientation of the photo (basically, which corner is in the upper left; conceptually, whether it's in landscape or portrait mode.)

Most imaging applications recognize this "Orientation" field in the jpg exif data and automatically display the images (and create thumbnails) in the correct orientation.

It seems that the smugmug web apps do not recognize this field when creating thumbnails. Is this right or am I missing something in my setup?

Thanks!

You're correct -we ignore that field. It's an interesting problem, it turns out. We can see the field just fine and could obey it very easily.

However, it turns out that *lots* of photo editing applications don't update this field. So when you bring in your photo into your favorite editor, and you manually rotate it and save it, it doesn't update the fact that the photo has been rotated physically and doesn't need to be auto-rotated. End result? When you upload it to smugmug, we'd see that the photo needed rotation, and we'd rotate it -- again! You'd end up with a double-rotated photo.

If we knew 100% (or even >50% would be nice) of the photo editing apps properly updated the field, it'd be a non-issue. But that's not the case. It's something like 90% of the photos we saw with the field had it set wrong.

Sorry!

Don

sib · May 25, 2005

Hrmmm... I see your challenge. Perhaps a user-account-level setting (presuming that most users generally use a consistent editing program) for "follow my photos' orientation"?

On a related note, is the photo rotation that you do lossless (so that, if I do end up rotating an image again on Smugmug, I at least don't have the jpg recompression issues)?

trastour · May 28, 2005

+1 for the auto-rotation feature.
If it is lossless obviously! Otherwise, I'd rather have only the thumbnails auto-rotated, leaving the original intact.

David

cocokola · December 19, 2005

auto-rotate
why can't you simply add a function to "auto-rotate preview for this gallery" which would then follow the exif setting for the preview/thumbnail.

If you want this site to be seriously looked at by more professional photographers, this is a must-have feature.

Andy · December 19, 2005

cocokola wrote:

why can't you simply add a function to "auto-rotate preview for this gallery" which would then follow the exif setting for the preview/thumbnail.

If you want this site to be seriously looked at by more professional photographers, this is a must-have feature.

Thanks coco - for taking the time to make the suggestion.

bertola · May 23, 2006

Smugmug auto-rotate

cocokola wrote:

why can't you simply add a function to "auto-rotate preview for this gallery" which would then follow the exif setting for the preview/thumbnail.

If you want this site to be seriously looked at by more professional photographers, this is a must-have feature.

I couldn't agree more. It seems to be penalizing the photographers that maintain the proper exif information for their images by creating a lot of extra manual work for them.

One of the reasons I don't use Smugmug more is that I know I have an additional manual process of rotating each relevant image after they are uploaded. Kills any ability to streamline/automate one's workflow.

Be very interested in hearing when this feature (fix?) could be available.

Regards.

darryl · August 2, 2006

After watching my wife have to suffer through selecting proper rotation for more than half of the 53 photos she just uploaded, despite that information being right in the EXIF data, I would like to add "ME TOO" this request.

A Gallery-specific pref would probably be most flexible. But if that's too much work, even a global pref:

[ ] Auto-Rotate Uploaded Photos Based on EXIF Orientation Setting*

[Help Text, free of charge!]
* Many modern cameras have sensors that detect whether a photo was taken in a horizontal or vertical orientation. This information is stored in the EXIF metadata that is part of the file itself. Choosing to Auto-Rotate based on this Orientation setting can save you from having to manually rotate photos. The caveat is that some photo editing applications do not update this Orientation field after rotating a photo. So if you do rotations on your computer before uploading, you probably do not want to check this box. Or at the very least you should do some testing before checking it for a 100-file upload.

bwg · August 2, 2006

cocokola wrote:

If you want this site to be seriously looked at by more professional photographers, this is a must-have feature.

I am by far NOT a professional, but i post process all the shots i end up posting on smugmug so i already have the rotation correct before i upload.

1) I shoot in RAW so i have to at least save as a jpg
2) There is always room to improve a shot in post, maybe this is not the case with a better photographer than myself.

I can understand the request for the feature, it just seems to me like it would cater more to the snapshooter who uploads straight out of the camera vs. the pro. Am I missing something?

Dna · August 2, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

I can understand the request for the feature, it just seems to me like it would cater more to the snapshooter who uploads straight out of the camera vs. the pro. Am I missing something?

I am a pro who uploads straight from the camera. I welcome the delay printing feature as a result.

The rotation doesn't bother me all that much. It is reasonably easy to go and rotate the 1000 or so shots you have just uploaded.
Reading from the EXIF would make it easier, so an option to read from the EXIF would be good.

Dna

garretwilson · August 8, 2006

onethumb wrote:

You're correct -we ignore that field. It's an interesting problem, it turns out. We can see the field just fine and could obey it very easily.

However, it turns out that *lots* of photo editing applications don't update this field. So when you bring in your photo into your favorite editor, and you manually rotate it and save it, it doesn't update the fact that the photo has been rotated physically and doesn't need to be auto-rotated. End result? When you upload it to smugmug, we'd see that the photo needed rotation, and we'd rotate it -- again! You'd end up with a double-rotated photo.

If we knew 100% (or even >50% would be nice) of the photo editing apps properly updated the field, it'd be a non-issue. But that's not the case. It's something like 90% of the photos we saw with the field had it set wrong.

Sorry!

Don

Ouch! I'm coming from Flickr, and it hurts to see that I'm losing functionality. It would be nice if you had an account option to turn on or off auto-rotation based upon EXIF information. If the engineers scream that the upload mechanism is un-coupled from the account management database, then I'd prefer global auto-rotation. Here are a few reasons why.

First, I'd like you to do a new survey on EXIF rotation flag support across software packages; I would imagine it's much better than last year.

Secondly, you're making Flickr converts lost functionality. Professional functionality, too. (SmugMug is supposed to be for more professional users than Flickr, right?)

Thirdly, it's the right thing to do. Think about this: As you point out, either way you're going to have some images for some users that are incorrectly rotated. But which images? If you support auto-rotation, then the images with the rotation flag set incorrectly will be incorrectly shown. But if you don't support auto-rotation, then the images that do have the EXIF orientation flag correct will be shown wrong!

In other words, you've chosen the option that incorrectly shows files that correctly use the EXIF data! Wouldn't it be better, since we have to choose which files to show incorrectly, to show those files incorrectly that use the EXIF data incorrectly?

Let me put that another way. Let's say that I'm a professional who makes sure that my entire photo processing process is correct. I make sure that every link from acquisition to selection to adjustment to editing to archival to publishing is correct, and that every software piece of the chain correctly sets the EXIF data. This is the person you've just screwed. Why not instead screw the people who aren't professionals, who don't know or care about EXIF, and upload so relatively few photos that they don't mind to go in and manually rotate images after uploading?

Finally, do you realize what your decision means in effect? Essentially, you're hoping to compensate for erroneous software by incorrectly processing the information---in other words, hoping to fix someone else's bugs by adding your own bugs. Is that the way to promote standards compliance? (This is similar to people trying to fix Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 bugs by adding IE6-specific workarounds that are now breaking IE7 in areas in which IE7 fixes IE6 bugs.)

You have to make a decision. You can either ignore the standards and hurt the professionals who upload many photos; or follow the standards and hurt only the non-professionals who upload fewer photos and don't mind manually rotating a few images. You've chosen the former. I'd request that you reconsider your decision and choose the latter.

Thanks,

Garret

Andy · August 8, 2006

garretwilson wrote:

Thanks,

Garret

Hi Garret, many thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts, and telling us how important this is to you.

I've made sure that our engineers and product manager see this.

Welcome to Dgrin!

garretwilson · August 8, 2006

garretwilson wrote:

You have to make a decision. You can either ignore the standards and hurt the professionals who upload many photos; or follow the standards and hurt only the non-professionals who upload fewer photos and don't mind manually rotating a few images.

To be fair (not just to argue with myself

:), I acknowledge (as someone pointed out) that in a professional processing workflow an early-stage component (such as the RAW processor) will likely pre-rotate the image, so that in later stages the image will already be oriented correctly, regardless of the EXIF orientation flag. In fact, in my workflow RawShooter does just that, so this issue doesn't usually affect me. It's just that occasionally a few JPEGs that weren't shot in RAW and that didn't have post-processing will slip through, and I'll have that "darn it, SmugMug!" moment again...

Thanks for listening!

Garret

LizardRanch · May 1, 2008

My rotation problem, SM rotates some, not others?
I'm opening up this thread because I'm still confused as to what is being done here at SM.

I rotate my photos using two tools, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer and Paint Shop Pro 8. I have two different cameras that I am using for the set I just uploaded, An Optio W30 and Canon A640. I take a fair amount of portrait shots, more than 50% for sure and I rotate a lot of pictures. They always open correctly using any one of a number of photo viewers.

Here's the problem. I just uploaded 451 pictures to SmugMug in lizardranch.smugmug.com Dive Camp 2008. Of the 451 pictures, probably 30 of them uploaded in the wrong orientation, some from each camera, most if not all rotated via Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. My question : Why did only 30 of over 200 screw up when uploaded? Why is this a problems since every other app I have ever used, including email gets it right but SmugMug gets it wrong...sometimes? Is there something I can do preprocessing wise that will keep me from having to rerotate them once they are up (I hope so because the SM rotator is so sloooooooooooooooow and it seems to be able to only rotate one set at a time either right or left, no mixing)

Thanks folks,

Allen · May 1, 2008

LizardRanch wrote:

I'm opening up this thread because I'm still confused as to what is being done here at SM.

I rotate my photos using two tools, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer and Paint Shop Pro 8. I have two different cameras that I am using for the set I just uploaded, An Optio W30 and Canon A640. I take a fair amount of portrait shots, more than 50% for sure and I rotate a lot of pictures. They always open correctly using any one of a number of photo viewers.

Here's the problem. I just uploaded 451 pictures to SmugMug in lizardranch.smugmug.com Dive Camp 2008. Of the 451 pictures, probably 30 of them uploaded in the wrong orientation, some from each camera, most if not all rotated via Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. My question : Why did only 30 of over 200 screw up when uploaded? Why is this a problems since every other app I have ever used, including email gets it right but SmugMug gets it wrong...sometimes? Is there something I can do preprocessing wise that will keep me from having to rerotate them once they are up (I hope so because the SM rotator is so sloooooooooooooooow and it seems to be able to only rotate one set at a time either right or left, no mixing)

Thanks folks,

I had the same problem some time ago and don't really remember much. If I
rotated in PSP Smug would rotate again. I think because of the exif
settings. I think I solved it by turning auto rotate of in the camera.

LizardRanch · May 6, 2008

Allen wrote:

I had the same problem some time ago and don't really remember much. If I
rotated in PSP Smug would rotate again. I think because of the exif
settings. I think I solved it by turning auto rotate of in the camera.

Thanks Allen,

I do remember having autorotate set on my camera, that is until I figured out how to turn it off. Maybe this is the problem. Does anyone at SM know for sure?

Also, if this is the problem, does anyone know what field this would be and if there is a quick and easy way to reset this field or better yet to tell SmugMug to ignore this field? I really hate this "feature" on my camera since, as an underwater photographer, I take pictures at all angles, lots of them when I'm upside down or the camera is pointed straight down so up is not always up, and the only way to know is for me to rotate them manually. I would think that lots of other photographers aim their cameras at bizarre angles. Couldn't SM make the default to ignore this field?

Rotate photo views?

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