Sideways photos again

[Steve Jelf]

I often see photos posted sideways like this one of Chady Attaberry and Ed Emerson. If you click on it, you'll see it correctly oriented. But I've found that I can make the thumbnail appear correctly when I post it. The sideways problem invariably affects photos in a vertical format. So before I post a vertical shot I rotate it 90º left or right (it doesn't matter which), and then rotate it back to the correct orientation. Then when I post the picture it appears correctly.

[RajoRacer]

Was still sideways when I clicked on the original ?

[Henry K. Lee]

Before posting I have to put all pictures in preview, although they are correctly oriented, have to rotate them 360 degrees then they come out right. Sent Jeff an email, has him a little baffled too. Damn Cyber Pixies!

Hank

[Mark Gregush]

When I clicked on ether picture, they both were orientated correctly.

[Dallas Landers]

If I take a photo horizontal with my phone it is right side up on my post. If I take it vertical with my phone its sideways on post. Go figure!

[Mark Nunn]

Steve, when I click on your photos, the sideways photo stay sideways when using Internet Explorer. If I use Google Chrome, they rotate to the correct orientation.

[brucesp]

The issue with sideways photos is that all digital photos are taken horizontal, i.e. long dimension by short dimension; not the other way around. Embedded in every JPG image is a set of information about the photo: date, time, shutter speed, aperture, and a whole lot more including which orientation the camera was held at. It's called the EXIF information.

Most modern software (such as Windows 10) reads this EXIF info and rotates the image on the fly for viewing only, but it doesn't actually rotate the photo underneath. It drives me nuts, because I have yet to find a way to turn off this "feature" to see the photo the way it was originally taken. This is a real problem because when you place a photo into a forum post, it's the original, not the temporary viewing version. That results in things like Hank Lee posting, "What is going on with the picture imports? They are vertical when I start!" Actually, Hank, they're not vertical when you start, but your computer (or phone) hides that fact from you. The forum software is doing it right.

So, this brings me to the fix I have found. I use a free program called IrfanView, available here. It's a very capable image convertor that not only takes care of the rotation problem, but also deals with resizing, and all sorts of other image adjustments. Any time a photo is going to a destination that doesn't have the auto-rotate "feature", it's a simple matter to select the photo in IrfanView, press <Shift><J>, and choose "Auto-rotate according to EXIF orientation." You can also do this with all photos in a folder at once.

It's pretty easy to get used to passing photos through this program on the way to the forum. A final thought – when posting a message, use the "Preview" button before hitting "Submit". That'll reveal which photos need rotating.

[PDGx]

The software used for this forum (and another that I frequent) will post (preview) pictures in the portrait mode by default. Rotating vertical pics twice as stated above will orient vertical pics properly in the preview screen.
For some reason however, the software will orient them correctly if you click on them.
Other forums using this same forum template are also baffled by this.