Pictures showing upside down and sideways

[S Allen]

Thought I would attempt to explain why some of your posted pictures might not have the correct orientation. Much of the problems comes from iPhones and a tag called EXIF. Thanks Apple.

To make sure that your photos are displayed correctly, your iPhone adds information about the correct rotation of the photo to the properties of each image, which are specified in EXIF tags. Your iPhone doesn’t convert any images to the correct orientation because that would keep it busy for a few seconds. Instead it simply saves all photos as they were recorded and adds information about their correct orientation to EXIF tags. The problem lies in the fact that no one else including software developers and even Microsoft pays any attention to the EXIF tags.

There is an ongoing discussion about who’s right and who’s wrong in this situation, but I bet you don’t really care about that. What you really want to know is how to solve the problem of your photos appearing upside down or side ways.

You can prevent any rotation issues in the future by taking your iPhone photos with the volume buttons pointing down. However, it’s not as convenient as holding your iPhone with the volume buttons pointing up, especially if you use those buttons to take photos.

Another not so convenient option is to use a dedicated camera app such as Camera+ for all your photo needs. Unlike the iPhone’s native camera app, Camera+ actually recodes all your photos into the correct orientation. This takes more time and battery but you will no longer have the orientation problem.

If you already have a lot of photos that are shot upside down, it’s best to use software that knows how to deal with EXIF correctly. All Apple software falls into this category, so if you’re a Mac user, you probably haven’t even noticed this issue. On Windows Picasa is recommended for managing photos. If you want to fix the orientation of your entire library at once, it’s best to do it in Picasa. Simply select all the photos you want to rotate (Ctrl+A to select all) and choose to save changes (Ctrl+S).

So, the issue of upside down photos has more to do with your iPhone and the EXIF tag than it does with the forum itself.

Cheers.

Steve