Preview Rotate Problems

Question

Level 1

9 points

Preview Rotate Problems

Anyone else having the following problems rotating JPG images with Preview?

1. If I open an image with Preview, "Rotate Left" and "Rotate Right" seem to operate backwards. For example, "Rotate Right" shows a clockwise arrow, yet the image is actually rotated COUNTERclockwise.

2. Saving a rotated image from Preview and then selecting "Get Info" from the Finder shows the Dimensions to be the same prior to rotating. For example, a 768 x 519 pixel image prior to rotating still shows as 768 x 519 after rotating (it should become 519 x 768).

3. If I perform (1) or (2) above using a Preview action from Automator, everything works as expected.

- Joe Z.

Posted on Nov 5, 2005 11:21 PM

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Answer 1

CayceP

Level 1

30 points

Nov 6, 2005 4:41 PM in response to Joe Zollner

I'm running 10.4.2, and I have a somewhat similar problem: 9 times out of 10, if I rotate a picture in Preview and save it, the change appears to be made, but when I reopen the file or open it in another application, it hasn't changed at all.

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Answer 2

Joe Zollner Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 7, 2005 8:08 PM in response to CayceP

Keen observation! I confirmed this by rotating a picture with Preview, saving, quitting Preview, and then opening the picture with AppleWorks. As far as AppleWorks is concerned, the picture hasn't been rotated at all!

Looks as though it's time to file a Bug Report with Apple. 😟

- Joe Z.

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Answer 3

Rafe H.

Level 5

7,091 points

Nov 7, 2005 11:03 PM in response to Joe Zollner

This is a known problem with JPEG files within certain OS X applications. When Preview rotates a JPEG image, it doesn't actually rotate the pixels, which would degrade the image (since JPEG is a lossy compression). Instead, it just uses a JPEG tag embedded within the file to define the orientation.

Now, other apps, like Safari, Mail, iChat, etc, ignore this tag and show the JPEG with its original orientation.

I've filed a bug with Apple and its been labeled a duplicate.

More info here.

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Answer 4

Feb 4, 2006 8:01 AM in response to CayceP

I have this very same problem but for me it seems to have started recently. My Preview version is 3.0.4 (398). To recap: I open an image (most probably .jpgs) I rotate the image with the Preview app, Save the image, close Preview, drag the image onto a document and it appears in its original orientation, not rotated. This happens with images produced on my camera as well as scanner. The preview in column view on the finder appears in the proper orientation. I regularly used this program with great success to rotate images and now it doesn't work. It works fine in iPhoto but I hate to overload my library there with images that I don't wish to archive on my machine.

On another topic I noticed yesterday that the crop button for the header bar has returned from its vacation as it had disappeared from the version originally packaged with Tiger.

I like this program for quick and dirty work. It worked very well for some time, I wish Apple would stop messing with it.

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