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TechFrenzy Author

Level 1

25 points

Camera still photo issue

It seems there is an issue with OS4 displaying the photos improperly when transferred or emailed. Still photos won't display properly when taken in portrait (upright). They look and display properly on the iphone itself, but not when emailed to someone. They display rotated (sideways). See for yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As0QeKNaQCY

HP, Windows XP, iPhone 4

Posted on Jul 6, 2010 2:59 PM

39 replies

KITT2010

Level 1

38 points

Jul 24, 2010 7:09 PM in response to TechFrenzy

I need to chime in on this issue.

When I take a picture with my iPhone4 (iOS 4.0.1), then sync it with my PC, then create a folder and put the picture from the Camera Roll into the new folder the picture does not hold the same orientation. All the pictures on my PC's folder are correct but when they are synced to my phone the new album doesn't keep the same orientations from which are on my PC.

So the orientation is correct on my phone, then not correct on my PC, then I rotate the orientation on my PC and sync it back to my phone (into a new album) the photo is in the wrong orientation.

So what's the fix?

TechFrenzy Author

Level 1

25 points

Jul 24, 2010 7:31 PM in response to KITT2010

This has been a problem for me, and others since launch. I'm hoping Apple sees that it is an issue. I have a troubleshoot call logged with apple and it is on record. I hope to see a fix for this in the future.

Aug 11, 2010 2:32 PM in response to TechFrenzy

I'm having the same exact problem. Prior to the iPhone 4 I had the iPhone 3GS and the 3G and neither model had this problem.

I suppose this has to do with the new way that the iOS handles pictures. Rather than saving the picture in the orientation that you took the picture, it assigns an orientation "flag" to it. The iPhone and Mail app on Macs are able to see this orientation flag but many modern browsers and Windows programs are not able to.

Hence the problem with us having pictures rotated the wrong way on Gmail and in Windows. This is really annoying and I wish Apple would go back to their old option or give users a choice. The utility of the iPhone just decreased for myself and many other Windows users that I know.

TechFrenzy Author

Level 1

25 points

Aug 11, 2010 3:21 PM in response to GasMan320

The thing is...when people snap photos and email them to others, people don't realize that the recipients are getting them sideways. Unless the recipient is a mac user. Around a 50/50 shot I guess. My recipients are clients so I have to take all of my photos in landscape mode to assure that they see them properly. Is that acceptable. Of course not. Hopefully this gets fixed. Having to hold my phone sideways for all my photos is getting old. But at least you can work around it by making sure to take every pic in landscape.(hold the iphone horizontally when snapping a photo). This should show properly all the time

crh24

Level 3

930 points

Aug 15, 2010 3:15 PM in response to TechFrenzy

There is a very long thread about this issue (which apparently started with iOS 3.1.3--at least that is where I first noticed it on my old 3GS) located here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2477227&start=0&tstart=0

To summarize. Apple chose to use the Orientation flag in the EXIF data to inform the program displaying the image as to how to rotate it so the image is presented correctly. Prior to that Apple rotated and stored the image so that no rotation was necessary. This caused saving pictures to take longer and virtually all high end camera manufacturers had already switched to placing rotation info in the EXIF to save time between picture to picture.

The programs displaying the image haven't all been updated to honor the EXIF rotation data. Those that don't (Facebook, Safari on the iMac/PC, most Windows system programs, etc.) will always display an image from an iPhone with 3.1.3 or greater incorrectly unless the image was taken in the landscape orientation with the Home button to the right.

It is interesting that all Adobe products honor the EXIF flag as does Safari on the iPad and most Apple programs. I don't know how Safari for the PC/Mac failed to get it right when Safari on the iPad does.

May 30, 2011 11:07 AM in response to TechFrenzy

Others in this thread have explained why this happens. The iPhone (at least since OS 4) uses EXIF metadata to keep track of the desired orientation for the picture. Many Windows utilities (including the default Windows Picture viewer in Windows XP!) do not know how to interpret EXIF tags. So the problem is actually in Windows, not the iPhone.

The obvious workaround is to rotate the photo 90 degrees using the Windows Viewer . This is not a good idea. It makes the picture look fine, but destroys all the other EXIF metadata, such as the date-stamp on the photo. Another obvious solution is to buy a new photo management tool that fully supports EXIF. However, if you don't feel like replacing your computer or your beloved photo management utility, there is another solution.

After a weekend of google-fu and experimentation, I found a simple procedure that works for me. I downloaded and installed a free Windows utility called JPEG-EXIF (Google and you will find it). This utility adds a few options to the context menu (right-click menu) on folders and on individual JPG files. The new option does a lossless auto-rotation of the photo and then modifies the EXIF orientation tag to match the new orientation. Not only does the picture now appear correctly in Windows Viewer and in my favorite photo-management software, the other EXIF tags have been preserved. You can check this in the Windows viewer by right-clicking on the files, viewing properties, and clicking the Summary tab.

There are probably other tools available that do something similar. I like this one because of its simplicity. It is also free.

Many thanks to Olli Savolainen for his generosity!

Nov 17, 2011 9:59 AM in response to sharonfromminneapolis

In my case I take HD video with an Apple iPhone 4S and an iPad 2. These cameras can be just as easily oriented in any of four orientations by hand, or in various iPhone or iPad holders for mounting on a tripod. As long as I stay with Apple or Adobe products for my whole video handling process, I have no problem with software support for orientation

While there are countless software programs available today that display JPEG images, only a subset of them actually interpret the EXIF Orientation flag. Just like color management, many programs simply display the JPEG image as it is stored, and completely ignore any extra details stored in the file's metadata. The most important of these additional details is the Orientation flag, stored in the JPEG APP1 marker under EXIF IFD0.

More explanation of this is in the text below.

Briefly, Apple is doing it right, with their iPhone 4S and iPad 2, the way most High end video cameras do it. And they made sure that their apps looked at the appropriate flag to rotate the image before showing it. To understand this look at this site:

http://www.impulsead...rientation.html

This is a site that explains the whole deal. Apple and Adobe are looking at the flags for image rotation. Plex,and many others are not doing so. VLC for instance, DropBox is anpther example, Thunderbird is another example, the list is long.

Many newer digital cameras (both dSLR and Point & Shoot digicams) have a built-in orientation sensor. Virtually all Canon andNikon digital cameras have an orientation sensor. The output of this sensor is used to set the EXIF orientation flag in the image file's metatdata to reflect the positioning of the camera with respect to the ground. Canon calls their sensor the "Intelligent Orientation" sensor. It is presumably a 2-axis tilt sensor, allowing 4 possible orientations to be detected. The paragraphs below are taken from that wonderfully illustrated link.

Auto-rotation in Digital Cameras

While your digital camera may include an option to "auto-rotate images" due to the camera's orientation, this is almost always just a "virtual rotation". A flag is set to indicate to the viewing software / LCD preview which way to rotate the image before display, rather than rotating the image content itself.

As lossless image rotation is a fairly compute-intensive operation, digital cameras are not likely to include true lossless rotation after capturing the photo. The CCD/CMOS sensor hardware is designed to stream raw data in a particular direction (e.g. rows then columns), and so it may be hard to incorporate true auto-rotation in-camera without a performance impact to continuous shooting (frames per second).

Feb 18, 2012 6:04 PM in response to AdjuvantJohn

Here's my blog post on the easiest way to rotate locked iPhone 4 and 4S photos in Win7 with the free JPEG Lossless Rotator app:

http://www.daleisphere.com/easily-rotate-locked-iphone-4-and-4s-photos-in-window s-7-with-the-free-jpeg-lossless-rotator/

...Dale

Dec 27, 2012 8:31 AM in response to DaleDietrich

I have had this same problem with my Iphone 4.

I e-mail myself the pic,and when I post it on a forum, or something, it is sideways.

I go back and resize the photo, (for example if it's 768.4, I resize the numbers to an even 768) it fixes itself.

I think Apple better look more into this, because I see it daily on the net STILL!!

Camera still photo issue