When I import photos and videos to my PC with windows 7 x64 and view them in photo viewer they're all upside down. I try to rotate them in photo viewer but some of them get "Windows Photo Viewer can't save the changes to this picture because there's a problem with the picture's file properties" error. What can I do, if anything?
iPhone 4S, Windows 7
apple_tox wrote:
If it’s causing these problems for their customers then itbecomes Apple’s problem. People are receiving these photos and videos upsidedown\sideways so they can’t view them properly. What are you supposed to say, pleaseinstall software X just so you can view my photo? What about video, you can’treally fix the video issue without re-encoding and losing quality.
Do you think Apple want their customers like yourself tohave to go and purchase and install third party apps like Camera+ just so theycan share their photos? Do you think Apple wants you to use your iphone upsidedown when taking footage so the shutter button is at the bottom and harder toreach?
How are we supposed to share our photos and videos with otherpeople when it works in this state? No one has come up an adequate solutionother than trying to fix the problem after the fact, i.e. constantly loadingeach and every photo you want to share into some application and resaving out,come on that’s not a solution it’s dealing with a bad situation.
My video files are just over 4GB each, and suffer no lossy conversion effects whatsoever by using EXIF metadata to orient these video files. I have just over half a Terrabyte of video files per hockey season with no complaints from any of the team families with who I share such files.
The solution for you is to simply become aware of how you are holding your iPhone 4S when you are taking pictures or videos.
You have four choices, with four orientation results, based on the location of your Home Button:
As for your own file collection, open, save and close each file with any Adobe image manuipulation product. That process will result in an upright image with the rotation flag set to zero.
Not everything is so black and white, some people take pictures that are landscape some are portrait, and thus when they are imported to the computer some are not the right way up thus people want to manipulate it and find they can not. It is frustrating that a metadata string is causing so much grief.
The default Picture viewer is windows photo viewer and if you want users to have a simple easy to use device right out of the box then something has to give. Either apple will have to make a special iTunes option to edit photos or just strip that portion of the data, or make the data place nice with windows. And I do hope you dont suggest to your customers on windows to open all the pictures on paint then save them all manually so they can rotate. Nor to download another program just so they can see/use their images correctly.
I have a work around and YES it is a metadata error so the easiest way is to strip the data and an easy way is to save it/over it; for a single photo is as follows for default setup machines.
Default photo editor : Paint
Default images open with: Windows Photo Viewer
Right click and choose EDIT, the photo will open in paint.
Save the program with either CTRL + S or File Save.
Close paint.
Rotate picture: Right click, Rotate CW / Rotate CCW or Open picture viewer and click the appropreate arrow button.
Repeat as neccessary.
It gets quite fast once you get the hotkeys down, double click, ctrl + s, ctrl + f4, right click, rotate.
Sorry guys, this is the only way to do it fast and simple as a per file basis.
Thanks Harold for the workaround. So many people are complaining about this that Apple has to do something to address it. You say it's a metadata error? hopefully an update can get rid of this error then.
@AdjuvantJohn you spend a lot of time going on about EXIF data and using other apps to rotate images and resaving video. Do you really think iphone users want to jump through all these hoops just so people can see their images the right way round? 99% of iphone users probably don't know what EXIF data is or care, all they want to do is see their photos and videos the right way round, it's as simple as that. Just accept this is a problem Apple has to address.
You say it's not Apple's problem? I would say it's their problem when all these people are complaining and how do you think it looks to people when they receive a photo from an iphone but can't view it properly, it doesn't reflect well on Apple does it? Especially when Android user can send photos to people and they are always the right way round regardless of which application you view it in.
My sister in law as a HTC Android phone, it doesn't matter which way round she holds the phone the images always come out looking the right way round no matter which application I use.
If Google can get it right, way can't Apple?
SNIP
My sister in law as a HTC Android phone, it doesn't matter which way round she holds the phone the images always come out looking the right way round no matter which application I use.
If Google can get it right, way can't Apple?
Until faster processors with faster memory become available you will not get what you are wishing for.
The solution for you is to simply become aware of how you are holding your iPhone 4S when you are taking pictures or videos.
You have four choices, with four orientation results, based on the location of your Home Button:
Home Button on Left Hand side gives you what you want
While you are at it, you might as well rail at Canon, and Nikon for making the same decision as Apple.
The physical reality is that performing lossless rotation of still photos taken with an 8 MP lens and sensor combination, or 1080p 30 fps video in an Apple iPhone 4S camera phone is not done for very good reasons of hardware limitations. Canaon and Nikon have similar limitations and have made the same EXIF choices that Apple has done.
When the Apple iPhone 5 or the iPad 3 appear, Apple may have enough of an increment in hardware to revisit the possibility of lossless rotation in the device, but somehow, I doubt that they would give up other performance gains to do so.
In any case, there is NO software rewrite that would "fix" your problem without seriously impacting all sorts of other more important camera performance capabilities.
For now, the only solution you are likely to EVER, EVER see is:
" Home Button on Left Hand side gives you what you want".
She has had this HTC phone for nearly 18 months I think, the processor in my iphone 4S is far superior than the one she has in her old HTC. But the CPU has nothing to do with it, her phone simply saves the images the right way round at the time of saving. You seem to be suggesting that her Android phone is saving them upside down only then to rotate them after they are saved.
Why can't my iphone simply save them the right way round at the time they are saved?
Even my old crappy phones I used before I had smart phones would always save the images the right way round, and my calculator probably has more power than the process in them.
Harold was saying this is down to an error in the metadata, so it's not working as designed.
BTW Canon and Nikon cameras do not work the same way as the iphone. You don't have to hold your Nikon\Canon camera upsidedown (shutter button on the bottom) to get your photos to come out right do you?
reckoning wrote:
She has had this HTC phone for nearly 18 months I think, the processor in my iphone 4S is far superior than the one she has in her old HTC. But the CPU has nothing to do with it, her phone simply saves the images the right way round at the time of saving. You seem to be suggesting that her Android phone is saving them upside down only then to rotate them after they are saved.
Why can't my iphone simply save them the right way round at the time they are saved?
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Adjuvantjohn wrote:
That is a trade off. Folks with a Smart Phone that has more than a few MP of image sensor size, are well pleased by how quickly they can take pictures in a sequence. This is particularly true with the Apple iPone 4S.
For reasons of hardware limitation, not just processor but memory size and memory speed, none of the high end cameras, even those with processors fast enough to support "Burst Mode" sequences of still pictures, do anything other than save the image as it is taken by the hardware, along with EXIF information. If rotation is not done in a $5,000 camera, what makes you think it can be done by a software rewrite in a $500 camera phone?
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reckoning wrote:
Even my old crappy phones I used before I had smart phones would always save the images the right way round, and my calculator probably has more power than the process in them.
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Adjuvantjohn wrote:
Compare the sensor size and the time between sequential pictures for those old phones. A world of difference with the performance of the iPhone 4S.
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reckoning wrote:
Harold was saying this is down to an error in the metadata, so it's not working as designed.
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Adjuvantjohn wrote:
What Harold and I explained is that the orientation information ( any one of four orientations) is saved as a single digit in the EXIF meta data file of all sorts of other information about the camera settings and picture situation. The design error he referred to was in the software design of programs that display images without taking the orientation information into account. EXIF has been around for a decade or so, it is not something Apple surprised the industry with. Apple is simply following the industry standard oncethey began to deal with files larger than their processors could keep up with in a reasonable time.
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reckoning wrote:
BTW Canon and Nikon cameras do not work the same way as the iphone. You don't have to hold your Nikon\Canon camera upside down (shutter button on the bottom) to get your photos to come out right do you?
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Adjuvantjohn wrote:
You may be confusing the fact that what you see on the view screen as you fuss with composing the scene, is upright in cameras and in the iPhone no matter which way you hold the device. The camera ( and iPhone) has processor power and memory enough to be able to keep up with that. and not have you vexed at how long the process seems to be taking.
Because lossless rotation requires much more memory and processing power, and time, no camera maker, nor Apple, will handicap their device performance to rotate the images between pictures before saving the image.
This limitation is a physical reality. That is why image processing software by Adobe, for example, looks at the orientation information when it opens a file, makes the lossless totation needed, and displays the image right side up. After you have done Save, ( or Save As...) with the Adobe product, the image will be "right side up" the next time you open it with any sofware of any vintage.
If you doubt what I am explaining, I urge you to go into some really high end camera store ( not Frys or Best Buy, but a full line camera specialty store) and show them the print out of this thread. They will confirm what I have been explaining to you about the orientation information and the need for it in cameras with large MegaPixel ( MP) image sensors.
so let me get this straight, instead of apple doing a little patch for this and fixing this and the siri sound problems you want millions of users to change the way they hold their iphones when taking pictures? If you tell consumers this do you think they will be happy? Now apple looks like the dictator in the IBM commercial.
ALSO even when you take the picture the "right way" that you suggest, it just looks like its in the correct orientation, IT looks rightside up but if you want to rotate it for fun, you still cannot. Just because they are in the right orientation i would like to know that if i wanted to, i can rotate it however i want. Your solution is just not solving the problem at hand just makes the problem looks like it went away.
Microsoft_Harold wrote:
so let me get this straight, instead of apple doing a little patch for this and fixing this and the siri sound problems you want millions of users to change the way they hold their iphones when taking pictures? If you tell consumers this do you think they will be happy? Now apple looks like the dictator in the IBM commercial.
ALSO even when you take the picture the "right way" that you suggest, it just looks like its in the correct orientation, IT looks rightside up but if you want to rotate it for fun, you still cannot. Just because they are in the right orientation i would like to know that if i wanted to, i can rotate it however i want. Your solution is just not solving the problem at hand just makes the problem looks like it went away.
Have you made the same complaint to the makers of expensive cameras such as Canon or Nikon?
NO software patch or rewrite can provide enough resources to do the rotation you believe you want to see from Apple or Canon or Nikon.
No supplier of of high end cameras or Smart Phones capable of taking pictures with an 8 mega pixel sensor provide the image rotation you are asking for. The ALL use EXIF orientation data.
Any modern image processing software availabe from Adobe or Apple is perfectly capable or saving an image with any rotation you ask.
Just dont ask the iPhone 4S or your Canon camera to to image processing of large image files in the camera.
Image processing requires much more processing power, fast ( very fast memory not just a memory card) memory, and a lot of time. Providing the space and time for all that is not reasonable in any camera or smart phone.
AdjuvantJohn when you take a photo with a Canon or Nikon with the camera the right way round "shutter button on top", the photos come out ok. Why is this not the case with the iphone?
reckoning wrote:
AdjuvantJohn when you take a photo with a Canon or Nikon with the camera the right way round "shutter button on top", the photos come out ok. Why is this not the case with the iphone?
It is the case with the iPhone IF you take the picture with the Home Button on the right side. This puts the Red Button of the on screen picture taking on button on the right hand side just to the left of the home button.
The iPhone 4S with iOS 5.01 enables the Volume Up Button on the bottom left edge of the iPhone 4S held. The enabling of that button came long after the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S hardware was firm. So it was not meant to mimic the usual camera button.
Remember, not to confuse what you see in an Apple, or Canon or Nikon viewfinder ( always upright in any of the four orientations) with what is saved for export to your computer.
Remember that Adobe and Apple image processing software looks at the EXIF orientation data and automatically rotates the image exported from the camera before it is shown to you on your computer screen.
IT IS THE CASE with the iPhone 4S and iOS 5.01
( and yes, I am aware that all caps denote shouting. (grin))
The solution for you is to simply become aware of how you are holding your iPhone 4S when you are taking pictures or videos.
You have four choices, with four orientation results, based on the location of your Home Button:
Maybe you dont realize when you take a picture with a canon or nikon you can rotate the picture however which way you want. period end of story. Why are you defending this so adamantly?
Plain and simple, you take a picture with the iphone, it may come out facing the wrong way and you cannot rotate it without doing a bunch of extra steps.
Microsoft_Harold wrote:
Maybe you dont realize when you take a picture with a canon or nikon you can rotate the picture however which way you want. period end of story. Why are you defending this so adamantly?
Plain and simple, you take a picture with the iphone, it may come out facing the wrong way and you cannot rotate it without doing a bunch of extra steps.
When you take a picture with a Canon or Nikon, the image is stored on the camera, for later downloading to a computer with an attached miniUSB cable, or in some cameras, by removing an SD card or a microSD card, or in the case of older cameras, a removable tape.
Just where in this process, between the click of the shutter, and the appearance of the digital jpg image or MOV video file in a folder on your computer, does the rotation "in any way you want. period end of story" takes place?
My Canon camera certainly has no "on the camera" software for rotation. What model of camera are you referring to that performs rotation on the camera "any way you want" ?
I am not at all adamant, I am simply sharing my experience with you. I look forward to you sharing yours with me so we can both better understand more than our own experience.
By the way, Harold is my middle name, so we are at least starting with something in common (grin).
again, if you have a better idea or something constructive to add... and telling everyone they are holding their phones the wrong way and change how everyone changes how they holds it is rediculous. A patch in 5.0.2 would be great, and simple and make everyone happier.
AdjuvantJohn wrote:
reckoning wrote:
AdjuvantJohn when you take a photo with a Canon or Nikon with the camera the right way round "shutter button on top", the photos come out ok. Why is this not the case with the iphone?
It is the case with the iPhone IF you take the picture with the Home Button on the right side. This puts the Red Button of the on screen picture taking on button on the right hand side just to the left of the home button.
The iPhone 4S with iOS 5.01 enables the Volume Up Button on the bottom left edge of the iPhone 4S held. The enabling of that button came long after the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S hardware was firm. So it was not meant to mimic the usual camera button.
Let me try and rephrase the question.
When you use a standard camera like a Canon or Nikon the shutter button is up top of the camera, normally off to the right hand side right? This is so it's easy to access and feels comfortable when clicking it.
So it's only natural that when Apple enabled the up volume button to act as a shutter button on the iphone that you would use it with the button on top so it's easy to access. If you turned the camera upside down so the shutter button is underneath and to the left it's harder to access and doesn't feel comfortable.
So with this in mind my questionis this. Why do photos\videos come out with the wrong orientation when the iphone is held in the correct orientation, shutter button on top? This can't be a deliberate decision on Apple's part. Ideally you always want your photos to be the right way round but at the very least they could flip it so that photos\videos come out right side up when you have the shutter button on top.
This is just a simple software change right? AdjuvantJohn I’m really struggling to see why you’re going on about EXIF data, CPU speed etc when the problem is a lot simpler than you realise.
All photos upside down!
