Why is my picture turned sideways?
by
, Oct-07-2013 at 8:34am (87590 Views)
Ever wonder why some images uploaded to the web appear sideways, clearly not as intended? That picture of the instrument you wanted to sell, you were so proud of the photo and it looked great and suddenly it's on the Classifieds or the Forum, or on Facebook or elsewhere and... "wait, that's not right! That's not the way my picture is supposed to look! Who rotated it?"
Example from our Classifieds:
Here's the problem: it's the web browser. No, not YOUR web browser, web browsers in general. Mine included.
Meet the culprit: EXIF. Exchangeable Image File Format.
That's as geeky as we'll get. EXIF is a standard for storing information in image files... like how the image is supposed to be rotated. Most newer digital cameras and smart phones observe EXIF. Some don't, and when you see images rotated incorrectly it means the photo was taken with a device that doesn't (or someone just had their camera upside down... anything is possible).
To boil this down in simple terms: if you take a photo with a device that doesn't use EXIF, when it gets uploaded to the web and appears in a web document it may not display as intended.
Your old digital camera probably doesn't have it. Your new iPhone or Android does. Open any image and save it in a program like Photoshop and it'll display properly as saved because Photoshop observes EXIF (image orientation).
An almost daily task: I look at the Classifieds and see an image rotated incorrectly. Most times I save the image locally to my personal computer. When it's sitting on the desktop it's already displayed in the fashion it should be because operating systems (PC/Mac) understand orientation. Web browsers pretty much don't. This is how I know the image was taken with a camera that doesn't observe EXIF. I open in Photoshop, save (no rotation), upload it to the existing ad and it now displays correctly. Photoshop embeds EXIF information so it displays as saved.
There are free programs out there that will embed the orientation information (EXIF). I have not personally tried these but don't doubt they work. Picasa, XnView, or FastStone Image Viewer are listed by about.com as three. As always, exercise caution when downloading free software from the internet. We use cnet.download.com for safe downloads.
Now we'll get a little more geeky. May be a good time to bail.
Want more proof how weird this is? Check out the photo below of the Classified ad in question. It's displayed incorrectly inside the HTML document, but if viewed in some browsers at the top level, meaning not inside the document (by itself) it will display differently depending upon what type of browser you're using.
Test your browser: click on the image, and then in your browser ask it to display the image by itself (as in, not inside of an HTML document). On PC you can simply right-click and selection View Image. Macintosh, Ctrl + click and select Open Image (in new tab or window... depends upon what kind of browser). In Chrome and Safari it will display correctly. FireFox still cannot at this time. Couldn't find info on Internet Explorer but you get the idea.
Bottom line: if they're rotated differently than you wish then your camera doesn't support EXIF (that information that instructs how it was intended to be viewed). Saving in Photoshop or one of the free programs mentioned above before uploading to the web will resolve this issue.