Images captured on smart phones and tablets have a special type of metadata called EXIF metadata. It was actually a minor part of TIFF files. But with the advent of these imaging devices, this metadata has gained importance. A user tends to rotate the camera to obtain the best shot of a given field. The EXIF metadata decides how the image will be displayed. When such an image is uploaded on the net, it may be seen sideways or upside down, depending on how the camera was held when the image was captured.
I faced this problem when I uploaded images for our online journal JPGO. I had to use images sent by the authors of the articles. Asking them to correct the orientation was no good. If they knew how to address the problem, they would have been careful and not let it crop up in the first place. So I had to find the solution myself. Google search did not help. It told me about the cause of the problem, but did not offer any solution. I tried the following.
I encountered this problem day before yesterday, while uploading images of our balcony garden on my blog in this post. I took screenshots to explain what I have written above, so that you can understand it.
This image shows the images to be uploaded in my Windows Explorer. They are upright.
I faced this problem when I uploaded images for our online journal JPGO. I had to use images sent by the authors of the articles. Asking them to correct the orientation was no good. If they knew how to address the problem, they would have been careful and not let it crop up in the first place. So I had to find the solution myself. Google search did not help. It told me about the cause of the problem, but did not offer any solution. I tried the following.
- I rotated such an image in Windows image viewer. Then I uploaded it. It was still seen sideways. So I realized that rotating it sideways was only for display at that time, not forever.
- I opened the image in Microsoft Paint, rotated it through 90 degrees, and saved it. Then I uploaded it. It was still seen sideways. So I realized that rotating it sideways and saving it saved the EXIF metadata as it was before, and that resulted in the image still being seen sideways.
- I opened the image in Microsoft Paint, rotated it through 90 degrees, selected it, copied it, and pasted in a new Paint image. I saved the new image and uploaded it. This one was seen properly. So I knew this method worked.
I encountered this problem day before yesterday, while uploading images of our balcony garden on my blog in this post. I took screenshots to explain what I have written above, so that you can understand it.
This image shows the images to be uploaded in my Windows Explorer. They are upright.
This image shows the files on image uploader of Blogger. They are seen sideways. I did not add them to the blog post, because there was no point in making people turn their heads sideways. Most people would move on without doing that.
This image shows the newly created images after the older images in image uploader of Blogger. The older ones are still seen sideways, while the newer ones are upright. They looked upright in the blog post too, after I added them.
