Solution for image orientation problem on Sawmill Creek

[Will Mullendore]

If you’re having trouble getting your pictures to orient correctly, make an account on Imgur.com. They’ve been around forever and I’ve been using it for at least 10 years. No spam emails. Free account. By design the site removes all EXIF data from the image. After uploading the images, save them directly from Imgur and they’ll upload exactly as you’re seeing them. You could also use an HTML [img]link[/img] code to link directly from the site.

I set all my albums as “hidden” and your photos will only be visible via a direct link.

I struggled with getting my pictures to upload correctly for quite a while this weekend, but I hope this helps others. It’s a reliable and easy way to solve the problem. I tried manually removing the EXIF data, saving the images myself, but nothing worked reliably until I tried this.

[Curt Harms]

Interesting Will, thanks. I have a Firefox add-on that rotates and zooms images that works well. The issue can be that it rotates the images in place and the rotated image doesn't fit in the same space as the original image.

[Lee Schierer]

The only problem with using Imgur to post photos is that the photo may be lost if Imgur closes or you remove the photo from your account. Photos uploaded to Sawmillcreek stay at Sawmillcreek and the post will remain intact.

[Bert McMahan]

Lee, is there a way for us to fix our rotation issues or does a mod have to do that?

Also, I think Will was suggesting that we upload to Imgur then re-download them to strip out the bad EXIF data prior to uploading here.

[Will Mullendore]

Lee, is there a way for us to fix our rotation issues or does a mod have to do that?

Also, I think Will was suggesting that we upload to Imgur then re-download them to strip out the bad EXIF data prior to uploading here.

Correct. Linking directly to Imgur is an option, but re-downloading your own file from Imgur after it strips all the data is what I did for my post.

[Jim Becker]

I essentially do that by bringing all the photos into Lightroom from my iPhone and re-writing them out to my local drive with any minor corrections, including orientation, before uploading to SMC and elsewhere. The problem is being caused because today's modern phones create "non-destructive edits/copies" while keeping original EXIF intact. It's like writing out Camera RAW instead of a JPG from a DSLR in many respects. The original shot seems to take precience when uploading to VBulletin including retaining the "natural orientation" that the phone decided was "correct". Doing the upload and re-download to/from Imgur or similar is doing a complete rewrite of the file just as my use of Lightroom does the same.

[Curt Harms]

The simple photo editing package I use (Gthumb, only available for Gnome Linux distros AFAIK) has a 'save EXIF orientation) function so would save the rotated photo. I'm sure there's free/cheap Windows software with the same function.

[Bill Carey]

I use Lightroom as well, if the pics need some editing, and it works fine. But an even faster way for me is to email myself the pics from my phone, open them on the comp and do a screen grab with Screenpresso, and upload the grabs.

[Jim Becker]

I use Lightroom as well, if the pics need some editing, and it works fine. But an even faster way for me is to email myself the pics from my phone, open them on the comp and do a screen grab with Screenpresso, and upload the grabs.

You do lose a lot of resolution that way, however, Bill. Any kind of screen scrape is limited to the pixels on your monitor and the DPI can be vastly different than the original image.

[Will Mullendore]

You do lose a lot of resolution that way, however, Bill. Any kind of screen scrape is limited to the pixels on your monitor and the DPI can be vastly different than the original image.

I agree. We put too much effort into our work to post low-res pictures. Any of the other methods we’ve listed that preserve resolution are preferable. I like a lot of the options posted so far, but I made my Imgur suggestion as a simple, reliable way for those of us without good photo editing software or experience.

[Lee Schierer]

Lee, is there a way for us to fix our rotation issues or does a mod have to do that?

Also, I think Will was suggesting that we upload to Imgur then re-download them to strip out the bad EXIF data prior to uploading here.

You should be able to edit your posts for 24 hours after they are first posted. I open my photos in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, it is an older but very useful program. I also use Windows Photos to check and fix orientation before posting.

[Alan Rutherford]

I agree. We put too much effort into our work to post low-res pictures. Any of the other methods we’ve listed that preserve resolution are preferable....

That's an interesting point of view and one I had not considered. I have always thought excessively-large images were an indication that the person posting them just didn't know any better. Everyone who looks at your pictures will be limited to their own screen resolution. Only if someone wants to download an image for later processing or if they zoom in to see details will it matter if the resolution of the image is greater than that of the screen. Before I upload an image, I resize it to a size appropriate for its context. This can bring a 2 mb file down to 100-200 kb. Most of us now have reasonably fast internet, but my browser still bogs down if I hit a page with many multi-megabyte images. Posting images larger than they need to be feels a bit like making a cabinet back from 2x lumber. It might look the same from the front, but it didn't have to be done that way.

IMO if there's a reason to upload a full-size image, by all means go for it, but otherwise if you have the ability to make them smaller it's more considerate of all concerned and a more economical use of resources to do so.

[Curt Harms]

That's an interesting point of view and one I had not considered. I have always thought excessively-large images were an indication that the person posting them just didn't know any better.

I usually resize photos I post online to 800 X 600 or 1024 X 768 while maintaining aspect ratio . Those resolutions seem to work fine for 'snapshot' sized images. If I were uploading an image to use for a poster or billboard would be another story. Outsized images take a long time to download on modest internet speeds and can cause problems with email clients.