Tips for posting Photos

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by piping plover

very helpful post. thanks.

Too many of my photos show up sideways (landscape orientation when they should be portrait). Any logical step I am missing. I am beginning to feel like it is just luck now if it orients correctly. Thanks!

The only way that I have found that gets the orientation correct every time is to run the photos through a photo editor on the desktop. Make some little change, than do a "save as". My favorite go-to (free for personal use) editor is Irfanview
(A really powerful editor in a very compact package) but there are many others out there. Irfanview I think only runs on Windows, I'm sure there are others for iPad, etc.

[piping plover]

Originally Posted by Roberta

The only way that I have found that gets the orientation correct every time is to run the photos through a photo editor on the desktop. Make some little change, than do a "save as". My favorite go-to (free for personal use) editor is Irfanview
(A really powerful editor in a very compact package) but there are many others out there. Irfanview I think only runs on Windows, I'm sure there are others for iPad, etc.

Great! Thanks Roberta for the quick reply. I'll be sure to do that next time. I just wanted to be sure I was not missing something obvious in the posting process.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by piping plover

Great! Thanks Roberta for the quick reply. I'll be sure to do that next time. I just wanted to be sure I was not missing something obvious in the posting process.

It's an annoying "feature" of the Board software... but I have tripped over similar behavior with a completely different program. I have a little program that does batch resizing (great for managing bunches of photos for websites) But sometimes it interprets file metadata incorrectly... and even more puzzling, may get it looking correct and then I put it into my web-building app, and the photos are flipped 90 degrees. So back to the photo editor to straighten them out...

[estación seca]

In both Windows and iOS the included photo viewer can rotate photos. Do so with an image and save it. Then open the image again, rotate it to the correct orientation and save it. It will dislplay correctly once uploaded to OB.

I don't think its an Orchid Board problem. I see it elsewhere, and several years ago images uploaded to Orchid Board did display properly. I wonder whether camera software may no longer write standardized orientation information in the file header.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by estación seca

I don't think its an Orchid Board problem. I see it elsewhere, and several years ago images uploaded to Orchid Board did display properly. I wonder whether camera software may no longer write standardized orientation information in the file header.

Good point, and phone cameras add another set of variables... everyone agrees that standards are a good thing.. that's why there are so many of them.

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by piping plover

very helpful post. thanks. Too many of my photos show up sideways (landscape orientation when they should be portrait). Any logical step I am missing. I am beginning to feel like it is just luck now if it orients correctly. Thanks!

Assuming I understand the explanations properly ---- about images coming out sideways ------ it's due to the way that the image is stored in the camera (eg. ipad camera device, or android camera device etc) - or rather ----- stored in the image data file.

With most basic digital cameras (with no tilt sensing features etc) ---- if you hold the camera in the regular way (horizontal/landscape orientation) and then take a pic, then the image gets stored in that way - landscape.

And when you then tip the camera 90 degrees, and then take a pic, then the most basic digital camera will still store the image in 'landscape' format ----- which is expected. So viewing this image on any computer taken by the most basic digital cameras would appear 'sideways'. This is for basic cameras.

But ----- with more fancy cameras --- cameras with tilt-sensors etc ---- when you tilt the camera 90 degrees, then the camera will still store the digital image in LANDSCAPE format (as usual). HOWEVER, the camera will then add an extra piece of information to the image data file ----- such as adding a 0 or a 1 or 2 or a 3 value (which is nothing but extra information). If no tilt, then the piece of information would remain '0'.

That extra piece of information (eg. depending on whether it is 0, or 1, 2, 3, etc) can tell your image viewing software which way to ROTATE your captured image, so that the viewed image (in your image viewer) will look exactly the same as when you FIRST captured the picture.

That is, if you did not hold the camera in the regular horizontal orientation when taking the picture ----- then the photographed image will be stored as a SIDEWAYS image; and the extra piece of information added to the file can be a 1 or a 2 value (depends on whether you rotated 90 degrees clockwise, or 90 degrees anti-clockwise). And if the camera was held upside down, then a '3' value could be stored with the data file.

Now ---- if the orchidboard software wasn't designed (or written) to use these orientation values, then uploaded images that were taken in a 'portrait' orientation could easily come out 'sideways'.

That is, if the orchidboard software ignores (or cannot read) the orientation information (which is part of an image file), then that is most likely the reason for 'sideways' images.

[piping plover]

Yay! I followed the Save As process above and now my Lc. Ida Elizabeth ‘Tyler’ is oriented correctly in my blooming Orchid thread. I'll go through and correct my other ones for practice.

[Roberta]

SP -
For any photo image, in addition to what you see there is additional information (metadata) that includes information such as date taken, equipment data, sometimes GPS data, and among many other things, orientation data. When an image is incorporated into something else (like a piece of software) the metadata has to be translated. If all equipment uses the same coding, this is pretty easy. As more and more things get added, different products have their own "dialect" ... and the end result is that what may look correct on one platform becomes incorrect when trying to translate it to another. ES is right, Orchid Board is not the only place where this happens. Photo editors apply a more "standard" standard, and so straighten out these variations on the theme.

There are other tech standards that aren't so standard. For years and years, whatever else got introduced, VGA was a "plain vanilla" video format. Then came along HDMI, and then computers got slimmer to introduce micro-HDMI. And USB-C got into the picture too. Apple has its own set of interfaces. I guess you have never had the "pleasure" of trying to make a presenter's computer talk to a society's LCD projector. No matter how many adapters you have you sometimes won't have the one you need. (Experienced speakers know to either bring their own computer and projector, and/or make sure that their presentation is on a flash drive, so that the society's computer/projector can be used if necessary) Or all of the above... the "belt-and-suspenders" approach has saved many a society program.

[SouthPark]

Roberta - that's exactly right.

To be sure which way the image will appear when uploading to orchidboard - one way would be to (if possible) switch off the feature that changes the data code (in the meta-data section) assigned to tilt information (which creates inconvenience issues for users because that function is what makes viewing convenient on their own devices) ------ OR to manually load the image (already mentioned within the thread) and do some manual rotation if needed.

Another thing is - if tilt sensing is switched off (for camera shots that is), and a portrait shot is taken, then manual rotation would be needed anyway.

[Roberta]

SP, it's not a perfect world... just use a photo editor, problem solved.