PSP does not see image orientation

[Richard]

I just installed PSP X9, and then upgraded it to PSP 2018. Neither version recognizes the orientation information in many of my photos (I think all of the ones that are direct from the camera in fact; i.e. not edited). PSP X4 does not have this problem, and Windows sees the orientation information just fine (by that I of course mean looking at the same photos). It's very annoying, because almost almost all of my photos that are in portrait appear in landscape. I searched these forums and the web and found nothing about this, so I am wondering if anyone else has seen this problem, and hopefully knows how to fix it.

[JoeB]

Are you saying that all of these photos open in the PSP workspace in landscape orientation even if they were taken in portrait orientation? Because that is not a problem that I have with the photos taken with my Galaxy S8. What camera are you using?

Also, how do the images present themselves when viewing the thumbnails in Manage mode? Do they show the correct orientation?

While in the Manage preview space have the Info panel open and click on a non-edited image that was taken in landscape mode and, in the Camera section, what does the Orientation show? Mine would show Top/Left. Do the same for an image taken in portrait mode. Mine would say Right/Top.

When the images are open in the PSP workspace and you check Image Information the EXIF data shows Top/Left with images of either orientation, but because that is an editable field and the dropdown defaults to the first option (Landscape) I'm not sure that it is actually reading the orientation but simply showing the first selected option in the dropdown.

[Richard]

Are you saying that all of these photos open in the PSP workspace in landscape orientation even if they were taken in portrait orientation?

Yes. Almost all of them, anyway. I have found a few which I am >99% certain I have not edited (and the EXIF information backs that up) that are correct.

What camera are you using?

These are all from a Canon EOS 20D

Also, how do the images present themselves when viewing the thumbnails in Manage mode? Do they show the correct orientation?

It's the same.

While in the Manage preview space have the Info panel open and click on a non-edited image that was taken in landscape mode and, in the Camera section, what does the Orientation show? Mine would show Top/Left. Do the same for an image taken in portrait mode. Mine would say Right/Top.

In PSP x4 That is indeed what I see. Unless I save it from PSP X4, in which case the EXIF information for a portrait mode photo changes to Top/Left
In PSP X9 or PSP 2018 It varies. Some landscape photos show ---, as though the field is empty, even though the same photo in PSP X4 shows Top/Left. Others do show Top/Left. The portrait ones that are wrong all show ---, even though PSP X4 shows Right/Top. The few portrait ones that are correct show Right/Top. This makes little sense to me, because they are all from the same camera, and unedited.

Finally, if I save a landscape photo that shows --- from PSP 2018, it then also shows --- in PSP X4 (even though in PSP X4 it was originally Top/Left).

When the images are open in the PSP workspace and you check Image Information the EXIF data shows Top/Left with images of either orientation, but because that is an editable field and the dropdown defaults to the first option (Landscape) I'm not sure that it is actually reading the orientation but simply showing the first selected option in the dropdown.

You are right. I had never noticed that. I would call that a bug. It should show the information that's currently in the file.

[hartpaul]

I suspect this is the problem that Richard is experiencing.
I had a Canon 5D camera and one of its features was an orientation tag which could be switched on or off. It meant that if I took pictures in a portrait mode I could view them with the camera in landscape mode when looking through all the images instead of having to rotate the camera to look at the portrait images and thn back to horizontal for the landscape images. Good feature yes? But the downside was that the portrait images were scaled down to fit the size of the landscape window.
I was not happy with that as well as the fact that some software at that time (2006) did not recognize the orientation tag so I finished up having to rotate and remove the orientation tags altogether (Zoombrowser does this). So I turned that feature off in the camera and have never used it since. I searched through some of my images of that time and found some experimental shots that still had the orientation tags attached.

This first image shows what they looked like in Canon Zoombrowser - the blue circle arrow shows that there is an orientation tag attached and the thumb shows what the result of applying that rotation is.

This next image shows what Irfanview and Windows Explorer do - they take note of the orientation tag and rotate the image.

I managed to find an older piece of software - Fuji Finepix Viewer (also happens in PSP * and PSP X2) and this time the orientation tag is ignored.

Lastly what I get in PSP 2018 in Manage mode - where the orientation tag is recognised unlike what Richard is probably experiencing.

So my solution was to turn off the feature in your camera, and to remove any existing orientation tags. This would be necessary if I was still using any software that did not recognize the orientation tag. PSP has recognized it since X3.

[Richard]

Thanks for the reply.

The EOS 20D does not have an option to turn off the orientation tag. It does have an option for "Auto rotate" on or off, but as far as I know that only affects the way the photo is displayed on the screen. I can't be sure though, because I've never turned it off. The EOS 20D is an old camera, and the screen is so tiny you can't review a photo without lots of zooming anyway . You can buy the body on eBay for about $80

At any rate, I do not think it's anything to do with the camera, except to the extent that however the camera is formatting the EXIF data the later versions of PSP don't read it correctly. Here's a link to an example photo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n47l1khtkzg3e ... 6.JPG?dl=0. Windows thumbnails, Zoombrowser, Photoshop CS5, Aftershot Pro 3, and PSP X4 all see an orientation tag and flip the photo to the correct orientation. Only PSP X9 and PSP 2018 show it, incorrectly, in landscape mode.

Personally, I think it's most likely something odd about the way the EOS 20D writes the EXIF data, coupled with a bug in later versions of PSP (I would say possibly an oversight in PSP, except that it used to work).

[Jean-Luc]

all see an orientation tag and flip the photo to the correct orientation.

I don't see an orientation value in the Exif (empty). Other images I own show a value in this place.
I'm curious to know how Windows Explorer (and the underneath softwares) reads this "empty" value (or where it is located)...
"After Shot 2", "Dx0 Pro 9" and "Showphoto (Digikam)" display the image in portrait mode.

[Richard]

I don't see an orientation value in the Exif (empty).

How are you looking at that?

Here's what Gimp shows when I load the file:

So the EXIF information is there. It is only the later versions of PSP that do not see it.

[hartpaul]

That Auto Rotate on the 20D is what does it. It allows you to see the image on the camera's screen without rotating the camera. It also adds the rotation information to the image, so turn it off and then rotate any future images manually .

[Richard]

Thanks. I didn't realize that turning off auto rotate meant the rotation information was not written to the file. I now have an EOS 77D, and that has three options: on, rotate on computer only, and off. I assume the second one writes the rotation information, but the camera ignores it.

None of that fixes my problem for the very large number of photos I have from the EOS 22D though

[hartpaul]

I went through all my images with Zoombrowser 6.2.1 and did the rotations in batches. I tried to make sure that the rotation did not change the jpg image size (KB) by very much first.

[Richard]

I think I'm going to pull a ticket with Corel. Based on this thread it's clearly not just a problem on my PC. Also, Windows thumbnails, PSP X4, Zoombrowser, Photoshop, GIMP, AfterShot Pro 3, After Shot 2, Dx0 Pro 9 and Showphoto (Digikam) all show the example photo I posted rotated to portrait mode. The problem only occurs with PSP X9 and PSP 2018, so it's hard to think of it as anything other than a bug.

[hartpaul]

I don't think it is a bug with PSP X9 or PSP 2018. As I showed in my previous post with images, the last image showed what I see in 2018. The image is rotated per the image rotation information. Even when I drag an image from windows explorer into the edit space it is rotated correctly. So unless you can find a large number of other users with the same problem it is not correctly called a bug and Corel probably will not be able to do anything with you about it. At this stage in this thread, no one has come out and said they have the same problem, so it may be something with the way you have set up your system / PSP 2018 / PSPX9.

[Richard]

So you are saying that Windows thumbnails, PSP X4, Zoombrowser, Photoshop, GIMP, AfterShot Pro 3, AfterShot 2, Dx0 Pro 9 and Showphoto (Digikam), are all wrong, and only PSP X9 and PSP 2018 are right?

I'm not sure what your point is with the last image you posted. I am not saying that PSP 2013 gets it wrong for every image with rotation information. I am saying it gets it wrong for a large number of photos I have from one camera, and at least nine software packages agree with me.

Edit: If you view AfterShot Pro 3 and AfterShot 2 as one software package, which would be fair, I'll substitute the good old (mainly old) Windows Paint package for one of them, which also correctly orients the image.

[JoeB]

So you are saying that Windows thumbnails, PSP X4, Zoombrowser, Photoshop, GIMP, AfterShot Pro 3, After Shot 2, Dx0 Pro 9 and Showphoto (Digikam), are all wrong, and only PSP X9 and PSP 2018 are right?

I don't think it's simply a matter of some program being right and some program being wrong. I believe that we have already determined that your camera didn't properly encode orientation information with the settings you chose or accepted as default - but if I'm wrong about that feel free to correct me. But many programs still seem to present the image in your intended orientation. That could possibly be due to different algorithms used by those programs when interpreting how they will present an image. But that doesn't make it "wrong" for a program to simply use the orientation tags that are supposed to be embedded by the camera into the image. It's just a different way of doing the interpretation. IMHO the camera should provide proper orientation information, and your camera - at least with the settings you had chosen or accepted for it - doesn't seem to have done that.

[hartpaul]

So you are saying that Windows thumbnails, PSP X4, Zoombrowser, Photoshop, GIMP, AfterShot Pro 3, After Shot 2, Dx0 Pro 9 and Showphoto (Digikam), are all wrong, and only PSP X9 and PSP 2018 are right?

I'm not sure what your point is with the last image you posted. I am not saying that PSP 2013 gets it wrong for every image with rotation information. I am saying it gets it wrong for a large number of photos I have from one camera, and at least nine other software packages agree with me.

Nothing of the sort . As you said Windows Explorer Photoshop etc see the tag and rotate the image from a portrait lying sideways to a vertical position.
You seem to be the only one that does not have PSP X9 and 2018 doing that rotation . My last pic showed that my PSP 2018 was performing the rotation just the same as Photoshop, Windows explorer , Irfanview (my second combined image) .

And as I also said if it is bugging you that something in your X9 and 2018 cannot be fixed onn your system, then perhaps you need to do batch rotate of the images so that the orientation information is corrected / removed.
As to what the problem is with your PSP X9 , you might have to do a comparison of all the settings with your PSP X7 to see if you can spot the different setting.

Edit : Can you post one of your images that always shows as not rotating so that we can test it out on our systems. As Joe has mentioned there may have been a problem with your 20D in adding the rotation information.