How to automatically lossless rotate pictures in WinXP (keyword is automatic)

Is there a way in Windows to automatically orient portraits head-side up?

I only snap portraits (anything else is a postcard, in my opinion) ... and
I often orient the camera at 90, 180, or 270 degrees of normal - therefore
I find myself tediously stepping through hundreds of photos in Irfanview
freeware and hitting the shift + J button to losslessly rotate the
photographs (utilizing the free "JPG Lossless Operations" plugin), manually
choosing the orientation each time, whether it be 90 degrees, 180 degrees,
or 270 degrees - and then moving on to the next photo.

But, I snap hundreds of pictures a day and this manual method gets
laborious. Plus, I can't be the only one with this very same problem
(everyone must have it) so it's worth asking ...

Is there a freeware program that can 'sense' the orientation and
automatically rotate the pictures? Probably not but it's worth asking the
question as the worst we'll get back is nothing more than we had, yet the
best that can come of it (as it often does in group help), is we find the
solution to the problem.

So, I ask ...

Do you know of a Windows freeware program that automatically orients
pictures losslessly, in batch mode?

In Donna
wrote:

Do you know of a Windows freeware program that automatically orients
pictures losslessly, in batch mode?

If your camera included the orientation info in the EXIF data (my Canon
S3 does), IrfanView could do it for you
(Properties/Settings-JPG/PCD/GIF-Auto-rotate image), although I'm
not sure about doing it in batch mode.

So, if you can't find anything that can reliably figure this out based
solely on examining the pixels in the image, here's an excuse to buy a
new camera.

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN

wrote:
On Wed, 21 May 2008 08:43:20 -0700, in rec.photo.digital Donna
wrote:

Is there a way in Windows to automatically orient portraits head-side up?

Many cameras have a setting to automatically do just this. Does yours?

But doesn't that normally only work with the camera maker's software?

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

On Wed, 21 May 2008, Donna wrote:-

Do you know of a Windows freeware program that automatically orients
pictures losslessly, in batch mode?

If you're not bothered about using a command line, a combination of
jhead[0] and jpegtran[1] will do the job. You can rotate single images
using:

jhead -ft -autorot "filename.jpg"

multiple files by using

jhead -ft -autorot "*.jpg"

and recursively do whole directories by using something like:

jhead -ft -autorot "**\*.jpg"

This is the same tool I use under Linux to do auto-rotation[2] of
images, and it works very well there


[0] URL:http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/

[1] URL:http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/jpeg.htm

[2] Not sure where I found it, but I have a couple of .desktop files
that adds this auto-rotation to KDE's right-click menu, both for single
files and directories.

Regards,
David Bolt

--
Team Acorn: http://www.distributed.net/ OGR-P2 @ ~100Mnodes RC5-72 @ ~15Mkeys
SUSE 10.1 32bit | openSUSE 10.2 32bit | openSUSE 10.3 32bit | openSUSE 11.0b3
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"Donna" wrote in message
...
Is there a way in Windows to automatically orient portraits head-side up?

I only snap portraits (anything else is a postcard, in my opinion) ... and
I often orient the camera at 90, 180, or 270 degrees of normal

180° ?
Fascinating!

Is your name Douglas?

--
Jeff R.

"Donna" wrote in message
...
Is there a way in Windows to automatically orient portraits head-side up?

I only snap portraits (anything else is a postcard, in my opinion) ... and
I often orient the camera at 90, 180, or 270 degrees of normal - therefore
I find myself tediously stepping through hundreds of photos in Irfanview
freeware and hitting the shift + J button to losslessly rotate the
photographs (utilizing the free "JPG Lossless Operations" plugin),
manually
choosing the orientation each time, whether it be 90 degrees, 180 degrees,
or 270 degrees - and then moving on to the next photo.

But, I snap hundreds of pictures a day and this manual method gets
laborious. Plus, I can't be the only one with this very same problem
(everyone must have it) so it's worth asking ...

Is there a freeware program that can 'sense' the orientation and
automatically rotate the pictures? Probably not but it's worth asking the
question as the worst we'll get back is nothing more than we had, yet the
best that can come of it (as it often does in group help), is we find the
solution to the problem.

So, I ask ...

Do you know of a Windows freeware program that automatically orients
pictures losslessly, in batch mode?

Yes, FastStone Image Viewer. I just started using it and it can
automatically batch rotate pictures based on the orientation flag in the
EXIF data. I use it with my Canon and it works great and automatically.

http://www.faststone.org/

Tools - JPEG Lossless Rotate - Auto Rotate Based on EXIF Orientation Tag.

Bruce.

On 21 May 2008 16:08:41 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

If your camera included the orientation info in the EXIF data
IrfanView could do it for you
(Properties/Settings-JPG/PCD/GIF-Auto-rotate image)

Hi Bert,
This is interesting information that I was unaware of.

If I look at a picture that is "normal" (head up, no rotation needed), my
Irfanview "info" command (i) tells me the EXIF "Orientation" is "Top left".

For a picture with the head to the left (needs 90 degree clockwise
rotation), the EXIF "Orientation" is "Right top".

And, for a picture with the head to the right (needs 270 degree clockwise
rotation), the EXIF "Orientation" is "Left bottom".

I'm not sure I get the algorthm, but, I'll try to draw it below.

X----------+ +----------X +----------+
| ^ | | | | |
| ^ | | | | |
| ^ | | | | |
+----------+ +----------+ X----------+
EXIF Orientation EXIF Orientation EXIF Orientation
X=Top left X=Right top X=Left bottom

I'm not sure I get the algorithm.
Can someone explain the logic of this EXIF Orientation tag?

On 21 May 2008 16:08:41 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

IrfanView could do it for you
(Properties/Settings-JPG/PCD/GIF-Auto-rotate image)

Hi Bert,

Even though I don't understand the logic of the EXIF Orientation tag (see
previous post), I tried this Irfanview 4.00 command on the three files
previously described.

Options-Properties-JPG/PCD/GIF-JPEG-Load:
[x]Auto-rotate image according to EXIF info (if available)

Amazingly, when I used Irfanview freeware to step through a batch of
photos, they displayed upright, like they should.

However, nothing was saved so the photographs kept their original EXIF
orientation tags.

So, the Irfanview option of "Auto-rotate" is only ephemeral.
But, the good news is my camera saves the EXIF orientation information and
that Irfanview freeware understands it.

I'll dig a bit more to see if we can get Irfanview to save the uprighted
EXIF orientation flag, and if it can do so in batch mode.

On 21 May 2008 16:08:41 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

I'm not sure about [Irfanview] doing it in batch mode.

Hi Bert,
Unfortunately, after digging a bit deeper, Irfanview does have a batch mode
which will "reset" the EXIF orientation tag, but, it will only reset it
(apparently) to what it currently is.

File-Batch Conversion/Rename-Options-JPEG:
[x]Keep original EXIF data
[x]Reset EXIF orientation tag

That is, if your picture needs a 90degree rotation, and you rotate it 90
degrees manually, and then batch convert it with the batch option set to
"Reset EXIF Orientation tag", the tag will change

For a photo that requires no rotation ...
FROM: EXIF Orientation = Top left
TO: EXIF Orientation = Top left

Head to the left (requires a 90 degree clockwise rotation) ...
FROM: EXIF Orientation = Right top
TO: EXIF Orientation = Top left

Head to the right (requires a 270 degree clockwise rotation) ...
FROM: EXIF Orientation = Left bottom
TO: EXIF Orientation = Top left

So, with Options-Properties-JPG/PCD/GIF-JPEG-Load: set not to
auto-rotate according to EXIF information, all the batch "Reset EXIF
orientation tag" setting did was erroneously set each picture to an EXIF
orientation of "Top left", which is not the correct result.

I will try the same batch "reset exif orientation tag", experiment with the
JPEG-Load set to auto rotate and report back promptly.

Donna

On 21 May 2008 16:08:41 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

Irfanview (Properties/Settings-JPG/PCD/GIF-Auto-rotate image),
although I'm not sure about doing it in batch mode.

Hi Bert,
I found the solution, with your help!
I could not have done it without you!

I don't remember seeing this anywhere in my googling, so, consider the
following a quickie tutorial for automatically rotating any number of
photographs, in batch mode, using Irfanview freeware.

HINT:
You must set THREE SETTINGS! Setting one or two alone will NOT
automatically rotate your images in batch mode; but, setting all three at
the same time _will_ automagically rotate all your images in batch mode!

You must set all three Irfanview 4.00 freeware options below ...
#1: "Options-Properties" to "Auto-rotate image according to EXIF info"
#2: "File-Batch conversion-Options" to "Keep original EXIF data"
#3: "File-Batch converstion-Options" to "Reset EXIF orientation tag"

Once you do this, now all your photographs will automagically be realigned
the way they should be, and their EXIF orientation flag will be set to "Top
left" for all the realigned files.

I do not know if this is a lossless rotation operation though.

Does anyone out there know if this automatic batch conversion with EXIF
orientation rotation is lossy or lossless?