Main Site Have file upload obey EXIF orientation tags on photos

[hara-surya]

Title says it all. I upload a picture from my phone and it's rotated 90 degrees in the wrong direction despite literally every other program I use, and site I upload it to, not having a problem with it.

The EXIF orientation tags date from like a decade before FurAffinity was started in the first place. The fact it doesn't obey them is a mind blowing oversight.

 

[hara-surya]

And, part of why I posted this, is because if a picture uses it then it is extremely hard to remove it and orient it correctly because obeying the tag is assumed by image editing software.

The method that must be use is translating (image processing term) the image 90 degrees, though in Windows Explorer there's a "Rotate Counter/Clockwise" right-click menu item on the icon that does it. I didn't know about that until after spending 30 minutes in Affinity Photo and Google trying to find a fix. (Google kept pointing me to server-side or bulk processing solutions.)

 

[Stratelier]

translating (image processing term) the image 90 degrees

"Translation" has so many specific (different) usages it's not even worth correcting how wrong of a term it is to be using.

The main problem here is which image software you are using to do the correction with, and whether it actually did the correction or not. Unfortunately the only way to verify for sure is to have a program that (1) displays and edits EXIF tags on a file, or (2) ignores the EXIF orientation entirely.

 

[hara-surya]

"Translation" has so many specific (different) usages it's not even worth correcting how wrong of a term it is to be using.

Rotating the image data using matrix math and the re-rasterizing it in the new orientation, as opposed to simply changing a tag. (At some point in the caveman days I learned the basics of how to do it in a university computer math class.)

The main problem here is which image software you are using to do the correction with, and whether it actually did the correction or not. Unfortunately the only way to verify for sure is to have a program that (1) displays and edits EXIF tags on a file, or (2) ignores the EXIF orientation entirely.

Let's see... I used The GIMP, Affinity Photo, Photoshop, iPhotos and Windows Photos. Care to tell me what I should be using? They all obey the EXIF rotation tag to display the image and use it to rotate because it's an industry standard for that function.

For that matter, every other site I upload the image to has no problems with setting it to the right rotation because it's an industry standard for that function.

This is an obvious and glaring bug in FurAffinity's image processing backend.

 

[Stratelier]

For GIMP specifically, it doesn't let you edit all metadata but does record it nonetheless (Image menu > Metadata > View); the specific tag is Exif.Image.Orientation. When re-exporting an image, GIMP will include all EXIF metadata (including orientation) if the corresponding option is set during export (which is default).

More usefully, GIMP should notify you upon loading that the file contains an EXIF orientation tag. (Unless you've disabled this prompt...) If you tell GIMP to rotate the image then the orientation tag is removed. Otherwise, the tag is preserved and may be re-exported, even if you manually corrected the image.

 

[hara-surya]

So what about Photoshop - THE industry standard photo editing tool - not rotating it to FurAffinity standards? Going to nitpick that one? How about the fact DeviantArt, Facebook, Imgur, Instagram and Twitter don't have issues with the photo? Going to nitpick that one?

Literally no other site I've uploaded this image to have a problem with it being incorrectly rotated because the EXIF rotation tag was developed 20 years ago and everyone obeys it... except FurAffinity.

How about you just admit that FurAffinity's implementation is broken and get on with it.

I shouldn't have to run a snapshot of my dog from my iPhone through any other piece of software in order for it to display properly on FurAffinity. It. Should. Just. Work.

 

[hara-surya]

I'm betting what happens is when an image is uploaded to FA the first thing their software does is strip EXIF data before doing other manipulation. Considering the risks of PID stored in EXIF it's an understandable precaution. The problem is that the iPhone uses that tag for image rotation rather than simply rotate the actual data to the orientation of the camera. Other phones rotate the data. Actual stand-alone camera can go either way. Neither method is wrong because most image manipulation software and renderers know what to do with it when they see it. (I'd argue using the tag for rotation is more correct because it preserves the image data as the chip saw it, as opposed to the device's estimation as to how it should be oriented.)

 

[quoting_mungo]

Care to tell me what I should be using?

IIRC https://pixlr.com/ will work, though it’s been a while and even if it used to it’s quite possible it’s changed since.

Otherwise, the simplest way to make sure you get an image that’s physically rotated is selecting and copying the whole canvas and pasting it into a fresh document.

Not saying any of this is a reason not to change the way the site treats those photos, just suggesting workarounds that should, well, work.

 

[hara-surya]

My workaround is an image rotation option in the right-click menu in Windows Explorer. It works fine for when I'm uploading from Windows, which is a vast majority of the time. (I'm not about to get started on trying to FA on mobile, mostly because at the moment DeviantArt is being a poster child on how to do it wrong.)

I'm not just thinking for my own use, but other people who might not have that option.

 

[Stratelier]

So what about Photoshop - THE industry standard photo editing tool - not rotating it to FurAffinity standards?

Why would "THE" industry standard conform to anything but itself, least of all a tiny, niche website like FA?