Why are photos oriented wrong in PSA?

[Thomas_...@adobeforums.com]

Many of my portrait-oriented photos are displayed in PSA in landscape mode. When I try to rotate them back to their correct position, PSA says it can't because they are a not the right dimensions! Why can't PSA display the photos the way I created them?

[Jim_Jütte@adobeforums.com]

Thomas:

Can you tell us a little more about what you're doing including how you have
been importing the images etc. As much about the system, camera etc that you
can think of...

Cheers

[o3v3tz]

How PSA displays the photos depends on how the camera orients the photos and what fields are set by the camera in the metadata.

Some camera's photos display in portrait immediately in the PSA photo well but others need to be rotated once by the user.

What are the dimensions of a photo that will not rotate? What is the camera? Or was this a scanned photo? Exactly what is the text of the message from PSA?

It may be that the message is telling you that it can not do a jpreg lossless rotation but that it can do a rotation where it resaves the photo similar to an _edited file.

BarbO

[Thomas_...@adobeforums.com]

BarbO is right, it says that that it can rotate it if if resaves it as an edited image. But that seems like a terrible solution to me. For one thing, I will have further JPEG image quality losses. For another, I will have duplicate copies of my photos stored on my PC. And for another thing, it will take me hours of work to manually click on hundreds of photos and tell PSA to orient them correctly. All other photo indexing programs I have seen just show them the way they were saved by me.

Jim, to answer your question, my camera, a Canon 300D senses when I turn it 90 degrees and produces the image rotated. I process in Photoshop 8, which senses the rotation instruction and automatically rotates the image correctly when I edit it there. The problem arises with any images I have cropped. As soon as I do this, PSA rotates them back to the incorrect landscape mode.

[na...@adobeforums.com]

Thomas, welcome to The Orientation-Bug!

If you read through this forum, you'll see many complaints about how PSA handles images with the orientation flag set by the camera. This is a known bug.

As a workaround:

Import the images from your camera into PSA first, _before_ editing them with PS8. Once in PSA locate all portrait images (they should be displayed in the right orientation at that point), select them all (using Ctrl-mouse click) and rotate them all 90° left, then another 90° right. Now PSA will have rotated the actual image and clear the orientation flag. Now you can invoke PS8 from within PSA to edit the images or use the edit features of PSA (cropping etc.).

Alexander.
--
Athlon XP 1800+, 1 GB, WinXPpro, HP Photosmart 620, CanoScan D1250U2F, PSE v2.0.2 + PSA v2.0.1 (German)

[o3v3tz]

Alexander,

There is one part of this scenaio that still puzzles me.

Does PS8 leave the rotation flag set Rotate 90 or rotate the photo and set off the flag as PSA editing does? In either case, it seems to me that the PSA photo well display should be able to handle it (even with the known bug).

PSA photo well displays an orientation rotate 90 photo from my G5 in portrait mode; it does not get messed up until I go into PSA edit.

Thomas,

My interpretation is that you edited first in PS8 (including the crop) and then you imported to PSA. If you did the crop in PSA, please tell us.

For a problem photo, what does PSA show as dimensions and for the Orientation field below the camera make/model? What does Windows Explorer show as dimensions for this same photo?

Thomas and Alexander,

I believe that the workaround that Alexander described will avoid the problem for you. My questions are aimed to understanding your specific problem better so we know if there is any other circumvention and if this is a new variation of the problem that should be reported to Adobe.

BarbO

[na...@adobeforums.com]

Does PS8 leave the rotation flag set Rotate 90 or rotate the photo and
set off the flag as PSA editing does? In either case, it seems to me that
the PSA photo well display should be able to handle it (even with the
known bug).

I'd guess that PS 8 leaves the orientation flag intact. The reason why PSA cannot losslessly rotate the images after being edited with PS 8 is the cropping he mentioned.

My interpretation is that you edited first in PS8 (including the crop)
and then you imported to PSA

I assumed he did just that.

Alexander.

[o3v3tz]

Alexander,

I'd guess that PS 8 leaves the orientation flag intact

That does seem reasonable. But if it is correct, then why does cropped make any difference to PSA recognizing the orientation flag for displaying the photo in the photo well?

I do understand that cropped does make a difference in the ability to do a lossless jpeg rotation when Thomas attempts the rotation - just not why it impacts the display of the thumbnail in the photo well.

BarbO

[Jim_Jütte@adobeforums.com]

Just jumping on this late in the game Alexander and Barbara... can you
provide me with a specific scenario (set of steps) that you think would
adequately test this out... I'll carry them out and then we'll all know for
sure.

Cheers

[o3v3tz]

Jim,

I think that this takes both a Digital Rebel portrait mode photo and PS CS to recreate the sequence. Another camera that sets the orientation indicator might be ok but am not sure.

I think that the sequence was that he edited and cropped a portrait mode photo from his Digitl Rebel in PS CS first, then imported to PSA. This photo that had been cropped appeared sideways in the PSA photo well and when he tried to rotate PSA gave the message lossless rotation not possible.

From originator

Why can't PSA display the photos the way I created them?

My variation
If PS CS retains the orientation indicator after the edit/crop why can't PSA use it to display the cropped photo in portrait mode?

BarbO

[na...@adobeforums.com]

But if it is correct, then why does cropped make any difference to PSA
recognizing the orientation flag for displaying the photo in the photo
well?

The difference is when you try to rotate the cropped picture in PSA, as you won't be able to do it losslessly anymore, unless you're _very_ lucky and cropped to a 16 by 16 size by chance.

Alexander.
--
1533 MHz, 1 GB, XP Pro, Canon Ixus 430 (aka S410), CanoScan D1250U2F, German PSE v2.0.2 + PSA v2.0.1

[o3v3tz]

Alexander,

I do understand that the cropped image may not conform to lossless rotation requirements.

Because this side discussion between you and I is really a discussion of how PSA does or should work internally, perhaps it is not productive to continue. Since I started the side discussion, I will close it - unless the thread originator asks additional questions.

BarbO