rotation of nef files

[=RS=]

I like the ability to open raw files in 8.1 directly, but am running
into a problem with it:
I am shooting with a 10.5 lens and a D80, 6 shots around + zenith +
nadir. All on my NN3. The downward nadir pics are recognized as
horizontal ones, while all the others are imported as vertical into
Aperture. Now the different orientations lead to PTGui complaining
about it and producing strange results.
How do you guys rotate the nef files individually? As there still
seems no way to do that in PTGui directly, is there another way in
Aperture or the system itself (10.5.6).

Any help would be very much appreciated.

A happy new year to all of you!
Ralf

[John Houghton]

The most reliable and easiest way of dealing with this problem is to
turn off the auto rotate feature in the camera.

John

[PTGui Support]

Hi Ralf,

I'm sorry but I don't have a solution for this; the rotation is done
inside dcraw.

So you would need either to turn off the rotation sensor in your camera,
or rotate the files yourself. Probably this means you will need to
convert to TIFF.

Joost

[=RS=]

On 3 Jan., 11:04, PTGui Support <supp...@ptgui.com> wrote:
> Hi Ralf,
>
> I'm sorry but I don't have a solution for this; the rotation is done
> inside dcraw.
>
> So you would need either to turn off the rotation sensor in your camera,
> or rotate the files yourself. Probably this means you will need to
> convert to TIFF.
>
> Joost
>

Thanks for your answer,
just to enlighten me a bit more:
Why isn't individual rotation of images possible in PTGui? It's not
working for any picture format, so it couldn't be a dcraw thing alone?

Ralf

[PTGui Support]

=RS= wrote:
> Thanks for your answer,
> just to enlighten me a bit more:
> Why isn't individual rotation of images possible in PTGui? It's not
> working for any picture format, so it couldn't be a dcraw thing alone?
>
> Ralf

You are right; of course PTGui could be modified to apply individual
rotation to source images. But i'm reluctant to implement this since it
partially duplicates the functionality of the roll parameter, leading to
confusion. Rather I'd prefer to modify PTGui to use the diagonal field
of view of source images so you could mix arbitrary rotated images; this
is something I plan to do some day.

Joost

[=RS=]

On 5 Jan., 10:10, PTGui Support <supp...@ptgui.com> wrote:

>
> You are right; of course PTGui could be modified to apply individual
> rotation to source images. But i'm reluctant to implement this since it
> partially duplicates the functionality of the roll parameter, leading to
> confusion. Rather I'd prefer to modify PTGui to use the diagonal field
> of view of source images so you could mix arbitrary rotated images; this
> is something I plan to do some day.
>
> Joost

Now that would be a great thing! Can't wait for that "some day" :)

Ralf

[John Houghton]

Joost wrote:

> Rather I'd prefer to modify PTGui to use the diagonal field
> of view of source images so you could mix arbitrary rotated images; this
> is something I plan to do some day.

Good idea, yet it doesn't solve the problem completely. It's not
simply a question of landscape v portrait. The the auto rotation
sensor delivers unreliable data when the camera is pointing vertically
up or down. As a consequence, an image in apparently the correct
orientation (landscape or portrait) can actually be upside down, which
means the shift parameters are not consistent.

John

[ozbigben]

While I'm still thinking of EXIF data.... You could modify the EXIF
data of the images so that they all have the same orientation.
EXIFTool <http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/> can read/
write NEF files, and this can be setup as a drag and drop operation.

[=RS=]

Thanks for pointing me at exiftool. I have tried to use it on
something else before. Now I have spent another 4 hours trying to get
my head around on how I could achieve this somewhat simple picture
rotation. And I have to admit: I just don't get it! Me thinks I am too
stupid for that kind of programs without a nice GUI.
Do you know a source with searchable instructions on exiftool other
then the homepage, forum and terminal "man"? I think I am still
missing the whole concept of this....

Ralf

[ozbigben]

Well, it partly depends on what tag PTGui is using to set orientation,
but let's assume that it's the most obvious one... Orientation

Try this with a COPY of your images first.

Make a copy of the EXIFTool application and rename it to "exiftool(-
orientation=).exe"
Drag and drop your images onto this file. This will remove the
orientation information from the NEF which would be the simplest
option.

Other instructions:
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/#running

Embedded documentation: Run "exiftool(-k).exe /?" from the command
prompt.

Commandline utilities are not always the easiest to learn but many are
quite powerful/useful. This is also a handy utility for adding
copyright info to images

Ben

[PTGui Support]

You are right, there's still a problem with the d/e parameters which are
orientation dependent.

But at least with the Canon cameras I tried, the image will never be
upside down even if you rotate the camera 180 degrees. And when pointing
down (say pitch < -80) it will always be in landscape.

For portrait images there's still an ambiguity, but we can assume that
most portrait pictures will be taken with the camera rotated
counterclockwise (so the shutter button is at the top).

Joost

[John Houghton]

On Jan 6, 11:48 am, PTGui Support <supp...@ptgui.com> wrote:
> But at least with the Canon cameras I tried, the image will never be
> upside down even if you rotate the camera 180 degrees. And when pointing
> down (say pitch < -80) it will always be in landscape.

Joost, I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I have many Canon RAW
images of zeniths and nadirs taken on a NN3/NN5 which have an
orientation parameter of 90 degrees, when all the horizontal shots are
the expected -90 degrees.

John

[=RS=]

Thanks so much for this insight!
Although your .exe examples implies you are using a PC while I am on a
Mac. But I won't give up and will try to get it somehow :)

Ralf

[GG]

Another option is to use ViewNX which is a free download from Nikon. I
believe that if you rotate a nef file in ViewNx, the exif metadata is
changed and hence the rotation is recognizable by other applications
in case you want to use non-Nikon raw converter. However, just as John
Houghton, I think that turning off auto rotate function is the best
solution.
GG

[Roger D. Williams]

On Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:38:07 +0900, GG <pma...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Another option is to use ViewNX which is a free download from Nikon. I
> believe that if you rotate a nef file in ViewNx, the exif metadata is
> changed and hence the rotation is recognizable by other applications
> in case you want to use non-Nikon raw converter. However, just as John
> Houghton, I think that turning off auto rotate function is the best
> solution.
> GG

This is not a good idea if you intend to use DX0 as your raw converter,
unless you use DXO first and THEN change the exif metadata. DXO takes
any prior modification of exif data as evidence that the NEF file (or
whatever) has already been processed and will refuse to process it file
itself!

Roger W.

Work: www.adex-japan.com

[Erik Krause]

=RS= wrote:

> Thanks for pointing me at exiftool. I have tried to use it on
> something else before. Now I have spent another 4 hours trying to get
> my head around on how I could achieve this somewhat simple picture
> rotation. And I have to admit: I just don't get it! Me thinks I am too
> stupid for that kind of programs without a nice GUI.

A bit hidden on the exiftool page:
http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/foto/exif/exiftoolgui.htm

--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[ozbigben]

There is a Mac version as well.

"The OS X package installs the ExifTool command-line application and
libraries in /usr/bin. After installing, type "exiftool" in a Terminal
window to run exiftool and read the application documentation."

[Erik Krause]

PTGui Support wrote:

> I'm sorry but I don't have a solution for this; the rotation is done
> inside dcraw.

Really? Could it be switched off with "-j Don't stretch or rotate raw
pixels" (or what does this dcraw parameter)?

[=RS=]

On 7 Jan., 21:46, ozbigben <ozbig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a Mac version as well.
>
> "The OS X package installs the ExifTool command-line application and
> libraries in /usr/bin. After installing, type "exiftool" in a Terminal
> window to run exiftool and read the application documentation."
>
> On Jan 7, 9:49 am, "=RS=" <froggy...@gmx.net> wrote:
>

Thanks,
I know there is a OS X version and I have it installed!
And running it in terminal and having a documentation that is not
searchable nor scrollable is driving me nuts :)
I would love to have a GUI like on the PC side... but that is probably
just wishful thinking...

So still: if someone knows of a full documentation other then in the
terminal (maybe a pdf file?) I would still be interested in a link to
that.

Ralf

[=RS=]

I am on a Mac :(

[Erik Krause]

=RS= wrote:

> > A bit hidden on the exiftool page:http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/foto/exif/exiftoolgui.htm
>

> I am on a Mac :(

Then perhaps you find something in the OSX section of
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/#links

[Erik Krause]

=RS= wrote:

> So still: if someone knows of a full documentation other then in the
> terminal (maybe a pdf file?) I would still be interested in a link to
> that.

The documentation is online as well:
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/exiftool_pod.html