Windows 7 not auto rotating pictures

Anonymous
2010-04-28T18:17:17+00:00

I use Nik and Adobe software to edit photos and currently use Nikon Transfer to import photos, these programs read the exif auto rotate imformation stored by my nikon D80.

My problem is that when I view my pictures in Window explorer or Windows live photo gallery they are not auto rotated to portrait mode, it has become apparent that these programs are unable to to read the exif information.

I have tried rotating to portrait mode in explorer and photo gallery only to discover that when I view these pics in another non microsoft program that they revert back to landscape mode,  I have also used win 7 autoplay to import pics and they are rotated correctly using win7 programs but not in other programs I use.

Is there a current fix for this problem?

Using Win7 64bit

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2011-11-21T14:32:29+00:00

Hi,

 

Some photo applications will display a photo as rotated which is referred to as soft rotating by reading metadata on the photo itself. Although the Photo Gallery rotates photos on import using this same metadata, many a times it doesn't also rotate all un-rotated photos in their collection for them automatically, or at least display the photos as rotated like some other applications do.

The reason that the Photo Gallery rotates on import, but not after that is because there are a number of applications that don't correctly update the photo metadata after rotating. This metadata is supposed to reflect the state of the photo, but if the photo is rotated without updating this metadata, another application using this metadata to determine whether or not to rotate it will incorrectly rotate the photo.

During import, the photos are coming directly from the camera, at which point the integrity of this metadata is not in question. So although it's safe for the Photo Gallery to rely on this metadata to make an accurate rotate decision during import, as soon as the photo makes its way to the PC, any other application could interact with the photo, and potentially corrupt this metadata. Therefore, the Photo Gallery doesn't soft rotate at this point.

 

Regards,

Syed N – Microsoft Support

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The great part of Microsoft's answer is this explanation and this is how it reads to me; well if other programs don't read and write Exif data correctly, Windows and MS products shouldn't either.  Don't cater to the bad programs, program to a higher standard and then people will make the choice not to use these ones that don't work correctly, or allow your software to update or correct the metadata to repair these photos with bad metadata, making your product superior and the product people actually want to use.

Microsoft, any fixes expected for Windows 7 Explorer and Photoviewer coming soon?

Come on Microsoft, get your act together, there is a reason people are leaving you so quickly for Apple!

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-12-27T18:30:46+00:00

    The problem is in Windows 7, explorer and photo gallery they simply do not read the EXIF data correctly, also as I find out now, when you manualy rotate using windows apps the EXIF file becomes corrupted, I had no issues like I am having now with xp.

    Now I have another gripe, just got a nikon coolpix for xmas, took alot of pics of the family during the holidays, the folks wanted to look at them so I inserted the sd card and viewed them in photo gallery without transfering over to cpu, photo gallery did not soft read the orientation of the verticle pics so I manually rotated, all was fine until I put the card back into the camera, Big Mistake on my part since I started this thread, the camera will no longer view these photos that I manually rotated, error message states the the file has been corrupted.

    I have now removed photo gallery from my computer, set auto play to open a non microsoft program to view pictures, I will not use a microsoft program for photos until theyfix this issue.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-12-27T21:19:31+00:00

    I have no idea why people get away from the cameras software, it's some thing I may never fully understand, what better program will identify it's self that the cameras software ?

    I proposed you question as the answer, because it really is imo.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-12-27T21:40:14+00:00

    I have no idea why people get away from the cameras software, it's some thing I may never fully understand, what better program will identify it's self that the cameras software ?

    I proposed you question as the answer, because it really is imo.

    Well, assuming you will own more than one camera in your lifetime will you open a different program depending upon which time in your life you took the picture?  20 years from now will that software still be around when you're using Windows 17?

    For my personal use I tend to use another photo viewer as my primary photo viewer.  However, I happen to be a Windows Media Center users and the whole photo portion of Windows Media Center is not really usable because it doesn't rotate properly.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-12-27T22:01:29+00:00

    Dissed and bgriffis,

    I aggree with both your comments, I am now currently using Nikon software to import and view my pics, I wish that photo gallery worked properly because it has the ability to sort by folders and dates, features that nikon software does not have.

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