Photos display rotated through 90 degrees

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Captain Slocum

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Can anybody explain why my photos display turned on their sides? It is not all of them, though all TIFFs and all PSD do. Some JPEGS and some RAW do. There seems to be no ryme or reason to it, just random. I am using 2.3C but 2.2 was the same. I have 3.3GB of usable memory on a fast pentium 4 processor and approx 26,''' images in the catalogue. Any one else having this problem? Is it perhaps the graphics card? (Radeon 96'', latest driver).
Regards, John
 
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Just to clarify my post above:

It is the thumbnails that display on their side when in any view.
If loupe view is selected with one of these turned images, the image displays on its side for a while as the preview renders then turns correctly.
As far as I can tell it is totally random. The only pattern I can see is that TIFFS and PSD and images that have been worked on in Develop are more likely to be turned, but not exclusively.
The ones which are turned one day will not be the next, then will be again another day. Sometimes a whole bunch will turn while I am looking at them in Library.
I have tested the integrity of the DB.

I have experimented with loading backups and this is what I find:
As a backup loads in to memory and starts to display the thumbnails, at first a folder with a large number of images might show all the thumbs correctly, then as more and more are loaded in (the number indicating how many files in the folder increases), some of the thumbs go sideways.

As I said, I have a fairly fast PC which copes seamlessly with intensive video editing using Premier Pro, Encore, After Effects etc. and have never had memory or redraw problems before.

Regards.
 
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Just discovered something else. If I turn any of these photos the right way round using the turn arrows underneath the thumbnail, next time I view them they are upside down!
 
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I'll make a guess.

I think you haven't rendered previews. I think the embedded previews in these files are sideways, but the rotation tags are intact. When you render previews, LR renders it correctly because the tags are intact.

If I'm right, the solution is to select everything, and choose Render Standard Previews from the Library/Previews menu. Then go out and take some pictures, and all will be well when you get back.
 
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Hi Mark, thanks for the reply.

I tried what you suggested on a few images here and there and it makes no difference.

I have found that if I open the image in Photoshop cs4, either from within Lightroom or directly by dragging the file from Explorer into PS, then the image is still rotated, but if I open it using Windows Picture and Fax viewer it is the right way round.

I also notice that some images have an exclamation mark which when clicked says there is a mismatch between metadata, do I want to overwrite or load from disc. However it makes no difference to the rotation which ever I choose, and in any case the exclamation mark appears on some non-rotated images.

Could the update from 2.2 to 2.3RC have caused these problems?

There are many thousands of these rotated images scattered throughout the folders, so I don't see how I could have done it by mistake. And some are now appearing upside down! Might these be photos I have manually turned? I have spent several days importing and keywording these photos and am getting a bit concerned.

Regards, John
 
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Did you use Windows Picture and Fax viewer before to rotate them at some point? It is preferable to make the rotation within Lightroom...
 
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Hello Denis,

No, I never use it normally, I was just trying various ways of trying to diagnose where the problem was. I have not opened or altered any of the images in any other application at all.

John
 
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Sure Denis, but that makes no difference to the rotation. And why does LR tell me they have been altered in an another app when they haven't? Is it thinking that 2.2 and 2.3R are different apps?

By the way, in case you were wondering, there is no way I rotated those images myself by selecting a whole bunch unwittingly and then rotating one. There are thousands of them in dozens of different folders not linked by any keywords or other attribute, so as far as I can see it is not possible for them to all have been selected at once.

John
 
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Not sure what you mean. I built the catalogue in 2.2 then installed 2.3RC. It installed over the top of 2.2. I haven't used 2.2 since. According to Adobe I have to uninstall 2.3RC completely and reinstall 2.2 if I want to revert so I haven't tried it. In any case, it would make no difference, I still have 2.2 on my laptop and the photos which are rotated on my PC are rotated in that when I import them.
 
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Hi Captain Slocum,

Ok, so let's make sure we're straight on this... Some of these are files direct from camera, not having been through any other program first - is that right?

What happens if you import these files ('add to catalog at existing location') into a clean catalog (not deleting them from the current catalog) - do they still do it?
 
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OK. I tought both 2.2 and 2.3RC were living separately...

Something come to my mind... Do you by any chance have a Fuji camera?

You do not tell us much about you system. Can you please as the others in this forum add your signature with software/system/camera/OS/browser specs? It is easy! Just go to the "User CP" link under the LR logo top of this page. Take inspiration from others' signatures troughout the forums...
 
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Victoria - To answer your first question: Most, possibly all, of the rotated photos are ones I have had for some time before I got Lightroom. Importantly, after importing them into 2.2, they all displayed correctly for a fortnight. Then they started to rotate (not sure to be honest if they started to do this before or after updating to 2.3RC) and I started to get the "altered in another app" warning, but they have not been near another app since I imported them. As I ventured before, does 2.3RC think 2.2 is another app?

To answer your second: As I said in a previous post, if I import some of the rotated photos into a new cataloque, using 2.2, on a different computer, they are still turned. From which I deduce the actual photo contains the rotation instruction not just the catalogue data.

Denis - I have never used a Fuji. And yes, I will put my signature on tomorrow - off to bed now as it is 11pm here.

Thank you very much both of you for your efforts and interest .
 
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No, 2.3 doesn't think 2.2 is another app.

This sounds like an issue whereby the image has been rotated in another program, but still contains a rotation tag from the camera, and therefore it's getting confused.

If you correct the rotation, and then select all and hit Ctrl-S to write the metadata to the file, *hopefully* it won't keep reoccuring. I'd also render previews, as that may be at work here too. Select all in Grid view > Library > Previews > Render Standard Previews.
 
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Just as an aside, is it possible these files are imported as Raw+JPG ?

I encounter some rotational weirdness, in the very few folders I have accidentally imported that way, (and haven't yet fixed, by reimporting).
 
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Victoria - I have not opened any of the photos in another app since the time they were all displaying correctly so unless the computer pixies did a bit of editing in the night I cannot see how they could have been altered.

I have already made a start rotating the photos as you suggest, but it is such a long task. The rotated images are completely randomly scattered throughout hundreds of folders. I just finished correcting 1,2'' images, total time 45 mins. I have 28,''' images imported so far - you work it out! I just wanted to be sure that they wouldn't all go pear shaped on me again, by trying to understand why.

Anyway, thanks for your help, I think I will just have to put it down to "one of those things" and fingers crossed. Hope you are not snowed in in Southampton like we are here in the Forest of Dean. Or better still hope you are snowed in with lots of food, drink and videos!

Brad - An interesting thought as indeed I had imported some photos as RAW+JPEG (one of the things I like about Lightroom is I no longer need to do this) but when I checked, the rotated images are a mixture of RAW, JPEG and PSD, with only a few RAW+JPEG

Conclusion so far:
Was this pilot error? I cannot for the life of me see how I could have accidentally rotated thousands of images which are in no way connected by any attribute, keyword, folder, metadata etc. But the way LR allows three levels of selection (unselected, selected, and "most selected") and does not follow the normal Windows behaviour of deselecting all other files when you click on one is unfamiliar to Windows users, and it is quite easy to accidentally apply actions to files you thought were not selected but are.
 
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A quick rotation tip - use the Painter tool, set to Rotation, and a quick dab at each of the photos that need rotating will do the job.

Snow - one inch of snow brought the city to a standstill for a couple of days, but we're back to wet dreariness now.

Conclusion - anything's possible!
 
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My point is that for a Windows user (and maybe for a Mac user too, I don't know) the selection methods used by LR take some getting used to (I think they're great, but different). When you use the painter tool on a selected photo it still applies it to ALL selected photos, not just the one you spray on. But at least it takes a more deliberate action, so perhaps I will turn the rotation arrows off.

Anyway, in the last three weeks I have gone from distrust through interest to absolute love - I think LR is a truly useful app that is worth the money for the printing and web modules alone.

As well as a photographer, I am a web and print designer and I love the way you only ever need one original copy of the photo and work on it non-destructively - with my previous workflow I was for ever losing track of the various related PSD, TIFF, PDF and web ready JPEG copies.

It suffers I think from a lack of documentation from Adobe - some simple recipes for various workflows would be a good idea to get people started and show the sheer breadth of the programme.

Regards
 
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A tip for you - to deselect, click on the grey area surrounding the thumbnail. Once you get that, the rest falls into place a little more easily!

And when you want to use the Painter tool, deselect all of the images first. You can apply the Painter tool to multiple images just by dragging the cursor across them, which is quicker than selecting and deselecting images.
 
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