Windows 10 auto-rotating jpeg thumbnails

Hello photo lovers,

Here’s my explanation of what’s happening.

Inside an image file, there is image data (the pixels), and then there is metadata (like shutter speed, Date Picture Taken, etc). Windows 10 is not actually rotating the image _data_ stored within the image file. It’s just displaying a rotated image. Window 10 (in the File Explorer program, and in the photo viewer) uses the metadata included in the image file to decide how to orient the image at display time.

As a side note, the orientation to use for display got put into the metadata by the camera. Modern cameras can know when they have been rotated and the camera puts that orientation info into the metadata.

Back to the problem. In a way, Windows 10 use of the orientation metadata is a great new feature, except for one thing. Most other programs/applications, like web browsers, do not use that metadata. So, the photos that looked correct in Windows 10, look incorrect in the other programs. In other programs the images look like they have not been rotated, because the image _data_ hasn’t been “rotated.”

Until the rest of the world catches up, and makes their applications use the metadata for display, you need some way to actually rotate the image _data_. (By the way, there can be some slight image degradation when you rotate the image data.) Older versions of Windows used to rotate the image data, but Window 10 doesn’t do that. It just changes the metadata. You need to use some other image program to rotate the image _data_ for those photos where you rotated the camera when you took the photo.

In my case, I use an old image editing program that I use to do the rotation of the image _data_, but it has the unfortunate side effect of losing all the metadata, including things like “Date Picture Taken.” I’m sure there must be some photo editing programs that could do the job better. Maybe Microsoft will recommend one.

Hope that helps.

Dan