I have a folder of images, several of which have an orientation of "left bottom" in the EXIF. When I display them in thumbnails view, they look fine. But when I double-click to view an individual image, it appears 90 degrees off-axis, and I have to hit the "R" key to get proper rotation. In Options > Properties/Settings > JPG / PCD / GIF, auto-rotate image is checked. How can I get the images to display properly in the main IrfanView window?
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First some advice. For image rotation you must make a clear choice whether to leave all your pictures as they were taken and always use the Irfanview Auto-rotate feature to display them the correct way up by using the EXIF orientation tag, or whether to permanently rotate and resave them the right way up. Having a mixture of these choices is nearly always fatal.
If you choose the second method to have your images permanently rotated, I would recommend that you use the JPG Lossless Rotation feature and select Auto Rotate in that dialog. That will do the job for you and automatically resave the images with the EXIF orientation tag reset to Top Left (the Default state where no further auto-rotation takes place).
Whatever you choose, Uncheck Reset EXIF orientation tag in the JPG save options, NOW! That option is only used to sort things out when you have not followed the above advice.
OK, how to sort things out when it has all gone wrong. If you have decided on the second choice, to have images permanently rotated, then uncheck Auto-rotate image in the Properties before you start. Now the image will be displayed how it really is. Use the R or L keys to rotate the image to the correct way up. Now is the time when you DO need to check Reset EXIF orientation tag in the JPG save options. You can leave it checked while you save each of the images after correcting them but remember to uncheck it after you finish and Save the settings.
If you make the first choice and want to restore images to how the camera left them it is a bit more complicated. If you have accidentally Reset the EXIF orientation tag to Top Left then you will have to use a program other than Irfanview to put that back to what it was. In your case however you appear to still have the original orientation tag so you can fix it with Irfanview. First have a look at the eight images below. You can click on each of them in turn to show them full size and then right click and Save the images if you want to keep them. Display them in Irfanview with Auto-rotate on and you will see that they all the right way up.
Now turn Auto-rotate off and you will see how the eight possible tags make the image appear. Note that the images show the correct name of the tag - Irfanview does not include the word "side" in the EXIF data for some reason. So number 8 is Left Bottom tag set. Remember which way that one faces and now display your image instead (auto-rotate still off) and rotate your image to face the same way. Now you can save the image (you still have Reset EXIF orientation tag unchecked, don't you) and it should be back how it was originally.
WARNING. I almost forgot to say. There is a nasty trap in Irfanview when using Auto-rotate IMHO.
If you take the first choice and keep the images as they were from the camera, then you will probably also choose to view them with Auto-rotate on. You should be aware that saving in Irfanview is WYSIWYG - what you are seeing is what will be saved - and what you are seeing is an auto-rotated image. So if you make an edit then you must turn Auto-rotate off before you re-save. Otherwise you will be saving a rotated image and next time what you will see is an image that has been auto-rotated twice. It will no longer be right way up. -
Many thanks for the thoroughly helpful response.Comment
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