Commons talk:Rotation

I mentioned this on the Village Pump. There was a pointer to this page as a "FAQ" regarding the Wikimedia sideways media emergency. I stated that the page doesn't address what I believe most users would consider the most obvious questions: 1)Why was something implemented that would suddenly make many thousands of correctly oriented images in use in Wikipedia articles and other Wikimedia projects turn sideways? 2)How soon will this be fixed? -- Infrogmation (talk) 17:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

There's no good answer to 1); the developers thought it would be a good idea I suppose (Bugzilla: 6672). Point 2) is addressed in the nutshell. Do you have a suggestion on making it clearer/more prominent? Rd232 (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Also see User_talk:Rotatebot#Rotation_on_Wikipedia. --Saibo (Δ) 20:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

One may also wonder 3) Why was it was sprung as a surprise? Had the bot masters been told, they could have cooked up something to repair the discrepancies beforehand instead of making an emergency of it, right? Jim.henderson (talk) 01:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not understand what you mean. --Saibo (Δ) 03:30, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay; been busy. I mean, if I'm understanding correctly, most of our millions of pictures are no problem. Many thousands, however, were improperly turned before uploading. Before the change, they were looking right, but right or wrong depended on whether our viewing software uses or does not use the EXIF orientation data. So, if the viewing change were known ahead of time, it's a matter of checking each picture to see whether using the EXIF data will change the orientation as viewed. If yes, then adjust EXIF or whatever, so that the picture's observed orientation will be the same in both the old and the new software version. A few people would squawk over the pictures suddenly popping up on their list of recent changes, but without creating the media emergency we have seen. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The thing is: we should not reset the EXIF Orientation information of all images because for some it is correct. As you can see at Commons:Bots/Work_requests#Maintenance_category_for_files_with_EXIF_rotation_other_than_0_degrees some users are already at the task to fix all(!) wrong images systematically. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 19:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Cannot a bot predict if a picture will be wrong (by comparing the rendering of a picture with the old mediawiki version and with the new mediawiki version) ? Should not this sort of bot be run, and the list of wrong files be passed to rotatebot, instead of requesting users to call rotatebot manually by sticking the {{Rotate}} template ? Teofilo (talk) 18:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC) (I duplicate this question to COM:VP#Image rotation - I am desperate. Teofilo (talk) 19:02, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

See also my reply just above ↑. For some images this change is just right (those images for which no one cared after upload ;-) ). I think it is best not to discuss mass/bot changes here but instead at the Commons:Bots/Work_requests section - if still needed. By the way: you mention "manually by sticking" - do you know that this is not fully manual with RotateLink? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 19:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC) PS: please try to choose one section to discuss in. ;) --Saibo (Δ) 19:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Alas, being too lazy to sort out the long discussion among experts, I'll just grumble a little more here and fall silent. If 50,000 pictures only needed zeroing (or "one"ing) their EXIF orientation flag but this would be a bad move for 4000, then it should have been done automatically to all and the few be manually found and reverted or marked for more appropriate action. But maybe a representative sample showed a large rather than small minority would need to be reverted, or I'm failing to see some more salient point. Anyway with the search by eye and bot turning already far progressed it's too late for regrets but always time to grumble vaguely that more attentive minds than mine should have found a better way. Jim.henderson (talk) 05:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

List of images

Hi folks, Ariel made me aware of this list of images, which those working on bots may find useful (note, that file may go away in a week or so). We're sorting out how we can help out with the automated fixing of these images. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 16:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I suggest to keep the mass fixing / bot / systematic approach discussion at Commons:Bots/Work_requests#Maintenance_category_for_files_with_EXIF_rotation_other_than_0_degrees to avoid a split-up. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 20:14, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"A week or two"?

That's what the template says, but its been two months & the great majority of affected images are still on their sides. What a fiasco! Can someone who speaks good English & understands where we are update and rewrite the template, which as it stands is a)blatently incorrect and b) largely incomprehensible. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm.. which template? --Saibo (Δ) 00:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The nutshell at the top of Commons:Rotation. Rd232 (talk) 06:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah - that is no template. However, I tried to make it a bit clearer: it is one or two weeks as of now - not starting to count in October... --Saibo (Δ) 20:50, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

What "now" is meant in the nutshell? Is it "now" when written, or when read? Should it be made absolute, as in "wait until the backlog is cleared, near the beginning of January"? Jim.henderson (talk) 14:42, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

When read - a rolling two weeks. ;) According to User:Umherirrender/EXIF rotation there are 21321 files left. That means with the current bot speed about 10 days. But it may take longer or shorter... Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I've rewritten the nutshell. I hope people find it correct, comprehensible and most importantly effective at deflecting upset editors away from those who are trying to fix things. WereSpielChequers (talk) 00:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - see my edit comment (I have changed it much again). Hope it is still in a way you think is comprehensible. I also think it is important to mention RotateLink as the nutshell should be a summary of the page and he RotateLink is the essential topic. --Saibo (Δ) 01:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Wrong and misleading

Typically commons. There are countless Images here at commons that in fact would need Rotation. But all what this pages are about is not really Rotation, but rather Orientation or flipping (at least man pnmflip is about that). Rarely to read here what it is: 90°-Rotations. Looks like commons does have nothing about or for rotation of all values. So the only thing is a small script i just wrote, while i did not find a something to do that, at least no CLI-tool. --Itu (talk) 18:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Wrong and misleading 2

1. In fact most modern browsers support Exif-rotation, but they do it not on thumbs only on native opened images (like here on Mediawiki image clicking).
2. In fact Mediawiki supports full Exif-rotation, the compare with SVG is wrong and fully misleading.

• The actual bug link is dead.
• Maybe put this very good and helpful description of the whole problem under "See also": The most evil feature ever conceived: the Exif Orientation Tag

Please correct the text. Thanks ↔ User: Perhelion (Commons: = crap?)  10:41, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Flip?

Have we ever considered doing something similar for horizontally flipping an image? This is a pretty common issue with bulk scans on old photo libraries from negatives. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Good idea! It also happens sometimes when you use the front facing camera on phones. Ainali (talk) 21:41, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Rotation of .tiff format images

Is there a restriction against the rotation of .tiff images? I have been told that there is a "not supposed to do that" restriction. If there is a restriction, it would be helpful to note it on this page along with the reason for it. Thanks. Deanlaw (talk) 13:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)