Question / Feature Request: Autofix/Correct orientation

[boustanihani]

Question / Feature Request: Autofix/Correct orientation

Can we pass an argument to let Exiftool autocorrect/fix the Orientation a an image?
If not, please consider this as a feature request

This is what photoshop does when we simply open an image and overwrite it:

- If the JPG contains an EXIF orientation tag (common in photos from smartphones/cameras), Photoshop reads this tag and automatically rotates the image for display/editing.
- The image appears correctly oriented in Photoshop, even if the original pixel data is stored sideways or upside-down.
- When you save (using File > Save or Ctrl+S/Cmd+S), Photoshop saves the current visual state of the image (i.e., the rotated orientation).
- The EXIF orientation tag is removed (set to 1, meaning "no rotation needed") because the pixels are now permanently stored in the correct orientation.
- Result: The file is rewritten with fixed orientation, and the tag is stripped. Other software (browsers, viewers) will display it correctly without relying on EXIF.

[StarGeek]

Exiftool only edits metadata. It cannot affect image data, which is what you are asking.

Additionally, what you are doing is a destructive recompress which deletes image data (see Reddit ELI5, Know Your Meme, and various More JPEG sites). This results in a "blockier" image with compression artifacts.

Example:


Instead of loading and re-saving, look for a program that does "JPEG Transforms". JPEGs can be losslessly rotated as long as the width/height is divisible by 8 or 16 (varies by JPEG). If you're on Windows, then Irfanview with the "JPG_TRANSFORM" plugin can do this. XNView can also do JPEG transforms and is multi-platform.

[boustanihani]

I need to automate this on a server. Do you possibly know a good node.js library for autorotation?

[StarGeek]

I do not.

But all JPEG transform programs are based upon jpegtran, and you might see if that's available on your server. jhead is a program that will use jpegtran to correctly rotate the images for you and is also available on some servers.

[boustanihani]

jhead looks interesting, so if I do "jhead -autorot image.jpg" will the image get autorotated and will all metadata (EXIF, IPTC, XMP, etc.) remain preserved?

[StarGeek]

According to the jhead source code, when it calls jpegtran, it uses the -copy all option, which will copy all the APP## jpeg blocks, which includes EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata, as well as other types.

[boustanihani]

I ended up using: https://sharp.pixelplumbing.com/api-operation/#autoorient

await sharp(input).autoOrient().toFile(output);

And finally copying the metadata back to the autorotated file..