Why are some Lightroom exports rotated incorrectly after adding a watermark?
Asked 9/25/2016
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2 answers
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I’m new to Lightroom CC and noticed a rotation problem when exporting JPEGs with a graphic watermark. Some of the original photos were shot in portrait orientation. In Windows and other apps, the original files first appear sideways and then rotate correctly, which makes me think they rely on EXIF orientation metadata.
Inside Lightroom, the thumbnails display correctly. But after I export the images, the exported files appear rotated incorrectly.
Is Lightroom stripping or mishandling the orientation metadata during export? How can I check whether the exported file has the wrong pixel rotation, the wrong EXIF orientation tag, or both?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
2
Either that or Lightroom is writing the images rotated in the correct orientation, but leaving the EXIF tags in place, causing software to rotate it wrong.
I would check what LR is writing using EXIFTool, and depending on what you see, look for options you can change in Lightroom to turn on or off exporting of whichever EXIF tags are at issue.
Originally by user25054. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user25054
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is most likely an EXIF orientation issue rather than Lightroom ignoring the image rotation itself.
Many JPEGs are stored “sideways” in pixel data and rely on an EXIF Orientation tag so software knows how to display them. If an exported file looks wrong, one likely cause is that Lightroom exported the pixels in the correct orientation but also left an orientation tag that tells other software to rotate it again.
A good way to confirm this is to inspect both the original and exported files with a metadata tool such as ExifTool. Check whether the exported image has:
- correctly rotated pixel data
- an EXIF Orientation tag still present
- an Orientation tag set to something other than normal
If that tag is wrong or unnecessary, look in Lightroom’s export/metadata options to see whether you can change what metadata is written on export.
So the key is to verify whether the problem is in the pixels, the EXIF tag, or both. Once you know that, the fix is usually adjusting Lightroom’s metadata export behavior.
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