Quote Hi all,

My 16:9 projects include jpgs that are taken in portrait mode mixed with 4:3 landscape jpgs and short snippets of video (MOVs). I use PD to make the landscape jpgs fit the 16:9 screen format by grabbing the left and right handles on the jpg and moving them to fit the 16:9 display. I make no size changes to the portrait jpgs. I then set the project up with transitions and modify some jpgs with colour enhancements and magic motion. It all looks good on preview. I save the project.

Next day I reload the project and find that many (most - but not all) of the portrait jpgs are trashed. The display stays in the correct portrait mode, but the jpg within is rotated 90 degrees clockwise and is obviously distorted. I have to go through the entire 45min project, remove the trashed portrait jpgs and re-insert them, and then make all the modifications again. This takes a fair bit of time as you might imagine in a 45 minute project with 6sec photos.

Anyone seen this? Any solution? Any comments? Any ideas?

Many thanks

Bill from Oz

Hello Bill,

Could you make a snapshot of part of your "extended" timeline to have a good idea?

Thanks.

Alain II

Odd problem Bill!

I mean odd that PDR14 first reads the orientation tags correctly - then doesn't (sometimes).

Are the photos straight off your camera? or have they been edited in other software before importing? Portrait photos typically have "Rotate 90 CW" (or similar) embedded in the EXIF data. Sometimes that can be stripped in editing.

I can replicate the issue here with photos straight off cameras.

Cheers - Tony
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Thanks all for your interest.

I have attached a screen shot that highlights the problem. The thumbnail on the timeline is in the correct orientation, but the display shows the photo rotated. It stays in this incorrect orientation when I play the project within PD14 or produce a WMV.

The photos are straight off the SD card of my camera and imported directly into PD14 - no modifications at all. My photography is pretty straight forward and any changes I need can be done within PD14 anyway.

I should point out that this is a variable issue. I can go for a day or so without the problem arising, but then when I later reload the project, the problem is there! It also seems to take longer to load when the problem has surfaced. I save the project regularly (I am a retired software programmer and used to using Ctrl-S every few minutes).

Regards

Bill from Oz

Hi Bill -

Do you think the issue might be related to the use of Magic Motion? I mean, does the rotation glitch occur when you don't use Magic Motion...

Would it be possible to upload that original photo "P1320702" for testing? I've tried with dozens of photos straight off various cameras - with motion & enhancements applied - & I cannot get them to do what your Viking ship is doing.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote Hi Bill -

Do you think the issue might be related to the use of Magic Motion? I mean, does the rotation glitch occur when you don't use Magic Motion...

Would it be possible to upload that original photo "P1320702" for testing? I've tried with dozens of photos straight off various cameras - with motion & enhancements applied - & I cannot get them to do what your Viking ship is doing.

Cheers - Tony

Thanks Tony,

Here is the P1320702. There is no Magic Motion on this photo - only a Fix/Enhance lighting change

I have also uploaded another portrait jpg (P1320744) that is also incorrecly rotated and does have Magic Motion applied (a User defined zoom in)

Regards

Bill from Oz

Sorry Bill - it's got me stonkered.

Thanks for uploading your photos. I put them in the little test project & applied some fix/enhance... closed & reopened the project at least a dozen times... added other photos from different cameras that had 270° rotation embedded in their EXIF data... whatever I did, I was unable to replicate what's happening for you.

So - I don't know what might be causing it at your end.

I assume you're running PDR14 with the latest 4207 patch update, unless you're using the LIVE version.

It's probably too much mucking around but it might be worth opening all your portrait photos in an image/photo editor - strip the EXIF data - save as - then import those into your project. That's clutching at straws, but it does look like your PDR is somehow misreading (sometimes) the rotation data.

EXIF report for the viking ship image attached.

Cheers - Tony
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Thanks for your interest

This issue of rotated portrait photos is still happening. I started a new project with an entirely different set of jpg photos. These were saved from the camera SD card to a folder on my PC. All good for the first days of work, but eventually, after multiple saves and re-loads, I see some (not all) of the portrait photos are rotated and distorted.

My observations and guesses are as follows. When I save the project the first few times, it saves very quickly in just a few seconds as I’d expect from my system (see below for specs). When I re-load the project, this also happens in just a few seconds and everything is good. Occasionally, however, it takes a bit longer (about 20sec) to save (using File Save or Ctrl-S). When I re-load later, the Header is read quickly, but the import of media and timeline update takes quite a long time – maybe 30sec or more. I can guess then that the problem most likely has occurred.

After I’ve corrected the rotated jpgs, if I use File Save AS and overwrite the existing project, this (I think) prevents the issue for that project file and the next project re-load is OK.

So my guess is that something is corrupting rotation settings in the project file perhaps when File Save (or Ctrl-S) is used for an already existing project, but when a new project is saved for the first time or File Save AS for a total over-write of an existing project is used, things are usually OK.

I have no idea how PD14 saves files nor what the format of the PDS project file is (??compiled XML, compressed, etc), so I cannot investigate this further.

I have a reasonable PC running Win 10 Pro 64bit on a core i7, 16GB RAM, Samsung 500GB SSD as the programme/boot drive and a WD 4TB data drive, where all data is saved. The SSD is never used by me to store data – everything goes to the 4TB HDD. There’s plenty of space on both drives.

I would think that having the PD14 program on the SSD and the data files on a different HDD shold not be an issue?

I’m using PD 14 with the 4207.0 update.

I haven’t had a chance to strip out the EXIF data as yet – there’s family pressure to see our photos!

Cheers

Bill from Oz

I did apply a fix/enhance and a photo rotation to a sample photo. Copied the Keyframe Attributes and then Paste Keyframe Attributes to the 2 photos you uploaded on my timeline and they became rotated. Other than that, I don’t know.

Hi all,

The portrait photo rotation issue in PowerDirectr14 continues to be very annoying. However, I have found a way (I think) to prevent it occurring.

The procedure (simple but time consuming) is as follows: First I rotate the portrait jpg in a photo editing program (FastStone Image viewer). I save it with a new name. Then I reload the jpg and rotate it back to the original orientation, and save it again. Import the photo into PD14 and everything seems to work OK from then on – no rotation problems. Well... over the past few days and multiple re-loads of several projects, anyway.

I don’t have a proper EXIF reader, but I’ve had a look at some of my photo jpgs with an on-line EXIF viewer (verexif). All my original landscape photos I examined have no EXIF orientation data. All the portrait photos have EXIF Orientation tag set as “rotate 270”. If I look at the portrait photos rotated twice as described above, there is no EXIF Orientation tag set, suggesting that FastStone is stripping this Orientation tag from the EXIF data.

This suggests to me that PD14 is having troubles (as a few other photo management programs do) in appropriately reading, adjusting, ignoring or reacting to portrait photos, possibly because of the EXIF Orientation tag.

I have used PD14 since May 2016 and this is the first time I’ve found this abnormal (and annoying) effect for portrait photo jpgs. I’m pretty sure I did not see the issue in PD13. I can’t remember if there was an intermediary update for PD14 from CyberLink since I purchased it back in 2016.

I am using version PD 14.0.4207.0.

CheersBill from OZ

Oh... I just found out that the PDR14 v4207 patch was released 04/07/2017. This is my first major project since then - my other porjects where I had not seen the portrait photo rotation problem were prior to this update. My current portrait issue is quite possibly related to this update.

Is there a way to revert to the older version prior to v4207?

Cheers

Bill from Oz