JPEG photographs from a phone appear upside down on PC

[PBJim]

On a newer Android phone (~ 2021), I've found that JPEG pictures appear in some desktop PC applications in the wrong orientation. For instance, I might have taken the picture in landscape format, but it appears upside down when I open it with some, possibly older, applications.

Has there been a new item of configuration added to the JPEG format, which some applications have yet to incorporate? I'm not the only one seeing this problem. A colleague has just happened to open her pictures with Windows Paint and most are upside down.

[Quin]

It probably has something to do with rotation metadata handling for JPEG files in later Android version. I found this, which seems at least somewhat related: https://forums.androidcentral.com/threa ... pp.994705/

[wilbert]

It probably has to do with the Exif Orientation Tag
Not all applications support this properly.

The Exif Orientation Tag specifies how the pixel data of a jpeg file should be displayed.
There are apps that can rotate the pixel data of a jpeg file based on the exif orientation tag and reset the orientation tag so the modified jpeg file should open fine in all applications.

[PBJim]

Thanks Wilbert and Quin, this confirms what I thought. I used a series of Lenovo Android phones in the past and they were fine — the pictures always displayed in the correct rotation, but my colleague and I changed our phones to Samsung (both different models) because of a project we were working on and we're both having the same problem. It was a mistake, because not only this but the Samsung cameras produce awful picture quality.

[wilbert]

but my colleague and I changed our phones to Samsung (both different models) because of a project we were working on and we're both having the same problem. It was a mistake, because not only this but the Samsung cameras produce awful picture quality.

You could try a third party camera app like "Open Camera" if you haven't already tried that.
My experience with the Samsung camera app is that it tends to overdo on sharpening.
"Open Camera" has a menu item for processing options where you can turn that off.

[PBJim]

but my colleague and I changed our phones to Samsung (both different models) because of a project we were working on and we're both having the same problem. It was a mistake, because not only this but the Samsung cameras produce awful picture quality.

You could try a third party camera app like "Open Camera" if you haven't already tried that.
My experience with the Samsung camera app is that it tends to overdo on sharpening.
"Open Camera" has a menu item for processing options where you can turn that off.

Interesting to hear that. I haven't tried the Samsung app, as I copy the original files straight to storage. I think from what you say, Samsung is using an app to try to improve upon an already very poor quality image and therefore make up for the camera's shortcomings with software. How awful, although I'm not surprised.

I find it disappointing how the mobile camera specifications during the past decade, have tended to boast of so many megapixels, but regardless of how many pixels, the image quality is poor in comparison with what it used to be. Perhaps my experience is somewhat circumstantial, but I used to take pictures with good Sony phones, pre-smartphone era and when I look at the images now, they are only 600k - 1,500k in size, very difficult to fault them and very finely detailed indeed. The pictures from these Samsung phones are all at least 4MB (one of my colleague's today was 10MB) and the quality is unacceptable. We seem to be being conned as buyers.

[wilbert]

I think from what you say, Samsung is using an app to try to improve upon an already very poor quality image and therefore make up for the camera's shortcomings with software.

That's not exactly what I meant.
The default camera app (what you use to take pictures with) is different for each smartphone brand. It's where they try to make a difference.
The quality you get when you take a picture is partly due to the camera sensor and lens and partly due to the software post processing.
The camera sensor and lens is somerthing you can't do anything about but you can use a different app to take pictures (like Open Camera).
This way you can make some different choices and also set the jpeg quality setting you want the pictures to be saved.
Edge sharpening gives sharper pictures but the edges might look unnatural (personally I don't like it).
Noise reduction results in images with less noise but also with less detail.
When you turn both off, you might get a less sharper image with a little more noise but it's closer to what the camera sensor actually picks up and you can always do a little sharpening or noise reduction yourself in an application like Photoshop or IrfanView.

[PBJim]

The default camera app (what you use to take pictures with) is different for each smartphone brand. It's where they try to make a difference.

Okay Wilbert, I see what you mean now. It seems there are a number of Open Camera apps. Which one would you suggest?

[wilbert]

I meant the first one by Mark Harman.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... opencamera
There are other good camera apps you can try but what I like about this one is that it is completely free and open source.

There's a help file available online
https://opencamera.org.uk/help.html

Make sure to set the "Camera API" setting (it's somewhere near the bottom of the main settings page) to "Camera2 API" if it isn't already set to that since "Camera2 API" is required for a lot of more advanced settings (this is also the case for other camera apps).

The edge and noise setting I was talking about earlier are called "Edge mode algorithm" and "Noise reduction mode algorithm".

[PBJim]

I meant the first one by Mark Harman. [...] There are other good camera apps you can try but what I like about this one is that it is completely free and open source.

Thanks Wilbert, it works. I need to try it over a period of time to reach a conclusion. Pictures look different from the phone's own camera, perhaps not a panacea. I think it's likely that this phone has a sub-standard camera. I thought I was buying a sufficiently expensive Samsung model to obtain a comparative quality with the old Lenovo phone, but it seems we don't get much for our money now, with smartphones.

One interesting observation is that Open Camera takes exceptionally good images of my desktop VDU monitor display, whereas the standard phone resulted in fuzzy pictures. It's an improvement therefore, as I often record pictures of work progress that way.