The image displayed within the post shows as a portrait orientation with desk surface on the bottom in Chrome.

The direct URL displays the image exactly that same in Chrome and Internet Explorer on my desktop.

On the iPad mini with safari the inline image is displayed in landscape mode with the writing on the stand horizontal. The same is true with Chrome on the iPad since Apple dictates that Chrome must use the Safari browser core. So Safari uses exif orientation information if it is available. The image display is the same if viewed direct using the link.

What happens is users hold the iPad or iPhone "upside down" when taking a picture. The image bits say it is upside down but the image is displayed "correctly" to the viewer on the Apple device.

When the iPad, iPhone user loads the image inline within the post it carries the exif data. A post viewed in Safari will show right side up. All other browsers on non-iPhone/iPad browsers will see an upside down picture. Stripping out the exif orientation data only means that Safari will now display the image upside down.

The image bits say it is upside down because the user held the device "incorrectly" when the image was taken. Unfortunately no matter how hard we might try to educate and convince about the "correct" way to hold the device it is my experience that iPhone/iPad users are an independent lot and will continue to take pictures any way they want. Their user-error "incorrectness" still means we have upside down and sideways pictures.

Stripping out the exif orientation meta data is only part of it. An upside down image from a bits perspective needs to be rotated based on orientation data and THEN the orientation data needs to be stripped. In ImageMagick I think the arguments "-auto-orient" and then "-strip" during the image convert process will do it although I am not 100% certain.

So in the end we have to expect people with portable devices will continue to submit images that are upside down with orientation parameters in the exif data to correctly display on browsers that respect exif data. Since most of our forum members use other browsers and platforms the majority will still see upside down or sideways pictures.

Well at least until the inline image uploader is changed to stop them Apple folks from turning our forms upside down.

Abbott