Mac Issue: Images inserted into emails are flipped—how can I prevent this?
When I insert a portrait-orientation (vertical) image into a TBird email message, TBird flips it 90° counterclockwise. It does not do this for landscape-orientation (horizontal) images. This is the case whether I do an insert directly from Photos, or first drag/drop the image from Photos into, say, a desktop folder and then drag it into the email. There is no formatting option to change an image's orientation in TBird. Attached is an example.
Of course 99.9% of these images were taken on my iPhone; when imported to my Mac Photos program they automatically appear in the original, correct orientation as photographed.
Mac 21.5" desktop, OS 10.12.6 TBird version 52.4.0 (64-bit) iPhone 6s, iOS 11.0.3
How do I prevent this?
Modified by Mickey
All Replies (6)
I'd say that Photos is "flipping" your images, and your problem is that Thunderbird isn't.
I would guess that your iPhone is attaching EXIF data to the image that tells an image viewer how to display it, and your Photos application understands and honours that information. Your iPhone knows which up it is when the picture is taken, and attaches that information to the picture.
Thunderbird is an email client, not a photo viewer and it has no tools for decoding EXIF data. It simply displays the pictures "as-is" without applying any orientation corrections.
I'd suggest you use Photos to rotate your pictures to the required orientation as a matter of routine, then it won't matter what you subsequently do with them as they'll all be inherently in the correct orientation.
I don't use apple stuff myself, but the image tool I use in Windows has the ability to rewrite images so they show correctly without the helpful intervention of a viewer program. It's called "lossless jpeg operations" here.
Modified by Zenos
Thanks, Zenos, but Photos displays them in proper orientation to begin with, so rotating them is not a solution.
I'm also not familiar with EXIF data—I'll have to research that.
Modified by Mickey
Yes, Photos turns them round for you because it is capable of reading and acting on the EXIF data. So on showing a picture it looks at the EXIF data and rotates the picture, on the spot, so it is shown the right way up. Your smartphone has an accelerometer and can tell which way up it is, and records that information into the picture file.
How do you imagine that Photos knows which pictures to rotate, and which to leave unrotated?
Thunderbird just shows the picture as it is. It has no way to know which way the camera was when the picture was taken.
If Photos is worth using, it will have an option to save pictures according to their original orientation. Use this and Thunderbird, and any other viewer will also show your pictures in the correct orientation.
The image I attached as an example is a photo that was originally taken in portrait mode. It imported into Photos in portrait mode. Thunderbird then rotated the inserted image. It also did this if I did a drag and drop.
Mickey said
It imported into Photos in portrait mode.No! You can't say that. All you can say is that Photos shows it to you in the appropriate orientation.
Tell me how you think Photos knows which way up to show you a picture?