P: (Sony) Vertical/portrait HEIF files not displayed properly

[shikamu]

I am using LrC 13.3 on Mac Ventura 13.6.7, but the same problem was in LrC 13.2.  My Sony A6700 HIF (HEIF) vertical/portrait photos in the grid view are not properly rotated.  When I open one it is also not properly rotated.  They are all displayed in horizontal/landscape orientation until I manually rotate them.  I noticed the same improper behavior with LrC 13.2 on my Windows 11 PC, but I do not have it with me at the moment.

[berliner_ffm]

Could you share an example? I had this issue in the past with shots taken with certain phone apps who wrote both the Rotation-Tag and the Orientation-Tag into the exif data. I've seen multiple applications getting confused by this scenario.

[shikamu]

I am not sure what you mean by an example.  It is all of my Sony A6700 vertical/portrait oriented photos that are displayed in the grid in horizontal/landscape orientation and the same when I open them.  The Mac Finder displays them properly and Preview also displays them properly.  XnView MP displays them properly when I open them also.  LrC displays my vertical/portrait raw (from various camera brands), JPEG, and TIFF files properly, but not HEIF files.

[shikamu]

I just noticed something strange.  I posted this bug report in the Bugs forum, but I see that it is instead now in the Discussions forum.  That is weird.  Why would anyone move a bug report from the Bugs forum to the Discussion forum?

[johnrellis]

"Why would anyone move a bug report from the Bugs forum to the Discussion forum?"

The Bugs section is for bugs verified by Adobe. If/when your issue is verified, it will be moved back to Bugs.  See here for a detailed explanation of Adobe's policy:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-do-i-post-in-discussions-or-bugs/idi-p/13691...

[shikamu]

As a reminder, I posted the following on 2024/5/23 in this thread:

"I just noticed something strange.  I posted this bug report in the Bugs forum, but I see that it is instead now in the Discussions forum.  That is weird.  Why would anyone move a bug report from the Bugs forum to the Discussion forum?"

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Read @johnrellis  post from 5/24

[shikamu]

For reporting BUGS I follow the forum instructions.  See the red arrow below:

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Read: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-do-i-post-in-discussions-or-bugs/idi-p/13691... 

[johnrellis]

Please upload a sample photo to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar and post the sharing link here. We can see if the issue occurs on other LR installations or is specific to yours and go from there.

[shikamu]

Okay, I will upload a photo.  But this problem has been discussed elsewhere and other people see the same thing.

[johnrellis]

"But this problem has been discussed elsewhere and other people see the same thing."

Have you seen any posts about the issue in this forum?  I can't find any...

[shikamu]

Here is a vertical/portrait orientation Sony A6700 HEIF file:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gsvrzv49hh3dura3fkkge/DSC01401.HIF?rlkey=wiow2387yue7w9y0xhft1wcqk&st... 

Mac Finder/Preview and XnView MP handle it right.  LrC does not.

[johnrellis]

The issue with the the sample Sony A6700 .hif file you uploaded is that it doesn't contain the metadata field EXIF:Orientation, though it does have QuickTime:Rotation.  In HEIF files, LR obeys EXIF:Orientation but ignores QuickTime:Rotation.  In contrast, Apple IOS writes both fields in its .hevc files, so those photos get properly displayed in a wide selection of apps and services.

You can't access the ISO HEIF specs without paying hundreds of dollars, so I can't determine what the HEIF standards require (charging for software specs is an antediluvian policy that impedes compliance, but what would you expect from an international bureaucracy).

But regardless of which company is non-compliant, as a practical matter, Adobe is more likely to change LR / Camera Raw sooner than Sony is to change its firmware -- historically, Sony has been a laggard in following the EXIF standard. But I don't have any inside information on how Adobe might prioritize this.

DETAILS

Exiftool shows the sample .hif file contains these rotation fields:

[QuickTime] Rotation : 270
[MakerNotes] Camera Orientation : Rotate 90 CW

QuickTime:Rotation is governed by one of the HEIF specs, whereas MakerNotes:CameraOrientation is a Sony proprietary field.

Exiftool shows that a sample portrait photo from IOS 17.3 .heic contains:

[QuickTime] Rotation : 270

[EXIF] Orientation : Rotate 90 CW

Using Exiftool to add EXIF:Orientation to the Sony .hiv causes LR to properly display its rotation. Using Exiftool to remove EXIF:Orientation from the IOS .heic causes LR to not display the correct rotation. This demonstrates that LR is obeying EXIF:Orientation and ignoring QuickTime:Rotation.

WORKAROUND

If you're experienced with command-line scripting, you could use Exiftool to copy QuickTime:Orientation to EXIF:Orientation for a batch of photos. The workflow would be: Import to LR, run Exiftool over the imported folder, in LR do Metadata > Read Metadata From File.  But if you're not intimately familiar with Exiftool, expect to spend at least a couple of hours on this.

[johnrellis]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography, it appears Sony and LR / Camera Raw disagree about how to record orientation in HEIF files (see my reply above). Please consider moving this to Camera Raw Bugs or Ideas as appropriate.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I am going to leave it here for now, as there are some things that need to be cleared before assigning it to Bugs or Features. 

[shikamu]

I updated to 13.4 a few days ago and today I imported some Sony A6700 HIF files.  Two of them were verticals.  They displayed properly in 13.4.,  I am glad Adobe fixed this.  I did not see this bug fix mentioned in the release notes, but maybe I just missed it?

[johnrellis]

I just retested 13.3.1, and it didn't handle the portrait photo correctly, but 13.4 does. That's very good -- not many bugs get fixed so quickly.

"I did not see this bug fix mentioned in the release notes, but maybe I just missed it?"

I don't think this ever got filed as a public bug report (the team has management incentives to keep their bug counts low). The release notes only mention fixes for bugs that have public bug reports

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

"(the team has management incentives to keep their bug counts low)"

I have been at Adobe for 10 years and have never found this to be true.  Please site your source when making such statements. 

[johnrellis]

My apologies, I should have phrased this as an opinion rather than a fact.