How to rotate images to the correct orientation (portrait) by editing the EXIF data once photo has been taken

Question

Hi there, I have currently finished the Ribbit app course for android and when i view the image taken with the camera intent either on Parse or on my device using the Ribbit app, it always displays landscape even though I took the photo portrait.

I have heard you can edit the EXIF data once the photo has been taken so every photo you take on any device will be uploaded to Parse with the correct orientation.

Can someone please help me out?

I'm using the FileHelper.java from the Ribbit app and here is onActivityResult code from the camera intent.

As you can see i have attempted my problem already but had no luck :(

@Override
    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
        super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

        if (resultCode == RESULT_OK)
        {
            if(requestCode == CHOOSE_A_PHOTO_REQUEST || requestCode == CHOOSE_A_VIDEO_REQUEST)
            {
                if (data == null)
                {
                    Toast.makeText(this, (R.string.simple_error), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                }
                else
                {
                    mMediaUri = data.getData();
                }
            }
            else
            {

                //Adding to the gallery only when we take a photo or video
                Intent mediaScanFileIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MEDIA_SCANNER_SCAN_FILE);
                mediaScanFileIntent.setData(mMediaUri);
                sendBroadcast(mediaScanFileIntent);

                mMediaString = mMediaUri.toString();
                BitmapFactory.Options bounds = new BitmapFactory.Options();
                bounds.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
                BitmapFactory.decodeFile(mMediaString, bounds);

                BitmapFactory.Options opts = new BitmapFactory.Options();
                Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(mMediaString, opts);
                ExifInterface exif = null;
                try
                {
                    exif = new ExifInterface(mMediaString);
                }
                catch (IOException e)
                {
                    //Error
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
                String orientString = exif.getAttribute(ExifInterface.TAG_ORIENTATION);
                int orientation = orientString != null ? Integer.parseInt(orientString) :  ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_NORMAL;

                int rotationAngle = 0;
                if (orientation == ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_90) rotationAngle = 90;
                if (orientation == ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_180) rotationAngle = 180;
                if (orientation == ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_270) rotationAngle = 270;

                mMediaUri = Uri.parse(mMediaString);
            }

            Intent setPhraseIntent = new Intent(this, SetPhraseActivity.class);
            setPhraseIntent.setData(mMediaUri);

            String fileType;
            if(requestCode == CHOOSE_A_PHOTO_REQUEST || requestCode == TAKE_A_PHOTO_REQUEST)
            {
                fileType = ParseConstants.TYPE_PHOTO;
            }
            else
            {
                fileType = ParseConstants.TYPE_VIDEO;
            }

            setPhraseIntent.putExtra(ParseConstants.KEY_FILE_TYPE, fileType);
            startActivity(setPhraseIntent);
        }

        else if (resultCode != RESULT_CANCELED)
        {
            Toast.makeText(this, R.string.simple_error, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
    }

Thank you for helping me out!

Answer 1 · 2015-07-21T01:05:38Z

July 21, 2015 1:05am

Hey Liam, by any chance did you come up with a solution to this problem? My log also returns values of all 0's, which I believe is the result of mMediaUri not returning the correct path. Any help would be appreciated. I don't believe that anyone has resolved the sideways loading of portrait images issue. Thanks!

Answer 2 · 2016-05-27T05:24:27Z

May 27, 2016 5:24am

Hi Liam, I hope my solution would still help people, I found out that this behaviour is mostly found on samsung devices You can call the method below just after the image resizing

public static byte[] rotateImageIfRequired(Context context, Uri uri, byte[] fileBytes) {
    byte[] data = null;
    Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(fileBytes, 0, fileBytes.length);
    ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = null;

    try {

      bitmap = ImageResizer.rotateImageIfRequired(bitmap, context, uri);
      outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
      bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, outputStream);
      data = outputStream.toByteArray();
    } catch (IOException e) {
      Timber.e(e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
      try {
        if (outputStream != null) {
          outputStream.close();
        }
      } catch (IOException e) {
        // Intentionally blank
      }
    }

    return data;
  }

Now the inner missing methods, here we depend on the origin of the uri, if it comes from the gallery or the camera that's what the if statement is about, and then we rotate apropietly:

public static Bitmap rotateImageIfRequired(Bitmap img, Context context, Uri selectedImage) throws IOException {

    if (selectedImage.getScheme().equals("content")) {
      String[] projection = { MediaStore.Images.ImageColumns.ORIENTATION };
      Cursor c = context.getContentResolver().query(selectedImage, projection, null, null, null);
      if (c.moveToFirst()) {
        final int rotation = c.getInt(0);
        c.close();
        return rotateImage(img, rotation);
      }
      return img;
    } else {
      ExifInterface ei = new ExifInterface(selectedImage.getPath());
      int orientation = ei.getAttributeInt(ExifInterface.TAG_ORIENTATION, ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_NORMAL);
      Timber.d("orientation: %s", orientation);

      switch (orientation) {
        case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_90:
          return rotateImage(img, 90);
        case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_180:
          return rotateImage(img, 180);
        case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_270:
          return rotateImage(img, 270);
        default:
          return img;
      }
    }
  }

  private static Bitmap rotateImage(Bitmap img, int degree) {
    Matrix matrix = new Matrix();
    matrix.postRotate(degree);
    Bitmap rotatedImg = Bitmap.createBitmap(img, 0, 0, img.getWidth(), img.getHeight(), matrix, true);
    return rotatedImg;
  }

Thanks for coming up with this great question! :)

Answer 3 · 2014-11-18T17:08:57Z

November 18, 2014 5:08pm

First things first - if you log or debug, can you tell if you are able to detect the orientation properly? Is the correct value being used for the file, or is everything set to Portrait?

Once you have that data, you'll need to update the file itself. Here's one example answer http://stackoverflow.com/a/6909985/475217 that uses the Matrix class to perform a rotation.

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Liam Hales

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How to rotate images to the correct orientation (portrait) by editing the EXIF data once photo has been taken

3 Answers

Vincent Rickey

Vincent Rickey

Juan P. Prado

Juan P. Prado

Ben Jakuben

Ben Jakuben

Liam Hales

Liam Hales

Ben Jakuben

Ben Jakuben

Liam Hales

Liam Hales