Several Humzooers have noticed that vertical photos occasionally show up sideways after they're uploaded. We have been telling you to just rotate your monitor -- problem solved. But after our corporate headquarters was physically tipped over sideways last night, we realized you needed a better solution.

Long story short, we fixed the problem. If that's all you needed to know, awesome! But if you want a more technical explanation of the problem, keep reading.

Why It Was Happening

Digital cameras have imaging chips that are fixed in a landscape position. When the camera is turned to take a vertical photo, a little sensor in the camera detects the angle and decides that your photo is supposed to be vertical.

What happens next is not consistent among all cameras. Some will rotate the image file and save a portrait photo that is taller than it is wide. Other cameras will save a horizontal photo no matter what, but it will save a little piece of data with that photo that basically says: "hey dude, you gotta rotate me later!"

With the latter example, it is up to software to properly interpret the orientation data and show you a properly rotated photo. Just about every program that will display images will look for this orientation data, which is why in Photoshop a 'sideways' photo will open up vertically, as expected.

The problem at Humzoo was that our image processing code was not looking for orientation data. I know, how rude!

The good news is that now our code DOES look for orientation data, and it will attempt to correctly rotate the photo during the upload process. If you still have a photo that does not get rotated properly, there is most likely something happening between your camera and Humzoo that removes the orientation data from your file. Try uploading the photo straight from the camera or exporting using different settings from whatever photo program you're using. If the photos refuse to be straightened, please let us know.

Existing Photos

Any sideways photos that currently exist on the site are still sideways. If you have some on your site that you'd like to fix, try uploading a new copy. Contact us if you have any other questions about this, we might be able to help.