JS Client-Side Exif Orientation: Rotate and Mirror

Question

Digital camera photos are often saved as JPEG with an EXIF "orientation" tag. To display correctly, images need to be rotated/mirrored depending on which orientation is set, but browsers ignore this information rendering the image. Even in large commercial web apps, support for EXIF orientation can be spotty 1. The same source also provides a nice summary of the 8 different orientations a JPEG can have:

Sample images are available at 4.

The question is how to rotate/mirror the image on the client side so that it displays correctly and can be further processed if necessary?

There are JS libraries available to parse EXIF data, including the orientation attribute 2. Flickr noted possible performance problem when parsing large images, requiring use of webworkers 3.

Console tools can correctly re-orient the images 5. A PHP script solving the problem is available at 6

Answer 1

The github project JavaScript-Load-Image provides a complete solution to the EXIF orientation problem, correctly rotating/mirroring images for all 8 exif orientations. See the online demo of javascript exif orientation

The image is drawn onto an HTML5 canvas. Its correct rendering is implemented in js/load-image-orientation.js through canvas operations.

Hope this saves somebody else some time, and teaches the search engines about this open source gem :)

Answer 2

I am using mixed solution (php+css).

Containers are needed for:

• div.imgCont2 container needed to rotate;
• div.imgCont1 container needed to zoomOut - width:150%;
• div.imgCont container needed for scrollbars, when image is zoomOut.

.

<?php
    $image_url = 'your image url.jpg';
    $exif = @exif_read_data($image_url,0,true);
    $orientation = @$exif['IFD0']['Orientation'];
?>

<style>
.imgCont{
    width:100%;
    overflow:auto;
}
.imgCont2[data-orientation="8"]{
    transform:rotate(270deg);
    margin:15% 0;
}
.imgCont2[data-orientation="6"]{
    transform:rotate(90deg);
    margin:15% 0;
}
.imgCont2[data-orientation="3"]{
    transform:rotate(180deg);
}
img{
    width:100%;
}
</style>

<div class="imgCont">
  <div class="imgCont1">
    <div class="imgCont2" data-orientation="<?php echo($orientation) ?>">
      <img src="<?php echo($image_url) ?>">
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Answer 3

If

width = img.width;
height = img.height;
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');

Then you can use these transformations to turn the image to orientation 1

From orientation:

1. ctx.transform(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0);
2. ctx.transform(-1, 0, 0, 1, width, 0);
3. ctx.transform(-1, 0, 0, -1, width, height);
4. ctx.transform(1, 0, 0, -1, 0, height);
5. ctx.transform(0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0);
6. ctx.transform(0, 1, -1, 0, height, 0);
7. ctx.transform(0, -1, -1, 0, height, width);
8. ctx.transform(0, -1, 1, 0, 0, width);

Before drawing the image on ctx

Answer 4

For those who have a file from an input control, don't know what its orientation is, are a bit lazy and don't want to include a large library below is the code provided by @WunderBart melded with the answer he links to (https://stackoverflow.com/a/32490603) that finds the orientation.

function getDataUrl(file, callback2) {
        var callback = function (srcOrientation) {
            var reader2 = new FileReader();
            reader2.onload = function (e) {
                var srcBase64 = e.target.result;
                var img = new Image();

                img.onload = function () {
                    var width = img.width,
                        height = img.height,
                        canvas = document.createElement('canvas'),
                        ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");

                    // set proper canvas dimensions before transform & export
                    if (4 < srcOrientation && srcOrientation < 9) {
                        canvas.width = height;
                        canvas.height = width;
                    } else {
                        canvas.width = width;
                        canvas.height = height;
                    }

                    // transform context before drawing image
                    switch (srcOrientation) {
                        case 2: ctx.transform(-1, 0, 0, 1, width, 0); break;
                        case 3: ctx.transform(-1, 0, 0, -1, width, height); break;
                        case 4: ctx.transform(1, 0, 0, -1, 0, height); break;
                        case 5: ctx.transform(0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0); break;
                        case 6: ctx.transform(0, 1, -1, 0, height, 0); break;
                        case 7: ctx.transform(0, -1, -1, 0, height, width); break;
                        case 8: ctx.transform(0, -1, 1, 0, 0, width); break;
                        default: break;
                    }

                    // draw image
                    ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);

                    // export base64
                    callback2(canvas.toDataURL());
                };

                img.src = srcBase64;
            }

            reader2.readAsDataURL(file);
        }

        var reader = new FileReader();
        reader.onload = function (e) {

            var view = new DataView(e.target.result);
            if (view.getUint16(0, false) != 0xFFD8) return callback(-2);
            var length = view.byteLength, offset = 2;
            while (offset < length) {
                var marker = view.getUint16(offset, false);
                offset += 2;
                if (marker == 0xFFE1) {
                    if (view.getUint32(offset += 2, false) != 0x45786966) return callback(-1);
                    var little = view.getUint16(offset += 6, false) == 0x4949;
                    offset += view.getUint32(offset + 4, little);
                    var tags = view.getUint16(offset, little);
                    offset += 2;
                    for (var i = 0; i < tags; i++)
                        if (view.getUint16(offset + (i * 12), little) == 0x0112)
                            return callback(view.getUint16(offset + (i * 12) + 8, little));
                }
                else if ((marker & 0xFF00) != 0xFF00) break;
                else offset += view.getUint16(offset, false);
            }
            return callback(-1);
        };
        reader.readAsArrayBuffer(file);
    }

which can easily be called like such

getDataUrl(input.files[0], function (imgBase64) {
      vm.user.BioPhoto = imgBase64;
});

Answer 5

WunderBart's answer was the best for me. Note that you can speed it up a lot if your images are often the right way around, simply by testing the orientation first and bypassing the rest of the code if no rotation is required.

Putting all of the info from wunderbart together, something like this;

var handleTakePhoto = function () {
    let fileInput: HTMLInputElement = <HTMLInputElement>document.getElementById('photoInput');
    fileInput.addEventListener('change', (e: any) => handleInputUpdated(fileInput, e.target.files));
    fileInput.click();
}

var handleInputUpdated = function (fileInput: HTMLInputElement, fileList) {
    let file = null;

    if (fileList.length > 0 && fileList[0].type.match(/^image\//)) {
        isLoading(true);
        file = fileList[0];
        getOrientation(file, function (orientation) {
            if (orientation == 1) {
                imageBinary(URL.createObjectURL(file));
                isLoading(false);
            }
            else 
            {
                resetOrientation(URL.createObjectURL(file), orientation, function (resetBase64Image) {
                    imageBinary(resetBase64Image);
                    isLoading(false);
                });
            }
        });
    }

    fileInput.removeEventListener('change');
}


// from http://stackoverflow.com/a/32490603
export function getOrientation(file, callback) {
    var reader = new FileReader();

    reader.onload = function (event: any) {
        var view = new DataView(event.target.result);

        if (view.getUint16(0, false) != 0xFFD8) return callback(-2);

        var length = view.byteLength,
            offset = 2;

        while (offset < length) {
            var marker = view.getUint16(offset, false);
            offset += 2;

            if (marker == 0xFFE1) {
                if (view.getUint32(offset += 2, false) != 0x45786966) {
                    return callback(-1);
                }
                var little = view.getUint16(offset += 6, false) == 0x4949;
                offset += view.getUint32(offset + 4, little);
                var tags = view.getUint16(offset, little);
                offset += 2;

                for (var i = 0; i < tags; i++)
                    if (view.getUint16(offset + (i * 12), little) == 0x0112)
                        return callback(view.getUint16(offset + (i * 12) + 8, little));
            }
            else if ((marker & 0xFF00) != 0xFF00) break;
            else offset += view.getUint16(offset, false);
        }
        return callback(-1);
    };

    reader.readAsArrayBuffer(file.slice(0, 64 * 1024));
};

export function resetOrientation(srcBase64, srcOrientation, callback) {
    var img = new Image();

    img.onload = function () {
        var width = img.width,
            height = img.height,
            canvas = document.createElement('canvas'),
            ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");

        // set proper canvas dimensions before transform & export
        if (4 < srcOrientation && srcOrientation < 9) {
            canvas.width = height;
            canvas.height = width;
        } else {
            canvas.width = width;
            canvas.height = height;
        }

        // transform context before drawing image
        switch (srcOrientation) {
            case 2: ctx.transform(-1, 0, 0, 1, width, 0); break;
            case 3: ctx.transform(-1, 0, 0, -1, width, height); break;
            case 4: ctx.transform(1, 0, 0, -1, 0, height); break;
            case 5: ctx.transform(0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0); break;
            case 6: ctx.transform(0, 1, -1, 0, height, 0); break;
            case 7: ctx.transform(0, -1, -1, 0, height, width); break;
            case 8: ctx.transform(0, -1, 1, 0, 0, width); break;
            default: break;
        }

        // draw image
        ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);

        // export base64
        callback(canvas.toDataURL());
    };

    img.src = srcBase64;
}

Answer 6

I've written a little php script which rotates the image. Be sure to store the image in favour of just recalculate it each request.

<?php

header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
$img = 'IMG URL';

$exif = @exif_read_data($img,0,true);
$orientation = @$exif['IFD0']['Orientation'];
if($orientation == 7 || $orientation == 8) {
    $degrees = 90;
} elseif($orientation == 5 || $orientation == 6) {
    $degrees = 270;
} elseif($orientation == 3 || $orientation == 4) {
    $degrees = 180;
} else {
    $degrees = 0;
}
$rotate = imagerotate(imagecreatefromjpeg($img), $degrees, 0);
imagejpeg($rotate);
imagedestroy($rotate);

?>

Cheers