Image Orientation Incorrect When Importing With Office Picture Manager 2007

[ComputerPower]

Hello All,
We have a client using Office 2007 on Windows 7. The client is a professional photographer with over 25,000 images on the computer. She insists that Office Picture Manager is the only program she is willing to use for managing her photos. She does not want to hear about switching to something like Picasa or Windows Live Photo Gallery.


The client is encountering a problem where some photos are importing from her digital camera with incorrect orientation. Our own research into the subject tells us that her camera is writing orientation data to the image files in the EXIF Orientation Flag, which some applications have the ability to read and others don't. I have found at least one source online that says Office Picture Manager does NOT know how to handle the orientation data and will not automatically reorient imported photos.


Where it gets interesting is that the client insists that she has spent the last 8 years getting this exact functionality out of Office Picture Manager. Then around the middle of last year it just stopped working. Now she is working on an entirely new computer, and Picture Manager isn't doing what she needs it to do.


Any ideas?
Thanks!

 

[vimwiz]

a professional photographer with over 25,000 images on the computer

Office Picture Manager is the only program she is willing to use

Really???

Did she change windows OS version when she changed hardware? - Perhaps the behaviour changed. As far as I know, windows explorer/photo viwer under recent versions ignores the exif rotation data entirely.

 

[ComputerPower]

The new computer that she's just started using is Windows 7 with Office 2007.

The computer she's been using for at least the last three years has also been Windows 7 with Office 2007.

The point where Picture Manager allegedly stopped doing the image orientations was about 07/2013. At that point there was a 30 phone call conversation between the client and Microsoft tech support, which ultimately ended when they told her the problem was a virus infection and a corrupted operating system, and they told her to buy a new computer. That was the point when she started talking to us.

We're a small IT company, and we know all about large-corporation support agents who are just trying to meet their quota of "resolved" support tickets, and the information that Microsoft gave our client certainly sounds fishy.

But she insists that it was working prior to July of last year, despite our research to the contrary. Which is why I'm here, to see if anyone who does photography for a living knows something about it that I don't.

 

[The_Traveler]

I have no answer but it does seem odd that anyone with 25,000 files would use Office Picture Manager which is really primitive and limited compared with Lightroom, ACDSee or damn near anything.

 

[HughGuessWho]

Strange story. But, the orientation issue is probably in the camera settings. Canons offer a setting to correct the displayed orientation on the computer or not.

 

[KmH]

Yep. The "professional photographer" may have unknowingly changed the setting in her camera (Playback Menu - Rotate Tall) that sets the EXIF orientation flag.
The camera has a sensor that detects the camera orientation, and it's also possible the sensor started malfunctioning in July of last year.

For a "professional photographer" 25,000 images is a surprisingly small number of images. Many active amateur photographers have many more images than that.

 

[ComputerPower]

The client has previously said that her primary camera is a Canon 7D. That means little to me as an IT technician, honestly.

Does that "Playback Menu - Rotate Tall" thing apply to that model? If so I can give that to the client as something to check.

 

[The_Traveler]

http://www.bfm.ee/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Canon-EOS-7D-Owners-Manual.pdf

View attachment 67642

 

[astroNikon]

I used to use Microsoft Office Picture manager.

Then I realized .. it really didn't do anything.
And of the features that it did have, it didn't do a very good job compared to Adobe Lightroom.

I now use Adobe Lightroom exclusively to edit photos and handle the library.

I know that information doesn't help you much,
but it would be similar to someone still hanging on to Windows 3.1 when they really need Windows 7.

 

[KmH]

The client has previously said that her primary camera is a Canon 7D. That means little to me as an IT technician, honestly.

Does that "Playback Menu - Rotate Tall" thing apply to that model? If so I can give that to the client as something to check.

Playback Menu - Rotate Tall is for Nikon, but her Canon will have an equivalent setting and camera orientation sensor.