Attachments

[Montreal V8]

 
    Having trouble attaching photos. When I hit "Attach" with a file photo, nothing happens. any help as to what I'm doing incorrectly appreciated.
   Thanks,   Dale.

[specracer]

Looks like you got it (there is a picture in your thread).

Usually the issue is the image is too large. You need to resize image smaller. The image you posted is 1200 x 800 (and it uploaded). I use MS Paint to resize for this purpose.

[Garry]

As Andy said, it is usually the picture is too large.


As it says when you choose a file


Allowed file types: doc, gif, jpg, jpeg, mpg, pdf, png, txt, zip
Restrictions: 4 per post, maximum total size 32768KB, maximum individual size 8192KB

[FGN59]

Hi Garry

Sorry for a silly question, but I have had some difficulty uploading photos ’the right way up’ on several occasions. I developed a theory that it seems to happen to pictures taken with a phone (which is often the case nowadays), and probably because of the original orientation of the phone when the picture was taken. I have on several occasions turned the pictures around so they would appear right, but this didn’t change anything, they still showed upside down or twisted 90º to the right or left. Is there a particular trick to perform so they appear right?

[hansr433]

Tricky when posting more than one photo per post, but at the very least you should get a pop-up window when clicking CHOOSE FILE below the message window.  After selecting the first attachment, click on MORE ATTACHMENTS to select the next, and so on.  If an attachment is too large, send you will get a message once you have clicked POST.

[hansr433]

Francois, same here.  See my post https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=31365.0

I took the photos on my iPhone and they ended up turned 90 degrees in the post.  Not sure how to avoid this.

 

[FGN59]

Hi Hans,
Your experience confirms my theory I think. I have an idea that I will explore to maybe resolve this, although it would probably be somewhat convoluted, and may not work for all situations. The other solution would be to improve the software on which our forum is implemented, but that is probably not in our hands (and beyond my capabilities). I need a few days as I am currently traveling without access to a desktop computer, but if I am reasonably successful in finding a good fix, I’ll post a specific notice on the forum.

[Montreal V8]

   Well, this came as a surprise. I had written up a small piece about my latest acquisition to go in "other cars". When I finished and went to attachments it did not show on "preview", so assumed it had not downloaded. I still have a lot to learn about computers.  Thanks for all the advice.
   Cheers,    Dale.

[Garry]

I have occasionally had the photo upside down or sideways also.  I always thought it was because i was down under in Australia.

No, in all seriousness, i believe it is with using an iPhone and taking the photo in the landscape or portrait.  I believe it occurs when the portrait photo is taken.  It does not always occur but when it does, i have always gone back to the original and flipped it around 360 and then reattached it and it appears to fix the problem.  Why it occurs i do not know and maybe our esteemed past President and current Administrator, Peter van Es can step in here and explain why this occurs.


Garry

[Peter van Es]

Hi Garry

Sorry for a silly question, but I have had some difficulty uploading photos ’the right way up’ on several occasions. I developed a theory that it seems to happen to pictures taken with a phone (which is often the case nowadays), and probably because of the original orientation of the phone when the picture was taken. I have on several occasions turned the pictures around so they would appear right, but this didn’t change anything, they still showed upside down or twisted 90º to the right or left. Is there a particular trick to perform so they appear right?

This is a problem with all phones... the problem is they have an accelerometer sensor and will store in the picture EXIF data the way the phone was held when taking the picture. When you view it on the phone, it will correct the orientation. When you upload from the phone it looks all right, but the file is not rotated correctly.

So first I transfer the photo's from my phone to my computer. Then I post pictures from my computer, because then I can adjust the orientation and upload it.

Now comes the conundrum. I can modify the software on the site, so that it uses the orientation indications in the file and correct the orientation after upload. Which will work for (most) smartphones. But it will yield strange results for pictures uploaded from a computer.

e.g. the upside-down pictures in this post have no orientation tag: https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=31351.msg227745#msg227745

By the way, we've relaxed the upload sizes. The software was modified by me so that it will automatically resize what you upload to a maximum height or width of 1280 pixels.

Peter

[FGN59]

Hi Peter,
You are confirming my intuition. My intent was to try and work out a way (Hopefully easy enough for most of us to use) to expunge the acceleratometer data from the EXIF metadata so pictures coming from a phone can be ‘seen’ by the software as coming from a computer and not redressed y the forum software.

[hansr433]

Hello Peter, I understand that the forum software is a package, but would it not make sense to build in the capability to understand how the poster intended the orientation of a photo to be?  That cannot be that hard to program?

[Peter van Es]

Hi Peter,
You are confirming my intuition. My intent was to try and work out a way (Hopefully easy enough for most of us to use) to expunge the acceleratometer data from the EXIF metadata so pictures coming from a phone can be ‘seen’ by the software as coming from a computer and not redressed y the forum software.

This you do by copying the picture from a smartphone to a PC, then correcting the orientation and then uploading it. When you orient it properly, it will reset the orientation tag, and it will show correctly here.

[Peter van Es]

Hello Peter, I understand that the forum software is a package, but would it not make sense to build in the capability to understand how the poster intended the orientation of a photo to be?  That cannot be that hard to program?

Sure, the software is a package, but I've made many modifications to it already:

• the membership system (payments and renewals)
• anti-spam features (many of those...) which is why you do not get people touting fake Rayban's on here like everywhere else on the internet... and no, that is not standard
• the Technical Manual integration

So changing the functionality is not the problem. It's just that not all phones add the orientation data and it can go wrong. See my link below to inverted pictures, without orientation data. Oh, that and the little issue of the cost of my time. When I made most of the changes above, I was "in between jobs". Now I'm not ;-)

Peter

[Peter van Es]

Ok, Challenge accepted. I've implemented the following:

• when uploading pictures with an EXIF orientation setting the system may now rotate your images correctly. I say may, because I've not tested it.
• when adding an attachment, you can now select in a drop down box how you'd like your picture to be oriented
• if you've done it wrong, either the poster -- or the admin or a moderator -- can Modify the post and for each attachment select the correct orientation.
  

Have fun...

[FGN59]

Well, this is great. On behalf of all, thank you for this.

I started this suggestion after doing exactly what you suggested, ie transferring a photo taken on a phone to a desktop, changing its orientation, and loading it on to the forum, only to find that it was still upside down. The ability to change the orientation directly in the forum software is going to resolve this once and for all. Again, thank you.

[FGN59]

Going back to some of my recent posts with photos upside down (in spite of my prior efforts to set them rightj, I can confirm that they now are right side up. The only one which was still tilted I was able to set right easily thanks to the toolbox you’ve added. Both fixes work!

[hansr433]

Ok, Challenge accepted. I've implemented the following:

• when uploading pictures with an EXIF orientation setting the system may now rotate your images correctly. I say may, because I've not tested it.
• when adding an attachment, you can now select in a drop down box how you'd like your picture to be oriented
• if you've done it wrong, either the poster -- or the admin or a moderator -- can Modify the post and for each attachment select the correct orientation.
  

Have fun...

Awesome.  Thank you for doing this.