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RAW portrait photos rotate 90degrees anticlockwise when opened in Photo Library?

Why do RAW portrait photos rotate 90degrees anticlockwise when opened in Photo Library?

Thumbnail is correct. I

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 7, 2020 1:10 PM

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Posted on Jul 8, 2020 12:35 AM

That happens regularly for me, but only for a small number of old photos, say from 10-15 years ago that were taken with a specific camera (Sony Cybershot F-717). I assume that some metadata related to camera orientations was not stored properly in Photos or was altered due to a bug in Photos.


I see no way to avoid this from occurring, although it seems that if I remove the old edits and then re-edit the photo, including setting the orientation correctly, then the correct orientation is remembered correctly thereafter.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 8, 2020 12:35 AM in response to Therese1991

That happens regularly for me, but only for a small number of old photos, say from 10-15 years ago that were taken with a specific camera (Sony Cybershot F-717). I assume that some metadata related to camera orientations was not stored properly in Photos or was altered due to a bug in Photos.


I see no way to avoid this from occurring, although it seems that if I remove the old edits and then re-edit the photo, including setting the orientation correctly, then the correct orientation is remembered correctly thereafter.

Jul 8, 2020 2:39 AM in response to Therese1991

I am also seeing this for some old photos. I noticed, that all of them had been edited (tagged) in an external editor, before importing to Aperture or Photos.

When I open open the original image file of such an old photo in GraphicConverter, I am usually getting a warning about two conflicting orientation tags. This suggests, that the embedded thumbnail has been created using a different orientation tag from the orientation tag used by Photos.


Jul 9, 2020 1:44 PM in response to jeffreyEh

All photos I have are relatively new as I only started using the camera 5 months ago. The issue first started on the 7th of June. All photos in my library before this date are fine.

Another thing I noticed today is when I first import them to library there is no issue, but directly after they have been backed up to icloud the issue starts.


I tried your recommendation for correcting the orientation, if I try this a few times it seems to stick, thank you.

Hopefully Apple realises there is a bug so it can be fixed, it's very annoying at the moment.


RAW portrait photos rotate 90degrees anticlockwise when opened in Photo Library?

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