(Archived) Orientation of Images - EXIF data not recognized

werdunn · January 7, 2009

I scanned a document as a Jpeg using an HP PhotoSmart C4580. In the HP editing software, I oriented the Jpeg in Landscape and saved the changes. The landscape orientation is visible on my iMacs (OSX 10.5.6) document viewer. I imported the Jpeg using the Mac Evernote Desktop Client, however, the image in oriented as a portrait. Is there a way to change the orientation within Evernote, or is there a work around up front to prevent this from reorienting? I'd prefer not to scan as a Jpeg in order to retain text recognition. Thanks!

Metrodon · December 17, 2011

Is there a Receipts Anonymous group near you?

engberg · January 7, 2009

I think that your image software may be "rotating" the image using a rotation flag that isn't widely supported outside of image editing software. For example, I think that if you took that image and opened the file from Safari, you'd see it in the same orientation that you see in Evernote.

Some image editing software handles rotation without using the "orientation" flag, but actually moves the pixels around. I think you could do that with Preview ... when you finish editing, uncheck the "Use Exif Orientation Tag" to improve compatibility.

Andrew Sales · April 23, 2012

As he often is, Jeff is totally on point.
A few of us have suggested you try the following options, in this order:
Use third-party apps that play well with Evernote to do what you want
Try using Evernote for other purposes, and see if it can be helpful to you that way
Not use Evernote, if it's not helpful to you

And have you ever wondered how that reads?

Did you think perhaps that such options as "not use Evernote" had not occurred to me?

Or with all due respect, do you think it just might be read as condescending?

Am I expected to be grateful for several of you flagging that one up?

I do appreciate the helpful replies here, but just please bear in mind that I can type and use grammar, and perhaps have some empathy with my reactions to the likes of the above.

One thing that other users here have helped me realize is that, as much as I wish Evernote could do everything I want it to do, there are some things that it simply is not the best app for—or not at all good for.

You mean like photo-notes?

(My major desire is a robust word processor, with a lot more editing functionality and without all the current formatting problems.) It is obviously not the best app for saving and retrieving images uploaded with iOS devices.

You missed Android devices.

So more or less all EN-enabled devices with a camera can't display their own photo notes the right way up. I'm still struggling to see how that isn't not just a big deal but actually an embarrassment for Evernote.

Two questions for you:

1. Does EN claim to be a robust word processor?

2. Does it claim to do photo-notes?

(Again, going back to my first post, I've never had an image that I uploaded from my Mac incorrectly displayed on the Mac, web, or Windows clients, which leads me to believe this really is a problem originating in the iOS clients, and not a problem with all Evernote clients.) That may be reason enough for some people to not use Evernote. If you would mostly use it to store images you take on your iPhone, then I can see why this is a very legitimate dealbreaker.

I don't have an iPhone. And you will find that the vast majority of photo notes are taken with smart phones. (I find this thread so surreal that a part of me is tempted to actually list the two major reasons why that is! But I resist!)

I think some of our comments—or maybe I should just speak for myself—have come from not understanding your incredulity at Evernote not doing something you want it to, especially when you're currently using it for free.

That is unfair reframing of my beef. I do not expect EN to do everything I want it to. But I expect any app, if claiming to be for taking photo notes to simply display the photos the correct way up. Now you may disagree that correct photo note functionality is core to EN, but to imply I'm incredulous simply because it doesn't fulfil my every desire is a little misleading, don't you think?

Interesting take there. I'd say that what makes this not a major deal in the grand scheme of things is not what Evernote does wrong (as you suggested), but what Evernote does right. Its display of images taken/added by iOS devices is a problem. Full stop. No hedging there.
But for many of us, including users like GrumpyMonkey, who have suffered from this and complained about it, it's not a dealbreaker because of all the other functionalities Evernote offers. Again, it would be great if this worked, and if Evernote did everything we want. But it doesn't, so we appreciate what it does do—or we stop using it.

Why making a sustained fuss about a flaw off the table? Is EN a cult or a commercial software service?

Looking back over this conversation, it occurs to me that maybe this bothers you so much because of Evernote's marketing? If you had specifically complained about this, you might have had more people agreeing with you, rather than pushing back. Since, however, you've mostly been saying this is a big problem because other programs do what you want and Evernote doesn't, you've heard the responses we've given.

Marketing has nothing to do with it. Core functionality has.

werdunn · January 7, 2009

Dave! That worked like a charm...thanks. I don't know how I would have figured that one out on my own...you just saved me hours of cursing and frustration :-)...my wife thanks you!

JMichaelTX · June 19, 2012

I think we're using something that's native to the Windows operating system, and if so there isn't too much we can do.

If you can't fix it, you might try a google search. A quick search turned up many Windows resources for rotating images.

JMichaelTX · June 17, 2012

Wow! It finally finished and the resulting image is over 20 Mb! I find the best way is to just double-click the image to edit it locally using Paint.net

Wow! So the image increased from 2.5MB to 20MB! That's almost a factor of 10!

Sure seems like the EN Win devs and QA were asleep at the wheel...

I agree with mrossk that this feature should be immediately fixed or pulled from EN Win if this bug is confirmed.

Fortunately, I can report that the EN Mac team got it right. I've tested both small images, and big images (2.6MB) and the rotation was instant in both cases, with no change in file size.

peterfmartin · April 22, 2012

Someone points out that the foremost image note taking app doesn't display images correctly and the response is that this potential customer sounds like they will "never be happy".

Andrew, I wrote that because you had previously written:

Evernote is broken.
I have not encountered another mobile app that deals with photos that can't handle this. I find it absolutely extraordinary that an app claiming photo notes as a key feature hasn't got this sorted after what appears to be many months of reports and requests.
If you mainly use mobile photo notes this makes the app almost unusable.

And responses like this are utterly pitiful:
http://discussion.ev...8778#entry11877d
"We will consider adding the ability to correctly display jpegs a feature request ".
Really?

We will treat correct jpeg orientation (which obviously requires reading the EXIF orientation flag) as a feature request, rather than a bug.
It is that that I find extraordinary, regardless of whether the "request" is given any priority or merely considered and rejected.
...
In any case, there is nothing to suggest that the "feature request" of non-broken photo note display is given any priority whatsoever, or will even be acted upon.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll perhaps try creating photo notes with a third party client.
Something I can hardly believe I have to consider.

Evernote is broken in its basic functionality.
Every other app has mastered this basic functionality.

As I understood this conversation, we were agreeing: Neither of us had any indication this problem will be fixed soon. You had gone beyond that to make very clear your incredulity at both Evernote's capabilities and the company's attitude to this problem, suggesting you're currently quite unhappy with Evernote and can't be happy until this problem is fixed. "Never" was the wrong word on my part—but, given my understanding of how and how quickly Evernote fixes bugs and releases new features, my guess if you will remain unhappy with the company for a while if you keep using the program. That's because you made clear that you need images to be displayed correctly for Evernote to be useful for you when you wrote, "If you mainly use mobile photo notes this makes the app almost unusable." So, since the program is currently almost unusable for you, and since our best guess is that it will not change for a while, I did two things: First, I pointed you to two previously suggested third-party apps that could help you. Second, I suggested that if those don't work for you, then Evernote probably won't be worth your time. I didn't mean to be offering a "cod-psychoanalytical hand waving excuse"; I meant to say that, unfortunately given the use case you described, it doesn't seem that Evernote will be helpful for you for a while.

And that is a shame to those of us who have found it very helpful. As Jeff said, a big reason we spend time here is to try to help other users troubleshoot, find workarounds and third-party apps that sort of solve problems, and otherwise see how we can help each other use Evernote most effectively. I didn't mean to be discouraging, but rather to save you time, since you made clear you didn't want to get entangled with Evernote if it wouldn't be useful when you wrote, "I disagree that a few forum posts are too much fuss given the time I have spent and may yet spend with the service." We agree about that too (in that we both find posting here worthwhile if we are or may be devoting a lot of time to Evernote). Sorry our—or at least my—posts haven't been helpful. I sincerely hope that you stick with Evernote, that the problem gets fixed before too long, and you find a lot of great ways to use Evernote for a long time. If some or all of that doesn't happen, I hope you don't feel you've wasted a lot of time with it, or with us.

GrumpyMonkey · April 23, 2012

i'm cool with you complaining and raising a stink. so did i in the thread i started on the same topic.

i think it is uncool to ridicule. i prefer a more respectful approach. not because it is a cult. not because it is a company. because the developers and staff at evernote are people too (except for phil the ceo - he is a robot, but one with a laser, so watch out).

there is a difference between a squeeky wheel and running your fingernails across the chalkboard.

carry on with your advocacy

jefito · June 19, 2012

@dlu, yes you can use native Windows GDI calls (I'm thinking PlgBlt) to do the rotation, but I'm guessing that the actual cause of the enlargement lies elsewhere, since the number of raw pixels ought to be the same (modulo row padding). At a guess it's related to some form of format change (pixel depth? compression? output format?) but I haven't actually done before/after tests on the source bitmaps to check out what's going on. I'm sure your Win folks can figure it out. We've used a mix of techniques at work to do raster rotations for mapping, depending on projection, rotation, scaling, etc. Intel's IPP library is quite good, based on my colleague's experience.

apoto · August 1, 2009

Jotnot and Evernote need to get together over coffee, and figure out a way to incorporate Jotnot into the iphone evernote app the mac client.

Andrew Sales · March 22, 2013

Devote brain cells? Educated opinion? On whether to display photos:

a.) the right way up
b.) the wrong way up.

This is exactly the sort of evasion and defensiveness that must look hilarious to all normal lurkers and I hope a few EN die-hards.
This is exactly the sort of tone-deaf and ill-informed stance that makes developers -- the actual people who need to understand specifications and formats, and implement them in code -- roll their eyes in resigned annoyance. "Oh, it's so easy; just display them right-side up". But easy to say is not necessarily easy to do.

Misdirection. Whether it is easy to do is irrelevant to the question of whether displaying photo notes incorrectly is an interface flaw. It is a flaw, and moreover it is in fact easy to fix. All mobiles use the orientation flag the same way. No other popular app I'm aware of has this problem. Every gallery app, every other photo note app, every photo editing app, contacts apps. Handwaving about the "ins and outs" of simple EXIF flag doesn't change that fact.

"But anyways, if you feel a need to school me, Evernote, and the rest of the forum on the ins and outs of EXIF spec, feel free -- that sort of information is useful and far more persuasive than any of the snide commentary so far. "

OK, it's very simple. On any mobile, when taking a photo note, read the EXIF orientation flag and rotate the image display accordingly. It is as far as I'm aware the same EXIF flag on every mobile device. Image rotation by 90% is mathematically trivial and handled by just about every image displaying app on mobiles except Evernote. You simply transpose columns of pixels to rows. If I'm mistaken and there is some propriatary variation, then just find out what flags are used by the top five handset makers and implement them for a solid start.

Fortunately, as Evernote users know, Evernote is not just a note-taking app, and Keep is not even in the same league as Evernote, at present. Sure, it's pretty, and quick.

And it can do photo notes on a mobile, which Evernote can't yet.

But how does it scale to 10's of thousands of notes?

Probably similar to how GMail scales to 10000 odd emails that I can search effectively in fractions of a second. If Google adds tags, together with the other features on Drive I think it will be at least as powerful as EN.

And it can show photos the right way up.

How do you organize them? How do you share and collaborate with others? Compared to GMail, which has real usefulness and a fair number of options for customization, Keep is surprisingly simple-minded. I like GMail and Google Search and Google Calendar too, I really do, but I frankly, I really expected more from Keep. It's easy and free, sure, but for folks interested in doing more than note-taking, where's the next level? I'm just not seeing it,not yet.

Keep already has integration with Drive, which is not simple and has mobile app support. Sharing is already implemented and collaboration on more serious files is handled exceptionally well on Drive. Also, it is the first release. And its free. And it is more secure, with optional 2 factor authentication and no history of recent large scale security breaches.

I am interested in photo note taking from mobile. It is simply the most effective way for me and many others to store and organize the information on many bits of paper, screen displays, notices and physical layouts I deal with in and outside of work every day. An app that purports to be the premium note taking platform (whether it offers other features or not) not only can't do this properly at the most basic level of note display, but apparently has a number of defenders that can't even acknowledge this inability to be a significant problem.

I really don't think I'm unusual in my use-case or unreasonable in my assessment. And when I react with disbelief to the kind of responses that suggest that image orientation is just so incredibly complex, or that I have a niche complaint barely relevant to most users, it is not snide, it is really just honest jaw-dropping.

This doesn't in the least stop me wishing anyone who uses EN effectively the very best. But it cannot be used effectively to take mobile photo notes at present.

Andrew Sales · March 22, 2013

Web clipping is pretty good, but I find I don't use it.

It is usually quicker for me to find the content again on the internet using Google or history or favorites than it is to find a clipping on Evernote. You also get the most up to date version of the page, and I don't find content disappearing to be a significant problem.

Tags are pretty good. That is one big gap in Keep, but I'm fairly confident they will implement them if the service survives.

It would be wonderful if universal tags were implemented across GMail, Drive, Maps, Calendar and Keep.

GrumpyMonkey · April 22, 2012

Hello everyone.

In my opinion this topic needs to remain active until it is fixed. It is a malfunction present accross all platforms as far as I can tell - namely that Evernote cannot display photos.

Yes, I know it can display pixels from a photo, but it cannot read the EXIF data correctly or consistently and so displays a transformation of the photo rather than the photo itself.

No - correct orientation is not a "feature request". The orientation flag is integral to a jpeg and any program that can't use them can't claim to display photos, and especially so on a mobile device.

Evernote is broken.

I have not encountered another mobile app that deals with photos that can't handle this. I find it absolutely extraordinary that an app claiming photo notes as a key feature hasn't got this sorted after what appears to be many months of reports and requests.

If you mainly use mobile photo notes this makes the app almost unusable.

It is extremely frustrating and is the only impediment to me signing up as a premium subscriber (in order to have offline access and higher upload limits for pictures).

I simply cannot believe that this is difficult to program. Every other app in the world has managed it.

hi. i've posted a thread on this topic as well along with details about how some of the main platforms treat the photo orientation differently in the thumbnails and note views. evernote staff have recognized the behavior exists, given detailed explanations about the reasons for it, and provided a workaround for it (opening the image on the desktop, rotating it back and forth, and re-uploading it). the thread is floating around somewhere on the forums.

i think it is fair to say that i have been fairly critical about it. i'm not too keen on the current situation, but i don't think evernote is "broken." they have made a decision, and they have been kind enough to share their rationale for it. it makes sense, even if i don't agree.

in my case, the image rotation isn't a critical feature. there are other ones that are, though, and it sometimes requires me to use a third party app to get done what i want. it's not ideal, but it's good to keep things in perspective--there is nothing else even remotely close to it in terms of overall functionality (this is the first time i have been able to put all of my notes into one application) and it is getting better all of the time. you might want to keep checking back

jefito · April 23, 2012

Cult. Definitely.

Liam Gretton · June 17, 2012

I've found the same issues here. For JPEGs this is a bit of an oversight, it's quite trivial to rotate JPEGs through multiples of 90 degrees without having to decode the image, and it should be very fast on even modest hardware.

megsaint · March 22, 2013

Web clipping is pretty good, but I find I don't use it.

I read something, probably an Evernote blog post, about a year ago (and I'm sorry I don't have the citation) that said that web clipping accounts for some astronomically high percentage of people's use of Evernote. Apparently, it is most people's primary use for the service. It is certainly why I first started using it and why it continues to be such a huge part of my daily routine. I rarely use it for taking notes. Frankly, it doesn't excel at that. On my iOS devices, I uses Drafts and, on my computer, I've started using SimpleNote, either via the web or one of the clients I've downloaded both are fast, lightweight and great for writing quick notes. If keep ever comes up with an iOS version that has the kind of options Drafts does, I would definitely consider it for taking notes.

patnpm · July 23, 2009

again - malorientated in firefox or safari, correctly orientated in preview

also correctly orientated if I email in the image

June 20, 2012

... or perhaps the file is locked by Paint.NET and Evernote can't reload it?

This seems to be the problem.

When I want to rotate a picture in evernote, I double-click this image in evernote, then the native image-viewer from Windows starts where I can rotate the picutre. After closing the viewer the rotated picture is written back to evernote correctly.

Andrew Sales · March 22, 2013

Web clipping is pretty good, but I find I don't use it.
I read something, probably an Evernote blog post, about a year ago (and I'm sorry I don't have the citation) that said that web clipping accounts for some astronomically high percentage of people's use of Evernote. Apparently, it is most people's primary use for the service. It is certainly why I first started using it and why it continues to be such a huge part of my daily routine. I rarely use it for taking notes. Frankly, it doesn't excel at that. On my iOS devices, I uses Drafts and, on my computer, I've started using SimpleNote, either via the web or one of the clients I've downloaded both are fast, lightweight and great for writing quick notes. If keep ever comes up with an iOS version that has the kind of options Drafts does, I would definitely consider it for taking notes.

That would be great if EN sold itself as a web-clipping platform, rather than a tool to "capture everything".

May I ask, what exactly do you clip that you want to keep? Can't you just google anything you want again in about 3 seconds? Or do you need a lot of web content offline?

deverill · April 24, 2012

A better product like what?

LOL, exactly my point!!!! As one man was fond of saying, "Whether you like it or ya don't like it, learn to love it cause it's the best thing going today." Your choices vary, if you can live without it then you have that option, of course. I have not found anything that can even come near Evernote's usefulness for me so I voice my opinion about certain things and then accept that it is their product and I can either take it or leave it. Contrary to the philosophy of the country today, I am not entitled to everything I want. If I weren't a Premium customer I'd be even more inclined to say my peace and shut up about it instead of coming into the forums and attacking Evernote, their staff, other customers, etc. as if I were entitled to abuse an "Internet user forum". This is not alt.binaries.Evernote.bash.bash.bash... it is a forum hosted, paid for, and monitored by Evernote. Don't compromise your morals, but otherwise when you are in someone else's house as a guest act like a human being and not a whiney brat that wants to kick and scream until Mommy gives in and gives you candy just to shut you up.

Yes, you are right, others have already produced the helpful reply of questioning my right to continued comment, my use of time and finishing with "if you don't like it why don't you take a hike".
I can't help but feel that some of you are emotionally identified with this service and feel upset that I'm making a fuss about a flaw.

Oh, you have the right to continue to comment. You have the right to make yourself out to be the northbound end of a southbound horse as well... it's your choice. Until Evernote decides to stop it you indeed have that right. Furthermore, I never said "if you don't like it why don't you take a hike" and if that was meant to be aimed at me then I'd say once again you are horribly misquoting people, as you are want to do. What I said, put differently, is if Evernote is, as you state and imply, such a terrible product that is created by programmers that can't even do a simple task and they won't even give you the satisfaction of fixing it BEFORE you are even a paid customer then why put yourself through that? I think Windows blows so I quit using it... it's not worth the pain of using a bad product, whining about it all the time, listening to others who love it and appreciate it... it's easier just to switch to Mac. I'm not telling you to quit using Evernote, I'm asking why you still do since it sucks so bad, in your presented complaints?

I'm not emotionally identified with Evernote and I'm not upset you are complaining about a flaw. I'm upset that you attack the programmers and Chief Executives of a tool that has totally changed my life so dramatically. You make baseless comments about how easy it is to fix. Are you a programmer? Do you know about how to read the Exif and flip photos? Do you know the intimate details of Evernote so you can say for sure it is an easy thing to do? There are a lot of factors that customers don't always 'get'. I'm upset that instead of acting like an adult and stating the issue and letting Evernote decide whether to do anything about it so you can decide whether to keep using the free product, you come in here and lash out at everything and everyone in sight. Finally, I'm upset I've wasted so much of my time on this tirade of yours, but many others here are too polite to say what I did, even if they think the same.

When I say Evernote has dramatically changed my life I'm not exaggerating. I have come to the point of being able to remember almost nothing and I've never had great organizational skills when it comes to paper so EVERYTHING that crosses my path goes into Evernote and it makes it possible to function. Evernote is an awesome product (not perfect but awesome nonetheless) that has made it possible for me to function on a near-normal level and keep my life sorted so yes, when a wanker like you comes in whining and attacking everyone around it does upset me.

I've said everything I have to say. Carry on your tantrum if you like... you won't have to hear from me on this issue again... I'm going to go find someone that appreciates Evernote and could use some help instead of fighting over how terrible it is when they have the freedom to quit using it. Cheers! I hope you find a product that does what you like. Maybe Microsoft would be more responsive to your 'comments' with OneNote?

penwriter · March 22, 2013

The fact that EN doesn't take care of the EXIF orientation is, in my very personal opinion, a deficiency at most, but it is not a bug. In fact there are several other services that do the same. If I take a photo with my Android phone in portrait mode and transfer it by USB to my laptop, it will show up in Windows picture viewer as landscape and I have to rotate it. The same applies if I send that picture by mail to my wife's mobile, although both devices run on Android (but different versions).

In any case this is not a big issue for me as I am never sending or uploading a full resolution picture to the cloud anyway, and therefore I always use some kind of image processing before uploading. In my case this is the app "Reduce photo size" - which also shows the image in the "real" orientation and not the one according to the auto-rotate EXIF flag. Reducing image size and rotating by 90° is a matter of seconds. After that the image is shown correctly everywhere, including EN.

It is interesting to see in how many very different ways people use EN. For me the main point is neither storing images, nor is it web clippings. I mainly use it to organize files of all kinds, mainly pdf, Excel and Word documents and also mails to a certain extent. The most important features in this context are tags, search, and the possibility to combine a file with short notes about the file. And EN provides by far the best package of features to me for that purpose. For everyone there are of course features that have to be added or improved with utmost urgency. Being a chemist, support of sub- and superscript is MY favourite. But somehow I feel others may have different preferences...

BurgersNFries · April 22, 2012

In general, IMO, this is an annoyance, yes, but NBD. There are several third party apps that allow a user to easily/quickly change the orientation of the image in EN or before sending to EN.

We all have our features that are deal breakers when evaluating any app. If this is a deal breaker for OP, then OP should look for another app. But ridiculing the developers for not complying to what one considers a deal breaker (and really, this is pretty minor in the grand scheme of what Evernote does) is just plain rude & uncalled for.

jefito · March 22, 2013

re EXIF: Thank you for the information; I'll take it as given. You may be right, too, by the way -- I should have said that before.

re "Note taking app": Front page of the Evernote site, top dead center: "Remember Everything". (not Take Notes About Everything)

Subtitles:

"Capture anything : Save your ideas, things you like, things you hear, and things you see."
"Access Anywhere : Evernote works with nearly every computer, phone and mobile device out there."
"Find Things Fast : Search by keyword, tag or even printed and handwritten text inside images."

I don't see anything about note-taking there. Note-taking is just one way to get content into Evernote. It's useful for that, but not perfect as we all know. I use it pretty often. More often, though, I web clip articles that I want to save (sure, I can google search, but web sites disappear, and disk space is cheap, and I can organize my notes to make finding things even quicker). I bought a scanner recently -- another way to get content into Evernote. I take screen caps of the output of software I am developing, which I can then I can annotate using Skitch, as a reference for problems I notice. I capture emails from my co-workers, so that I can track issues.

Believe what you want about Evernote, but it is not primarily a note-taking app.

pgdahl · February 7, 2012

It is probably not a bug - more likely a missing feature. Evernote does not know from a foto what the correct orientation is. Especially if they come from mobile devices.

However, to rotate the pictures, you can just open them in Preview and use ⌘R or ⌘L to give them the right orientation as needed. The image will then show properly in Evernote.

BurgersNFries · March 22, 2013

That would be great if EN sold itself as a web-clipping platform, rather than a tool to "capture everything".

May I ask, what exactly do you clip that you want to keep? Can't you just google anything you want again in about 3 seconds? Or do you need a lot of web content offline?

This seems to be incredibly naive & may explain why you're so fixated on the way photos are displayed.

First, Evernote does indeed pretty much help/allow you to "capture everything". I can't even figure out why you would dispute that.

Second, why would I want to Google things repeatedly? And yes, I'm one who has discovered after a few years (sometimes less), websites/blogs are taken down. So if it's something I want to refer to later, I will screen cap it or clip it. That's a whole lot faster than writing the notes myself from the website. A few weeks ago, I started getting an error 609 when VPN'ing to work (Windows). I spent a couple of hours Googling on this error & finally got it fixed. But along the way were downloads of programs to fix this. Since I'm not going to blindly download something & run it on my computer, I check out the file first. I keep track of this information so that if I have this problem again, I don't have to spend two more hours, redoing what I already did once.

Like Penwriter, I also use EN to organize files. I use it to keep code/scripts I use for work. Rather than trying to remember the name of the file/script & perhaps looking through a few before finding the one I'm looking for, I can quickly find the right one in Evernote. I occasionally share info from my Evernote to others on both a personal & professional level. I normally put the info in Evernote & then share the note to them. If you're more interested in photos & taking notes, Evernote may not be the app for you.

rolfessenden · May 12, 2012

When I use Camera + app on the iPhone I don't have any problem with wrong orientation in EN. Doesn't that imply it is the iPhone camera app that is the problem?

Rol

Liam Gretton · July 18, 2012

A neat solution to all of these problems would be if Evernote just stored the rotation state as a property of the image in the note and acted appropriately at the point it's displayed rather than modifying the image itself.

James M. · June 19, 2012

Wow, I don't think playing the "Oh, it's just a Microsoft problem" is going to fly on this one.

amoroso · December 17, 2011

As I recall, though, the images were ok, and it was just the thumbnails that got flipped.

I have the same issue on Android when exporting images from CamScanner to Evernote. But it's not just the thumbnails that have the wrong orientation, also the images themselves.

vioaeon · February 7, 2012

What pgdahl said. That said, autorotate from EXIF would be nice for next update.

jefito · June 19, 2012

Yeah, I'm guessing that it's not a MIcrosoft problem too; OTOH dlu wasn't being definitive, and did say that he'd need to check the facts first.

Andrew Sales · March 22, 2013

@Penwriter - very valid points, however a portrait photo note taken by the evernote app invariably and immediately displays incorrectly within that very same app. So it is definitely a bug. The app handles its own output incorrectly. It doesn't attempt superscript text and then show it as a subscript. Two very different issues.

Workarounds with external apps double or treble the number of steps in a workflow and can expand the time taken by more than that.

Using landscape orientation exclusively is unsatisfactory for many subjects, such as A4 documents, and furthermore does nothing to solve the problem of display of some imported images.

Windows picture viewer destroying picture information by forcing users to destructively rotate images and not even then changing the EXIF flag so that they will be subsequently displayed correctly in more sophisticated photo software is a long-running open sore of the sort that probably only Microsoft is capable of maintaining. I don't think it makes Evernote look any more reasonable, particularly since at least this crime is not a within-app affair.

@Jefito - If you don't think photo notes are core functionality or come under the remit of "capture anything" or capturing "things you see" then you have departed from common sense. And whether it is core or not, it still sucks. Playing sophist with the meaning of "note taking" is no more credible than hand waving about the complexity of image orientation.

Requests for this basic functionality have been ongoing for at least 4 years, as far as my cursory inspection can tell.

I haven't titled this thread appropriately (no idea why I used the similar title a year ago).

When this thread dies out, no doubt very soon, I'll check back in another year in order to satisfy my morbid fascination.

jefito · March 22, 2013

@Andrew: Sorry, you'll need let the thread die out without me. It seems to be running around in word-circles, much like the prior thread. I'm not primarily here for this. Carry on, though.

Andrew Sales · March 22, 2013

That would be great if EN sold itself as a web-clipping platform, rather than a tool to "capture everything".

May I ask, what exactly do you clip that you want to keep? Can't you just google anything you want again in about 3 seconds? Or do you need a lot of web content offline?

This seems to be incredibly naive & may explain why you're so fixated on the way photos are displayed.

First, Evernote does indeed pretty much help/allow you to "capture everything". I can't even figure out why you would dispute that.

I haven't disputed that, I have pointed out that part of this functionality is not implemented correctly.

Second, why would I want to Google things repeatedly?

I do it because it is quicker than accessing an Evernote client and finding it with keystrokes and clicks in there. I guess I would clip something if it was really important and long-term but I usually find that web stuff I want to keep track of is either reliably accessible, or only of short term interest. The really brief stuff like reference numbers can be quickly snapped with a mobile, especially when work restrictions don't allow my usual browser/clipper setup. Just not usefully in Evernote. I see that this won't apply to everyone though.

Like Penwriter, I also use EN to organize files. I use it to keep code/scripts I use for work. Rather than trying to remember the name of the file/script & perhaps looking through a few before finding the one I'm looking for, I can quickly find the right one in Evernote. I occasionally share info from my Evernote to others on both a personal & professional level. I normally put the info in Evernote & then share the note to them. If you're more interested in photos & taking notes, Evernote may not be the app for you.

It clearly isn't the app for me! And all I want is basic mobile photo note capture! If they just implemented photo orientation, which is accomplished by everyone else, then it might very well be the app for me, and more importantly hundreds or thousands of other potential paying users.

That's the whole point of the thread for me!

Seems like a huge waste of potential to just shrug shoulders.

It's not like this isn't eminently fixable.

goldfilm · December 13, 2011

Thanks! It keeps on doing it, no matter how I put the camera to take the pic...

Metrodon · December 17, 2011

Open up the image in Preview and give 'em a spin - fixes the individual notes if not the problem itself.

GrumpyMonkey · December 17, 2011

it works, but if you regularly photograph receipts and upload them, and don't want to turn on the computer just to rotate a picture, then it is a little annoying.

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

Mods - sorry not the right sub-forum - please move/delete as you deem appropriate.

On April the 21st last year I raised this subject and just checked again on the Evernote Android app - nope - Evernote still doesn't show its own photos the right way up, choosing to simply ignore the orientation tag despite purporting to be a mobile note taking app.

Quite remarkably incompetent, don't you think? How many other features have EN actually worked on this year? We now have the offer of a separate app for taking pictures of our dinners! Do they display sideways as well or is this just a feature of the general app?

Any updates on whether this has even been acknowledged as something worth thinking about? Any worthwhile workarounds?

I was prodded into posting this today by the release of Google Keep, which I very much look forward to trying.

I wonder if they have chosen to ignore whether a photo is displayed correctly or not?

What do you guys think?

I have been trying to use EN for the past year solely to look at some old (sideways thumbnailed) photo notes that I haven't moved, and to maintain a simple running text note ( EN lately can't even keep the text note consistently synchronised between desktop and mobile for some reason so I have recently given up on that.)

Sorry that this post is somewhat negative, but then so is the situation on this particular topic.

Metrodon · December 17, 2011

Agreed - but I also wonder how many times you need to look at those receipts

jefito · March 21, 2013

I don't see that the situation has changed from the topic you're referencing (http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/25375-why-cant-any-version-of-evernote-display-exif-data-from-photos/), so I'm not sure what you're trying to get out of reopening it, except to toss in Evernote's face the prospect that a product (which you have admittedly not tried yet) might handle things the way that you want. So rather than speculating, why don't you try Keep first to see how it behaves, then report back? Meanwhile, Evernote's position seems clear, as evidenced by Heather's posts in this topic: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/23346-evernote-support/page-5#entry118786.

BurgersNFries · March 22, 2013

It clearly isn't the app for me! And all I want is basic mobile photo note capture! If they just implemented photo orientation, which is accomplished by everyone else, then it might very well be the app for me, and more importantly hundreds or thousands of other potential paying users.
That's the whole point of the thread for me!
Seems like a huge waste of potential to just shrug shoulders.
It's not like this isn't eminently fixable.

Sorry to burst your bubble. But the board is littered with posts by other users with other feature requests who also seem to think their particular feature request is the one that will start rolling in the dollars for Evernote. So although it's your opinion & you're of course, entitled to it, Evernote's opinion is apparently different.

I'd say this thread has outlived its usefulness.. (Like about 20 posts ago.)

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

Thanks Jefito,

What's changed is that the earth has almost completed an orbit of the sun.

I'm here to see if anything has changed in Evernote with regard to basic picture display. And if it hasn't, register my disappointment and perhaps draw the attention of a new group of users. Isn't that a reasonable use of a user feedback forum?

GrumpyMonkey · December 17, 2011

never. i am not even sure why i am doing this! i should probably stop. i have hundreds i haven't even uploaded yet...

goldfilm · May 11, 2012

Is the issue you're experiencing the one described and discussed here?
http://discussion.ev...ta-from-photos/

No, it's not about the EXIF. Evernote receives the picture from the iPhone in the wrong orientation.

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

I would also note the interesting way in which you reframe the issue.

[Do you rephrase about my desire to display mobile photo notes the right way up as a desire to make the app "behave the way you want" to imply that I have unreasonable or quirky demands?] <--- EDIT gibberish, sorry.

Doesn't every user want their photos to show the right way up?

dlu · June 19, 2012

@dlu, yes you can use native Windows GDI calls (I'm thinking PlgBlt) to do the rotation, but I'm guessing that the actual cause of the enlargement lies elsewhere, since the number of raw pixels ought to be the same (modulo row padding). At a guess it's related to some form of format change (pixel depth? compression? output format?) but I haven't actually done before/after tests on the source bitmaps to check out what's going on. I'm sure your Win folks can figure it out. We've used a mix of techniques at work to do raster rotations for mapping, depending on projection, rotation, scaling, etc. Intel's IPP library is quite good, based on my colleague's experience.

Thanks, will have the team check that out

Wow, I don't think playing the "Oh, it's just a Microsoft problem" is going to fly on this one.

*sigh* I've thought that before, but you never really know... Anyways, we will be looking into it.

dlu · February 7, 2012

What pgdahl said. That said, autorotate from EXIF would be nice for next update.

Doesn't EXIF only rotate the display but not actually rotate the picture? (Or something like that... ok I'm out of my area of expertise...)

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

OK, first photonote test in Google Keep.

They managed to display photos the right way up on first release. Most impressive!

Also, don't you think it is rather a clean and beautiful UI? Hopefully they can add features as they usually do but they have made sure that the basic functionality of the notes is right, and syncing is already much better than EN.

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

bluesgeek · April 17, 2012

Evernote seems to be doing something with its ENML that doesn't look at defining a page size and orientation. So, if I scan an item as a portait-oriented it may display and/or print as a landscape, because Evernote isn't making an 8.5" x 11" page.

I don't know if this is related to the issue at hand, but here, from another thread:

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/9150-printing-pdf-from-desktop-app-mac/

jefito · March 21, 2013

I would also note the interesting way in which you reframe the issue.

Do you rephrase about my desire to display mobile photo notes the right way up as a desire to make the app "behave the way you want" to imply that I have unreasonable or quirky demands?

You are sensitive, aren't you? It's plain English, nothing hidden. If I wanted to insult you, I would just do that.

Andrew Sales · April 22, 2012

Andrew Sales, given how upset you are at Evernote (the program's) functionalities and Evernote (the company's) priorities, it sounds like you'll never be happy with either one. Sorry to hear that, since, flaws and all, a lot of us find a lot of use for it—and find it enhanced by third-party apps that play well with it.
I do find this sort of cod-psychoanalytical hand waving excuse amusing! It's not even your company!
This is a user forum, not an official support forum (though Evernote staff do sometimes peek in and contribute too), and peter is an Evernote user who is helpful in these forums. Nobody who has responded to your post is an employee, nor are we compensated for our time here. We just like to try to help out other users with their Evernote problems, where we can. I suggest you try it for awhile yourself, rather than insult the folks who, despite their good intentions, are not giving you what you want.

I think that was my point: it's not even his company!

Apologies for any offence caused though.

Andrew Sales · April 22, 2012

As I understood this conversation, we were agreeing: Neither of us had any indication this problem will be fixed soon. You had gone beyond that to make very clear your incredulity at both Evernote's capabilities and the company's attitude to this problem,

Absolutely!

I didn't mean to be offering a "cod-psychoanalytical hand waving excuse"; I meant to say that, unfortunately given the use case you described, it doesn't seem that Evernote will be helpful for you for a while.

It's almost unusable (and I will admit to exaggerating ever so slightly in that assessment).

An analogy would be if the only car maker sold cars with an uncomfortable spike in the middle of each seat.

And then claimed that they had other priorities but would consider spike-less seats as a feature request.

I appreciate your and others replies and the time they have cost. No offence was intended.

I do think a good use of time would be if this forum kicked up a fuss about basic functionality being right. I'm just contributing my one-atom's worth in that regard.

Andrew Sales · April 22, 2012

hi. i've posted a thread on this topic as well along with details about how some of the main platforms treat the photo orientation differently in the thumbnails and note views. evernote staff have recognized the behavior exists, given detailed explanations about the reasons for it, and provided a workaround for it (opening the image on the desktop, rotating it back and forth, and re-uploading it). the thread is floating around somewhere on the forums.

Thanks, I think I have briefly seen it on previous search - I'll go back and find it.

i think it is fair to say that i have been fairly critical about it. i'm not too keen on the current situation, but i don't think evernote is "broken." they have made a decision, and they have been kind enough to share their rationale for it. it makes sense, even if i don't agree.

How can it possibly make sense? This is core functionality and every other app manages it.

in my case, the image rotation isn't a critical feature. there are other ones that are, though, and it sometimes requires me to use a third party app to get done what i want. it's not ideal, but it's good to keep things in perspective--there is nothing else even remotely close to it in terms of overall functionality (this is the first time i have been able to put all of my notes into one application) and it is getting better all of the time. you might want to keep checking back

I'm not just checking back, I'm actively using it.

But I'll be damned if I pay for a broken app, even though I am keen to get offline use and larger upload limits.

Being the only/best horse in town only works as a strategy as long as you are. This just looks like they don't care about the interface.

Andrew Sales · April 22, 2012

In general, IMO, this is an annoyance, yes, but NBD. There are several third party apps that allow a user to easily/quickly change the orientation of the image in EN or before sending to EN.
We all have our features that are deal breakers when evaluating any app. If this is a deal breaker for OP, then OP should look for another app. But ridiculing the developers for not complying to what one considers a deal breaker (and really, this is pretty minor in the grand scheme of what Evernote does) is just plain rude & uncalled for.

I disagree. This is not a feature. It is incorrect display of a jpeg in a multimedia note app.

I find it slightly surreal hearing these wounded voices. In reality there is nothing rude about considering something incredibly poor, and this is.

EN is great in many ways, but that does not detract from a flaw.

Please would people like to list the other issues that make incorrect jpeg display in a multimedia note app not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things?

I presume that data is being lost? Or clients are crashing frequently, something like that?

BurgersNFries · April 22, 2012

In general, IMO, this is an annoyance, yes, but NBD. There are several third party apps that allow a user to easily/quickly change the orientation of the image in EN or before sending to EN.
We all have our features that are deal breakers when evaluating any app. If this is a deal breaker for OP, then OP should look for another app. But ridiculing the developers for not complying to what one considers a deal breaker (and really, this is pretty minor in the grand scheme of what Evernote does) is just plain rude & uncalled for.
I disagree. This is not a feature. It is incorrect display of a jpeg in a multimedia note app.
I find it slightly surreal hearing these wounded voices. In reality there is nothing rude about considering something incredibly poor, and this is.

Please re-read what I said. I did not say it was rude to "consider" something "incredibly poor". You seem to be really good at quoting things incorrectly/out of context.

But ridiculing the developers for not complying to what one considers a deal breaker (and really, this is pretty minor in the grand scheme of what Evernote does) is just plain rude & uncalled for.

In general, IMO, this is an annoyance, yes, but NBD. There are several third party apps that allow a user to easily/quickly change the orientation of the image in EN or before sending to EN.
We all have our features that are deal breakers when evaluating any app. If this is a deal breaker for OP, then OP should look for another app. But ridiculing the developers for not complying to what one considers a deal breaker (and really, this is pretty minor in the grand scheme of what Evernote does) is just plain rude & uncalled for.
I disagree. This is not a feature. It is incorrect display of a jpeg in a multimedia note app.

Yeah, we all get that you disagree, since you've posted it so often. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter whether you agree or not. It is what it is. (shrug). If you can live with it, great. If not, then yes, you should find an app that does what you need it to do.

And it doesn't seem like this convo is moving forward at all, so probably time to call it a wrap. You've posted your opinions. Others have posted theirs & now we're just doing deja vu all over again.

Andrew Sales · March 22, 2013

It clearly isn't the app for me! And all I want is basic mobile photo note capture! If they just implemented photo orientation, which is accomplished by everyone else, then it might very well be the app for me, and more importantly hundreds or thousands of other potential paying users.
That's the whole point of the thread for me!
Seems like a huge waste of potential to just shrug shoulders.
It's not like this isn't eminently fixable.

Sorry to burst your bubble. But the board is littered with posts by other users with other feature requests who also seem to think their particular feature request is the one that will start rolling in the dollars for Evernote. So although it's your opinion & you're of course, entitled to it, Evernote's opinion is apparently different.

I'd say this thread has outlived its usefulness.. (Like about 20 posts ago.)

I find the tone of this forum rather defensive and unconstructive.

There have been repeated insinuations that I am being rude in some way, or in your post here, deluded about the importance of my opinions. Isn't this just one thread on a user forum?

I'm just focusing on an issue of EN's mobile app core functions. An issue that has had multiple users complain since at least 2009. It's not a feature request, it's a request that an existing feature, mobile photo note capture, works.

Do you think it is kind or helpful to imply I am in a "bubble" and then state the fact that Evernote clearly doesn't agree with my priorities, as if this hadn't occurred to me? I don't.

As to usefulness, I would have thought a better general response would be to agree that the app works rather suboptimally in this regard, update readers on any progress in the last year (none, apparently) and perhaps even join your voices with mine asking EN if this might be fixed.

Instead we have had:

1. The issue is unimportant because very few use photonotes on mobile and photonote capture does not fall under the claim of "capturing everything".

2. The issue is too difficult to fix even though it is program all competitors can manage it.

3. I have personal defects that invalidate your complaint - mental bubbles, fixation, touchiness, snideness etc

4. Even if this is a genuine issue for some users, Evernote doesn't care, and doesn't have to do what I want so I should stop posting.

Actually, that last point is probably all the information many users need.

So thanks for that. I'll be back to check in a year.

jefito · April 22, 2012

I think that was my point: it's not even his company!

It's not my company either, but it is a valid recommendation that you be satisfied with the capabilities that Evernote offers, and if not, then trying other software is fair game (and might be better for your blood pressure, too ). I don't believe that Evernote disagrees on that point.

Apologies for any offence caused though.

Accepted. We want Evernote to work well; sometimes it can't do everything everyone wants. Good luck anyways.

peterfmartin · April 22, 2012

BNF is right that we're mostly re-treading the same ground here, so last comment from me unless we move onto new topics.

I think that was my point: it's not even his company!

It's not my company either, but it is a valid recommendation that you be satisfied with the capabilities that Evernote offers, and if not, then trying other software is fair game (and might be better for your blood pressure, too ). I don't believe that Evernote disagrees on that point.

As he often is, Jeff is totally on point. A few of us have suggested you try the following options, in this order:

Use third-party apps that play well with Evernote to do what you want
Try using Evernote for other purposes, and see if it can be helpful to you that way
Not use Evernote, if it's not helpful to you

One thing that other users here have helped me realize is that, as much as I wish Evernote could do everything I want it to do, there are some things that it simply is not the best app for—or not at all good for. (My major desire is a robust word processor, with a lot more editing functionality and without all the current formatting problems.) It is obviously not the best app for saving and retrieving images uploaded with iOS devices. (Again, going back to my first post, I've never had an image that I uploaded from my Mac incorrectly displayed on the Mac, web, or Windows clients, which leads me to believe this really is a problem originating in the iOS clients, and not a problem with all Evernote clients.) That may be reason enough for some people to not use Evernote. If you would mostly use it to store images you take on your iPhone, then I can see why this is a very legitimate dealbreaker. I think some of our comments—or maybe I should just speak for myself—have come from not understanding your incredulity at Evernote not doing something you want it to, especially when you're currently using it for free.

Please would people like to list the other issues that make incorrect jpeg display in a multimedia note app not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things?

I presume that data is being lost? Or clients are crashing frequently, something like that?

Interesting take there. I'd say that what makes this not a major deal in the grand scheme of things is not what Evernote does wrong (as you suggested), but what Evernote does right. Its display of images taken/added by iOS devices is a problem. Full stop. No hedging there. But for many of us, including users like GrumpyMonkey, who have suffered from this and complained about it, it's not a dealbreaker because of all the other functionalities Evernote offers. Again, it would be great if this worked, and if Evernote did everything we want. But it doesn't, so we appreciate what it does do—or we stop using it.

Looking back over this conversation, it occurs to me that maybe this bothers you so much because of Evernote's marketing? If you had specifically complained about this, you might have had more people agreeing with you, rather than pushing back. Since, however, you've mostly been saying this is a big problem because other programs do what you want and Evernote doesn't, you've heard the responses we've given.

Mike Wood · July 3, 2012

Yes double clicking works fine! I think the other menu option is a context menu being produced by Windows itself.

penwriter · March 22, 2013

Sorry, I have to go on a bit..

@Penwriter - very valid points, however a portrait photo note taken by the evernote app invariably and immediately displays incorrectly within that very same app. So it is definitely a bug. The app handles its own output incorrectly. It doesn't attempt superscript text and then show it as a subscript. Two very different issues.

I don't think I agree with that. If I take a picture with my digital camera in portrait mode, and afterwards I look at the picture on the camera's display, it is in landscape mode. Is it a bug? No, the camera is just not capable of recognizing portrait vs. landscape.

If I take a photo with the EN app it behaves exactly like my digital camera. This is because EN does not use my phone's available feature of recognizing portrait vs. landscape. Would it be nice if it did? Yes! Is it a bug? No, it is a missing feature. And therefore in no way different to the sub- / superscript case .

I don't mind you repeating your point that this is a very important feature for you. But I have to say that I don't share it. And as the capacity for development at EN is certainly limited, I wouldn't mind if other things are addressed earlier. The fact that implementing this feature may be relatively simple (who knows?) does not change my opinion - as a researcher in a commercial company I learned it the hard way that focusing on many small things can distract you from working on the more complex items. And usually these are the ones that make your product stand out against competition.

So I hope that EN is working on something we don't even imagine right now, and we don't miss it at all. But once it is there, we cannot imagine how we ever lived without it ...

pgdahl · May 11, 2012

For taking pictures of receipts, I can recommend JotNot for iPhone - I've never experienced a picture be upside down when they are sent to Evernote. Be aware, though, only the Pro version comes with support for Evernote.

deverill · April 23, 2012

If Evernote does not do what someone considers a deal breaker then wouldn't it be a better use of time to go to a product that does? I don't think the Evernote "guys" would even be hurt at that. They have said as much in the past that Evernote is not for everyone and that's ok with them.

Edited: Removed the dead horse beating. I hadn't seen page 2 of the comments before posting my reply. BnF is right - this needs to be put to rest.

goldfilm · December 5, 2011

Now it's doing the same with landscape. In the iPhone I see the images correctly, but when I send the image to my Evernote e-mail, they come with the image upside down...

GrumpyMonkey · December 18, 2011

lol. that might be nice. going paperless has turned me into an e-hoarder!

jt72 · July 12, 2012

There is another issue with this rotation feature that causes data loss for users with free accounts, or that are up against their upload quota.

I have 3 images totalling 8.4 MB in a note that I took with my phone. If I rotate the images, they grow in size and the note size grows accordingly. When rotating the 3rd image, I get a notice that I would be exceeding my max of 25MB per note, and the image I just tried to rotate is gone - disappears. The note goes from having 3 attachments to having only 2. I've reproduced this several times and logged a ticket with Evernote support.

I believe this could also affect users who are about to upload the note if it grows large enough that they would be exceeding an upload quota, but I haven't tested that fully... just a thought.

Just thought it would be worth posting for others.

June 16, 2012

I also think that EN should remove this feature because someone could not recognize that his original jpg is lost and so this is a really data loss! Free users can't even get back their original file. Very dangerous.

goldfilm · May 2, 2012

The reality is, no matter in which orientation I put the iPhone, when I send a picture to my Evernote e-mail, it comes upside down. I don't think it's only an iPhone problem, it's also an Evernote issue to solve.

goldfilm · May 2, 2012

I just tested something: I took a picture, sent it to Evernote, wrong orientation. Then edited the picture, rotated it, sent it again, SAME wrong orientation...

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

I would also note the interesting way in which you reframe the issue.

Do you rephrase about my desire to display mobile photo notes the right way up as a desire to make the app "behave the way you want" to imply that I have unreasonable or quirky demands?
You are sensitive, aren't you? It's plain English, nothing hidden. If I wanted to insult you, I would just do that.

I don't for a moment suggest you are insulting me - you wouldn't do that. Though on rereading I see that I posted gibberish, so you can't be blamed for reading it that way.

What I'm suggesting is that this reframing of what to me seems like an absolute no-brainer of a fault, a bug, into a matter of my personal taste is characteristic of the sort of response I got last time.

It's not just "the way I want it to behave"! It is what 99.9% of the world would consider as correct! Show me one other mainstream app that does this.

Admit it! It is a UI defect.

What do you think of Google keep? Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?

Metrodon · March 21, 2013

It does look nice, but do you trust it to still be there in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?

peterfmartin · May 2, 2012

Is the issue you're experiencing the one described and discussed here?

http://discussion.ev...ta-from-photos/

Andrew Sales · April 21, 2012

Hello everyone.

In my opinion this topic needs to remain active until it is fixed. It is a malfunction present accross all platforms as far as I can tell - namely that Evernote cannot display photos.

Yes, I know it can display pixels from a photo, but it cannot read the EXIF data correctly or consistently and so displays a transformation of the photo rather than the photo itself.

No - correct orientation is not a "feature request". The orientation flag is integral to a jpeg and any program that can't use them can't claim to display photos, and especially so on a mobile device.

Evernote is broken.

I have not encountered another mobile app that deals with photos that can't handle this. I find it absolutely extraordinary that an app claiming photo notes as a key feature hasn't got this sorted after what appears to be many months of reports and requests.

If you mainly use mobile photo notes this makes the app almost unusable.

It is extremely frustrating and is the only impediment to me signing up as a premium subscriber (in order to have offline access and higher upload limits for pictures).

I simply cannot believe that this is difficult to program. Every other app in the world has managed it.

Andrew Sales · April 21, 2012

And responses like this are utterly pitiful:

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/23091-not-happy-with-evernote-support/page__p__118778#entry11877d

"We will consider adding the ability to correctly display jpegs a feature request ".

Really?

jurgenEN · July 18, 2012

lossless jpeg rotation should be a rather simple and low CPU task. Plenty of implementations out there.

I notice a lot of issues with this rotation thing, images apear differently rotated in the various EN clients. This also makes them non searchable!

James M. · June 16, 2012

Wow, I didn't know about this problem but I just tried with 2.5 mb image and it's still going after several minutes. I'd love for EN to add a feature to re-size / reduce images as they are imported, before they adjust your allowance.

jefito · March 21, 2013

Admit it! It is a UI defect.

I don't care about it enough to dedicate enough brain cells to have an educated opinion either way.

What do you think of Google keep? Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?

Ummm, it's not even close at this stage, from my look-in.

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

It does look nice, but do you trust it to still be there in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?

I don't trust any company or service to be here in 10 years and certainly not Evernote.

I expect that the content, which is stored on Google Drive, will last a reasonable time given the strength of google and the importance of their investment in their cloud based services. There is of course a reasonably high likelihood of the Keep service being killed or transformed.

goldfilm · December 4, 2011

I have a couple of images from receipts that I took in portrait mode with my iPhone. When I see them in the iPhone I see them in portrait mode, when they are uploaded to Evernote they appear landscape, same when syncing Evernote and Expensify. A month ago this wouldn't happen.

How can I solve this?

thanks!

jefito · April 21, 2012

And responses like this are utterly pitiful:
http://discussion.ev...8778#entry11877d
"We will consider adding the ability to correctly display jpegs a feature request ".
Really?

I think you may have misread that statement (as well as having taken it out of context). I didn't read it as "we will consider adding this as a feature request", which you seem to have done. Here is the actual quote (having removed the extra, misleading and unattributed, emphasis that you added):

"

DanB is asking why Evernote does not read EXIF orientation data that is added to the image by his camera. It is *not* a bug that Evernote does not do this. We have said in many places and at many times that we do not parse EXIF orientation data, and that we will consider it a feature request.

"

Instead, I read it as "we don't believe that this is a bug on our part (which we need to fix), but we will treat it as a feature request (which we will prioritize and possibly implement)".

That being said, it doesn't sound as if Evernote is too keen to address the issue. [Edited due to recent addition of rotation tools to Windows beta client.]

jurgenEN · July 18, 2012

@dominik Yeah but even worse on the iphone if you take a picture it looks right (in the notes list etc) until it completes the sync and then it rotates it, onto its side?#! LOL

I have been in an online chat with EverNote for some time with this issue. I now discovered the pattern.When you take an image in a note from within the iphone app, it appears correctly on the iphone.

Then I sync with the PC of Mac client and it appears 90 dgrs rotated.

These rotated shots are not searchable.

When you first take the picture outside the iphone app and then add it to the note its orientation is ok.

Why is it that no one else noticed this behaviour.

James M. · June 16, 2012

Wow! It finally finished and the resulting image is over 20 Mb! I find the best way is to just double-click the image to edit it locally using Paint.net

buckethead · February 28, 2012

Is there a way to easily rotate a image on a Mac to fix this problem? On Win7 I was able to open the image in Paint -> rotate -> save -> fixed in EN. On my Mac if I open it in Preview the image shows up correctly, but in EN it is still displayed horizontal/sideways.

Andrew Sales · March 21, 2013

Admit it! It is a UI defect.
I don't care about it enough to dedicate enough brain cells to have an educated opinion either way.

>>>What do you think of Google keep? Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?
Ummm, it's not even close at this stage, from my look-in.

Devote brain cells? Educated opinion? On whether to display photos:

a.) the right way up

b.) the wrong way up.

This is exactly the sort of evasion and defensiveness that must look hilarious to all normal lurkers and I hope a few EN die-hards.

Now, Google Keep is of course not close to EN in terms of complexity and feature set but I would guess it already does what 90% of the EN userbase needs from a note taking app and google search is pretty damn effective. Obviously more sophisticated editing and handling of other file types is catered for in Drive too.

Andrew Sales · April 21, 2012

Instead, I read it as "we don't believe that this is a bug on our part (which we need to fix), but we will treat it as a feature request (which we will prioritize and possibly implement)".

OK I understand what you are saying about emphasis on the word "consider". This is a tangential point to the problem though:

We will treat correct jpeg orientation (which obviously requires reading the EXIF orientation flag) as a feature request, rather than a bug.

It is that that I find extraordinary, regardless of whether the "request" is given any priority or merely considered and rejected.

Incorrect display of photo notes taken on the same device is a broken photo note app, not one missing a feature.

In any case, there is nothing to suggest that the "feature request" of non-broken photo note display is given any priority whatsoever, or will even be acted upon.

peterfmartin · April 21, 2012

In my opinion this topic needs to remain active until it is fixed. It is a malfunction present accross all platforms as far as I can tell - namely that Evernote cannot display photos.

What's your experience with the Mac and web clients? I've never had this problem on either of those clients (examples here of what my photos look like on Mac and web), so I'm surprised to hear you say the problem is present across all platforms.

My impression from reading about this problem on the forums is that it's mostly a problem on, or maybe caused by, the iOS apps. I don't use them, so I have no personal experience with fixes for this, but in this conversation, JMichael suggested two programs that might help you.

In any case, there is nothing to suggest that the "feature request" of non-broken photo note display is given any priority whatsoever, or will even be acted upon.

My impression, reading the same things you've read, is that that's right. Given your described use case, if you can't find a third-party fix that helps you (like, potentially, those that JMichael suggested), Evernote may not be the program for your needs. Sorry.

dominikkalvelage · July 4, 2012

I have the same issue on Windows Vista.

And another observation:

EN seems to use the clipboard (which you usually access via Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V). I was rotating an image the EN-way and EN freezes for several minutes. When I continue my work during this time in another application and copy some text into the clipboard, this copied text shows up in EN where the rotated image should be. This is reproducible.

I think EN should use the EXIF orientation.

I have many picture taken with my mobile phone, which takes landscape and portrait pictures and uses the EXIF orientation tag (as all digital cameras do) to store the orientation. When adding such picture to EN, EN always displays the picture in landscape mode ignoring the EXIF orientation tag.

If EN uses the EXIF orientation, the pictures would show up correctly oriented and it should be very easy to rotate a picture by modifying this attribute...

Just my two cents...

deverill · April 21, 2012

I simply cannot believe that this is difficult to program. Every other app in the world has managed it.

Not necessarily difficult to program which is either uninsightful into the world of programming or unnecessarily insulting as stated, but:

A. Not a priority when there are a multitude of other, higher priority, issues to work on.

B. "Not my job". If you put a photo in that has whacked orientation and Evernote displays it as-is then why is that Evernote's high priority issue to drop everything and read the Exif to make up for the camera's stupidity*?

If I get into a car and have no arms then it's not the car manufacturer's problem - it's up to me to get adaptive technology to steer with my feet or to find a chauffeur. Likewise, it's up to you to find an app to rotate the picture to the way you want it to be with a third-party app mentioned by Peter.

* I've seen photos taken on an iPhone and displayed on the iPhone gallery that are sideways or upside down. You flip around the phone and the picture swivels upside-down again. We should be discussing this on the iPhone forum and demanding that they fix their system... but they probably wouldn't even listen to such a post.

Instead of insulting the programmers and demanding action for an awesome tool, imo, that the majority of people use for free, let's just ask the question if it hasn't already been asked and then perhaps turn to the community to see how they deal with the issue. In my case I don't take many pictures into Evernote and have never had this problem, but then again, I use an Android phone too so I'm sorry I have no answers but I'm sure a quick search will turn up a few.

GrumpyMonkey · December 6, 2011

I've got a thread somewhere about this. I went through support. No resolution, but en knows about it. My theory is that pictures sent to en from the iPad are getting flipped around. Take a look at the website and see if the thumbnails are all messed up depending on which platform you look at. It's a bug. As I recall, though, the images were ok, and it was just the thumbnails that got flipped.

Alanbarker · June 15, 2012

Nice feature, but takes FOREVER! Like minutes, for a small picture...

Andrew Sales · April 21, 2012

What's your experience with the Mac and web clients? I've never had this problem on either of those clients (examples here of what my photos look like on Mac and web), so I'm surprised to hear you say the problem is present across all platforms.
My impression from reading about this problem on the forums is that it's mostly a problem on, or maybe caused by, the iOS apps.

I've only briefly trialled EN on Mac and iOS via a friend's hardware and had the problem of display of images taken on iphone and android handsets.

I consider incorrect display of a photo from an app on a desktop client just as broken as the incorrect display on the mobile client. The orientation data is there for a reason.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll perhaps try creating photo notes with a third party client.

Something I can hardly believe I have to consider.

mrstucci · February 5, 2012

Hi-I have the latest version of Evernote for the Mac and I am running 10.7.3. I tried to create a new note and add some jpg's. Each time they end up pasting in sideways. Bug? Operator error? Love Evernote, use it all the time! Judy

Andrew Sales · April 21, 2012

I simply cannot believe that this is difficult to program. Every other app in the world has managed it.
Not necessarily difficult to program which is either uninsightful into the world of programming or unnecessarily insulting as stated, but:

The empirical evidence is that the vast majority of mobile apps, of any kind, when interacting with photos display them correctly.

A. Not a priority when there are a multitude of other, higher priority, issues to work on.

Higher priority than correct display of photos in photo notes?

B. "Not my job". If you put a photo in that has whacked orientation and Evernote displays it as-is then why is that Evernote's high priority issue to drop everything and read the Exif to make up for the camera's stupidity*?

No. The camera is producing standard jpegs with appropriate orientation data. They are correctly dealt with by every other app. Evernote does not display "as is", but incorrectly.

* I've seen photos taken on an iPhone and displayed on the iPhone gallery that are sideways or upside down. You flip around the phone and the picture swivels upside-down again. We should be discussing this on the iPhone forum and demanding that they fix their system... but they probably wouldn't even listen to such a post.

No.

This is a consistent problem with Evernote and it affects Android just as much as iOS.

Instead of insulting the programmers and demanding action for an awesome tool, imo, that the majority of people use for free, let's just ask the question if it hasn't already been asked and then perhaps turn to the community to see how they deal with the issue.

They deal with it by being ignored, and either leaving or putting up with it.

It would indeed be pretty awesome if it displayed photos in a non-broken manner.

In my case I don't take many pictures into Evernote and have never had this problem, but then again, I use an Android phone too so I'm sorry I have no answers but I'm sure a quick search will turn up a few.

If you have no answers then why do you bother replying? To get offended on Evernote's behalf, it seems.

I also use Android and you are wrong about the quick search too,.

Evernote is broken in its basic functionality.

Every other app has mastered this basic functionality.

patnpm · July 22, 2009

I love JotNot on my iphone - it takes photos of documents and processes them in a way that makes the text easy to read. It's a bit like a mini portable Scansnap. I often end up with photos of just a couple of lines, which are thus wide but short.

If I then drag these images into Evernote, it seems to assume that the images should be narrow but long, and orientates them on their side. If I then open the image FROM evernote into preview, they are properly orientated in Preview but remain malorientated in Evernote - and if I try rotating them clockwise, then the Evernote is rotated 180 degrees.

So please, can Evernote not try to assume i'm stupid and automatically orientate my photos?

megsaint · March 22, 2013

I found this article to be quite interesting.

http://tech2.in.com/features/apps/face-off-evernote-vs-google-keep/840502

keep looks nice enough for what it is. But what it is isn't anything like Evernote. In my opinion, the only real similarity between the two is that, somewhere in the description of features, both mention "note taking". I'd say that 90% of Evernote's users use Evernote because it does things like effective web clipping. keep is a note taking service. Evernote a storage and search service that happens to allow you to take notes. What keep will change into, whether Google will kill it off after a couple of years, all remains to be seen. If you want to compare Evernote to something, try Springboard. I hate it but lots of people seem to like it.

However, you should chose the tool that best meets your needs.

Best of luck.

jefito · April 21, 2012

One thing: the latest prerelease of the next Windows client has a simple image rotation function. Given Evernote's stated desire for (more or less) feature parity across its clients, I imagine that it will trickle over to its other clients.eventually.

jefito · April 21, 2012

In any case, there is nothing to suggest that the "feature request" of non-broken photo note display is given any priority whatsoever, or will even be acted upon.

In general, I try to let Evernote worry about setting their own priorities. They have the information, they know their own plans and resources, and its their business to make succeed or fail. I'm not privy to what they're doing behind the scenes, and neither are you, so why fuss about it too much? I think the dictum to "let your customers tell you what they want, but don't let them tell you what to do" is probably at play here.

peterfmartin · April 21, 2012

Andrew Sales, given how upset you are at Evernote (the program's) functionalities and Evernote (the company's) priorities, it sounds like you'll never be happy with either one. Sorry to hear that, since, flaws and all, a lot of us find a lot of use for it—and find it enhanced by third-party apps that play well with it.

jefito · June 15, 2012

I haven't noticed that for small images. What type of image (PNG, JPG, etc.), what dimensions and how large is the image in bytes?

jefito · March 22, 2013

Devote brain cells? Educated opinion? On whether to display photos:

a.) the right way up
b.) the wrong way up.

This is exactly the sort of evasion and defensiveness that must look hilarious to all normal lurkers and I hope a few EN die-hards.

This is exactly the sort of tone-deaf and ill-informed stance that makes developers -- the actual people who need to understand specifications and formats, and implement them in code -- roll their eyes in resigned annoyance. "Oh, it's so easy; just display them right-side up". But easy to say is not necessarily easy to do. I do remember taking a quick look at one or two of the linked articles, started getting the gist of it, but then thought "gee, do I really need to know this right now"? Answer was "Well, I don't have a smartphone that I take photos with, so no, it's not really important enough", so I left it. You're free to interpret that as "evasion and defensiveness", and snicker with the usual lurkers, but you'd be wrong there. As it is, Evernote made a technical decision as to how to treat the EXIF information, but I don't understand the issues well enough to make a value judgement on it -- didn't then, and won't now. Of course not being well-informed doesn't stop people from having opinions; it's just that actual knowledge and understanding give opinions that much more relevance.

But anyways, if you feel a need to school me, Evernote, and the rest of the forum on the ins and outs of EXIF spec, feel free -- that sort of information is useful and far more persuasive than any of the snide commentary so far. For example, I'm not a security expert by any stretch, but I learned a few things from some experienced folks here during the hack aftermath. That was welcome for me and good fodder for the forum, in my view.

Now, Google Keep is of course not close to EN in terms of complexity and feature set but I would guess it already does what 90% of the EN userbase needs from a note taking app and google search is pretty damn effective. Obviously more sophisticated editing and handling of other file types is catered for in Drive too.

Fortunately, as Evernote users know, Evernote is not just a note-taking app, and Keep is not even in the same league as Evernote, at present. Sure, it's pretty, and quick. But how does it scale to 10's of thousands of notes? How do you organize them? How do you share and collaborate with others? Compared to GMail, which has real usefulness and a fair number of options for customization, Keep is surprisingly simple-minded. I like GMail and Google Search and Google Calendar too, I really do, but I frankly, I really expected more from Keep. It's easy and free, sure, but for folks interested in doing more than note-taking, where's the next level? I'm just not seeing it,not yet.

(Archived) Orientation of Images - EXIF data not recognized

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