BYTETOOLS

Fix Photo Rotation (EXIF)

Fix photos that appear sideways by writing the EXIF orientation permanently into the pixels, so the picture looks the same in every app and browser.

Drop a photo that shows up sidewaysThe rotation is baked into the pixels in your browser — nothing is uploaded

Choose a photo to read its EXIF Orientation tag and write the rotation permanently into the pixels, so it looks the same in every app.

What is the Fix Photo Rotation (EXIF)?

When a phone or camera is held sideways it usually saves the sensor data unrotated and writes an EXIF Orientation tag telling viewers how to turn it.

  • Reads the EXIF Orientation tag straight from the JPEG APP1 IFD0
  • All eight orientation values supported, including the mirrored and transposed ones
  • Decodes with imageOrientation set to none so the rotation is never applied twice
  • Side-by-side preview of the pixels as stored and the corrected result
  • JPEG or PNG output with an adjustable JPEG quality slider
  • The saved file has no orientation tag, so every viewer agrees on which way is up

How to use the Fix Photo Rotation (EXIF)

  1. 1

    Drop the photo that shows up sideways into the upload area.

  2. 2

    Read the EXIF orientation tile to see which tag the camera wrote, if any.

  3. 3

    Pick a rotation from the Orientation menu — it starts on the tag already in the file.

  4. 4

    Choose JPEG or PNG output, and set the JPEG quality slider if you kept JPEG.

  5. 5

    Compare the stored and corrected previews, then click Download.

About the Fix Photo Rotation (EXIF)

When a phone or camera is held sideways it usually saves the sensor data unrotated and writes an EXIF Orientation tag telling viewers how to turn it. Some apps honour that tag and some ignore it, which is why the same photo can look upright in your gallery and sideways in an upload form. This tool ends the disagreement for good.

It reads the Orientation tag from the JPEG APP1 IFD0 and applies the matching canvas transform — rotate 90, 180 or 270 degrees, mirror horizontally or vertically, or one of the transposed variants — so the correction lives in the pixels themselves. The re-exported file carries no orientation tag at all, which means every viewer now shows the same thing.

Decoding and re-encoding happen 100% locally in your browser using the canvas API, and the photo is never uploaded to a server. Because the output is re-encoded from the canvas, all EXIF metadata is dropped along the way, including the camera model and any GPS coordinates — a useful side effect before sharing a picture publicly.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my photo look sideways on one device but not another?

The image data is stored unrotated and a small EXIF Orientation tag says how to turn it. Apps that read the tag display it correctly and apps that ignore it show the raw sideways pixels, so the same file can look right in one place and wrong in another.

How do I permanently fix a rotated photo?

Rotate the actual pixels instead of relying on the tag, which is exactly what this tool does. It applies the transform on a canvas and re-exports the image without an orientation tag, so no viewer has anything left to misinterpret.

What is the EXIF orientation tag?

It is a value from 1 to 8 stored in the EXIF block of a JPEG that describes how the camera was held. Value 1 means upright, 3 means upside down, 6 and 8 mean rotated a quarter turn, and the remaining values add a mirror flip on top.

Does fixing the rotation reduce image quality?

Choosing PNG output is lossless, so nothing at all is lost. Choosing JPEG re-encodes the picture once, and at the default quality of 92 the difference is invisible in normal viewing, though repeatedly re-saving at a low quality would eventually show.

Is my EXIF data kept after fixing the rotation?

No. The corrected file is re-encoded from the canvas, which drops every EXIF field including the camera model, capture time and any GPS coordinates. That makes this a convenient way to strip location data before you share a photo.

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