0 degrees (normal orientation)
I guess I'll blog, while my stepfather is playing mozart on the piano. I don't want to post anymore pics because of the ipod rotation issue. It might have been better if I had never discovered this, and had just gone on in blissful ignorance, posting all my pics sideways.
To recap, every image taken with an ipod (and presumably iphone and ipad) camera is oriented with the longer edge of the image on the top and bottom ("landscape style"). But when a pic is taken with the ipod oriented in the usual way (with the ipod's home button edge pointed down) all pics viewed with apple devices (pcs running safari too?) appear to be in the "portrait style," or with the long edges on the sides, even though the image files are not actually positioned that way.
Randy tells me ipod pics must have some metadata attached to them so that apple devices will display them with the intended top side up regardless of how the image is actually oriented; if you take your pic with your ipod small edge up then the metadata tells devices to rotate their display of the image 90 degrees counterclockwise. Appropriate adjustments are made to the metadata depending on how your ipod is oriented when you take a pic, but really there is only one correct way to hold your ipod while you take a pic such that the way the image is actually oriented corresponds to the way apple devices display it. If I hadn't checked my blog on a browser running firefox I never would have discovered this.
I will do a formal experiment: take 4 pics, the first with my ipod oriented the usual way, and then rotating my ipod (mypod?) 90 degrees clockwise, four times. I'll prename the images here, in the markup, as 0.jpg, 90.jpg, 180.jpg and 270.jpg, so I won't lose track.
0 degrees (normal orientation)
90 degrees clockwise
180 degrees clockwise
270 degrees clockwise
Weird. I checked how this is displayed in firefox, and all photos have the dimensions 960px by 720px, no matter what their orientation is. On my ipod browser, the proportions of the image vary depending on how the image is oriented. This is of course the way it's supposed to be, but why is all this info about orientation and proportions being transmitted with metadata that is only read by apple devices?
So, to make ipod/pad/phone photos display right on non-apple devices, rotate your ipod/pad/phone 270 degrees clockwise (or one quarter turn counterclockwise) before taking a pic.
Sorry about the fat blog, but it was necessary to display photos in their unaltered state. I'll size the same photos down so I can get them all in an iOS browser screenshot:
Now, here's a screenshot of how those 4 small photos display on my ipod (it will be interesting to see how things turn out with a screenshot in terms of orientation and metadata):
See the difference? On firefox, the photos are all the same shape and size (i set the image width to 300 with html), and are displayed with four different orientations. On my iOS browser, the photos have correct proportions and orientation.
Also, I guess iOS doesn't mess with its screenshot pngs the way it messes with its photo jpgs.
AAAAAAHHHHHH STUPID IPOD PHOTOS ARE SIDEWAYS. CHECK LAST TWO PAGES. I DIDNT SEE IT CUZ APPLE ACCOMODATED ITS OWN RETARDATION BY DISPLAYING PHOTOS TOP SIDE UP EVEN THOUGH THE nIMAGE ACTUALLY IS ON ITS SIDE, AS WE SEE IN FIREFOX ON A PC. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I GOTTA GO VISIT JAMES AND BUY XMAS GIFT AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHJ