Fix wrong Photo rotation problems in Windows Explorer

Fix wrong Photo rotation problems in Windows Explorer

Microsoft finally released a fix for a rotation issue. Indeed, you could have experienced with PhotoLikr and preview window of Light Image Resizer such problem, while the final output is correctly processed. The easiest way to check if you have the orientation problem is to check if a portrait photography has been wrongly rotated. CR2, CR3, RAF, or any raw digital camera format could be impacted.

landscape and portrait thumbnail in windows explorer problem
Canon CR3 Portrait not oriented

After the fix, you still need to run the disk cleanup tool. Use the last option of the files to remove : thumbnails. It will force the thumbnails in windows explorer to be cached again.

You can find information about the fixes in the Microsoft’s Blog

KB5046740 changelog 14 november 2024

2 mentions are interesting :

[RAW format images] Fixed: They show in the wrong orientation.
[JPG files] Fixed: You cannot use an API to find rotation information. 

So maybe the problem wasn’t the update of the RAW Camera update but the operating system files themselves who causes wrong rotation in windows explorer.

Run Windows Update or refer to the documentation. If you are experiencing the problem, it’s important to contact us, as there are so many file format, the sooner we know about it, the sooner Obviousidea software could find a workaround. Please contact Obviousidea support team with screenshot and a description of the problem.

Orientation such portrait and lanscape are available in the exif information provided by digital camera manufacturor. The information could be read by the system such windows extension, or some core files like by the windows operating system directly. Obviousidea can use his own library or 3rd party library, embedded jpeg preview, ImageMagick library. The wrong thumbnail rotation problem in windows explorer is complex as there are so many different Windows builds. Latest main Windows build is 24H2.

PhotoLikr and photo orientation

With all the settings available in Photolikr (re)viewer , you could control the behavior of your photo display.

Settings in PhotoLikr to control the cache and fast preview

Light Image Resizer and portrait rotation

With Light Image Resizer, you can convert all your photos without losing quality. Instead of using Exif orientation when viewing the picture, you can completely reconvert the pixel using the portrait option . Go to the tab Misc -> Adjust Resolution for portrait

Adjust resolution for portrait Screenshot in Light Image Resizer


If you have any tips, any experience to share about wrong orientation of images in Windows Explorer, contact us !

Light Image Resizer and PhotoLikr updated

Light Image Resizer

New versions of Light Image Resizer 7.1.2 and PhotoLikr 1.4.1 are available in our download section.
Each software page contains the changelog and the updates are free. As a reminder, only a change of a major version could require an upgrade of the licence.

Light Image Resizer is a Windows software which can batch convert images. Convenient solution to change file format from JPEG to PDF, PDF to JPEG, JPEG to HEIC, HEIC to JPEG, JPEG to AVIF, AVIF to PDF, and more combinations. Change resolution of your photos, or convert the picture aspect ratio.

PhotoLikr is also a Microsoft Windows software to quickly (re)view a set of your pictures. PhotoLikr stands for photo liker. You can rate your pictures with stars and then sort them in your local hard drive. Once you have done your selection of your best images. Share photos on Dropbox.

Resize images

Obviousidea software and antivirus

Since this morning, several users reported a virus issue with GreenCloud Printer. After investigations and the first reports, it is a false alarm from some antivirus solutions, and the main one seems to be BitDefender.

What is a antivirus False positive ?

Security software sometimes unintentionally identify a program or file as harmful if it has code or behavior that resembles known harmful programs. This is known as a False Positive. A False positive means the antivirus wrongly identify the app as a virus.

Action from Obviousidea about false positive

We reported the false alarm. In the meantime, please don’t deinstall / reinstall the GreenCloud Printer package, as it won’t solve the problem. The only solution is to turn off the antivirus or flag it as safe. You can also report the false alarm at : Bitdefender false positive report . The BitDefender form is weird and won’t confirm by email if the ticket is created. You can contact support of Bitdefender, this page contains the list of the phone numbers.

Another method is to “restore” the binary GCPrinter.exe, in notification, watch the history and find the entry about the software infected. Then Restore the program.

We are sorry for the inconvenience. Especially because the latest version of GreenCloud Printer hasn’t been updated since a few months. It may happen also with Light Image Resizer. To fight against virus, we are using VirusTotal, a well known service in the industry to check URLs and setup package available in our download page.

Here the link of the VirusTotal report for GreenCloud Printer :
november 11th, 2024 : 10/73 vendors are reporting a problem
november 12th, 2024 : 4/73 vendors are reporting a problem
november 13th, 2024 : 2/73 vendors are reporting a problem
november 14th, 2024 : 1/73 vendors are reporting a problem ( https://www.deepinstinct.com/ didn’t reply to our report )
november 19th, 2024 : webroot solution was not in the virustotal report but cause issues, it’s fixed now.

How to report a false positive ?

Don’t hesitate to contact Obviousidea, to report any issue with antivirus, it’s the best and safest way to let us know and report and investigate the problem.

there is no rule to report a false positive you need to fill a form ( when it works ) or contact by email one by one the antivirus vendor. This list from VirusTotal can save a lot of time.

Light Image Resizer 7.1 / .JXL native support

Spoiler alert, the new Light Image Resizer version 7.1 has a native read and write support for JPEG XL / JXL, but also improvements for the AVIF format.
Both JPEG XL and AVIF are performant for compression and quality. In WordPress these formats are considered as modern. Apple is supporting JPEG XL in Mac OS, and you can create .DNG that LIR 7.1 supports.

Download Light Image Resizer 7.1, it’s a free update for users with a valid v7 license key.

You can see the full list of changes in the history page.

JPEG XL support

The collage feature (underestimated IMHO) has been fixed for High DPI screens.

We will do another YouTube video tutorial about how to make a collage of your photos but you can still look at this one.

About Light Image Resizer 7.1

The new version is a cumulative update of customers feedback and the support of modern formats has changed the internal engine with the introduction of the Imagemagick Plugin. LIR7 could support more formats in the future, as soon as a WIC codec extention is available.

Obviousidea Antivirus policy

Another topic, recently one of our users reported a false alarm with an antivirus. At Obviousidea we use VirusTotal to make sure our software is virus free.
See one of the samples for Light Image Resizer 7.1:
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/346fa64e916b0f26f9efb971f87b0b993ccf421015ea4fa2f1d48d6ebd818ff9/detection
As you can see, it’s almost green but sometimes Antivirus products try to scare you doing their job with a zealous method. We need to report these cases one by one and check with the antivirus vendor. We understand customers can be reluctant, and the best you can do is to contact us to speed up the notification and validation process. Of course, security is important to us and we need your report.

In short, don’t hesitate to contact us, your voice is important to improve Light Image Resizer 7.1