In How to Attach Photos and other files, we say to check the photos in a program other than your camera's software to be sure that they are oriented correctly. I know that my default photo viewer, not my camera's software, shows me the corrected orientation and if I upload the photos, the vertical-format ones will be on their side. I have to open the folder in Picasa and click the Save button to get them to (do what?), and after that, they will upload correctly. I upload my photos using a direct copy from the SD card. If I had camera software, would that do the correction on uploading that Picasa is doing? I have mentioned in the Opinions sought re: forum software thread that I thought it was only mobile users whose photos were uploaded on their sides, but a member in a recent posting mentioned that he looked at his photos on his computer and was surprised to see them all turned in his posting. Maybe they were ones that had been taken on a mobile? Surely, everyone does not have to use Picasa. I'm looking for some terse explanation of what it is that everyone should be doing to get photos displayed correctly, so that I can add that to the How to Attach Photos thread.
I noticed the pictures in that thread are rather large. Could it be the auto-resize feature of the forum's upload function is saving the new images in a preset orientation?
I have uploaded three photos in the Test Bed. Unreduced (8.3mb), not saved in Picasa (but renamed in File Explorer). It is on its side, 760kb. It appeared correctly in Windows Photo Viewer. Reduced (116kb), not saved in Picasa, but I guess saved by the resizing program, as it appears correctly, 116kb. Unreduced (8mb), but saved in Picasa. It appears correctly, 242.2kb. - I think this one addresses your question.
I guess the fourth test would be for someone to take a photo in vertical format that is originally sized below around 500kb, to see if it would still upload on its side without needing to be resized. I don't really think this is the issue; I think it's how the information is stored on the photo to begin with.
Well, almost. One person managed to get a photo on its side; same thread where one person couldn't see the photos enlarged. I can see them fine, but the second on is on its side. I'm just noting this in case something has gone awry. Swamp Area Plant name? | UBC Botanical Garden Forums
Not all older cameras properly code for orientation in the EXIF. Hard to say without knowing age of camera / camera model.
The following suggestion was submitted to XenForo in January of this year. It looks like others may be having the same problem: Ability to rotate images uploaded to thread posts, like you can with images in XMG
