Photoshop batch rotation?

[Michele Rushworth]

Anyone know how to rotate a bunch of photoshop files all at once?

At portrait sittings I usually take about 100 digital photographs, most of which are in the vertical or "portrait" orientation. When I display them on my laptop for clients (or me) to reivew, they're all shown horizontally (rotated 90 degrees), and therefore very hard for anyone to evaluate. I'd like to rotate them all back to the vertical orientation without having to do it one at a time.

I could, of course, turn my laptop so that the screen is vertical, but I think that's very bad for the hard drive. Does anyone know about this as well?

[Julie Deane]

I don't know, Michelle - I've always had to rotate each one individually. I've turned my laptop many times without any problems.

[Heidi Maiers]

Michele,
You can quickly rotate an image, or whole folder full of images by creating an Action, and then applying that Action to an individual image, or Batch Automation.
To make an Action, from the Windows menu, select Show Actions to get the Actions Window. Click the create a new action button and then record a new action of going through the menu and selecting Image->Rotate Canvas->90 degrees. Once the action is saved, you can apply it to a keystroke, such as F2. From then on, it's a quick task to rotate one image at a time - simly click image, hit F2.
To do a batch of files, the new action will now appear in the Action selection list on the File->Automate->Batch menu. You can select an entire source folder and optional destination folder (if you don't want to alter the originals) to apply and save the selected action to all files contained in that source folder.
Hope that helps.

[Michele Rushworth]

Thanks, Heidi! I'll try it out.

[Molly Sherrick Phifer]

Hi Michele,

Another thing you can do is download the Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0, which is free from adobe here . This software automatically recognizes and turns the photos as you upload them. When you subsequently save them, you'll have to turn them again, but while you view them it's quite handy to have a program that recognizes portrait orientation. Disclaimer: this works with my Nikon D50, and there may be something embedded within the image file that indicates camera orientation, because I do know that the camera detects that. Given that, it might not work for a camera that doesn't store/recognize that.

[Michele Rushworth]

Sounds very useful -- I'll try that too. Thanks!

[Michele Rushworth]

Heidi, I just tried the batch rotation, following your instructions and -- wow, what a life saver! Thank you so much for posting that suggestion.

I've used Photoshop for well over 10 years and I really only stick to the relatively small number of functions that I use all the time. It's amazing how many of Photoshop's capabilities that I've just never learned -- like Actions, or batch processing -- duh! I feel like I've been overlooking so many wonderfully powerful tools all this time.

Thanks again!

[Heidi Maiers]

Glad to have been of assistance Michele. There is so much to that program - I just love it - and I've yet to even upgrade as I've been using the old Photoshop 6 version since about 2000. Maybe this year I'll upgrade and see what's new. I'm sure you realize you can record more than one command into a single Action. It's a real time saver when you tend to do the same series of steps over and over (such as rotate, then resize, sharpen, adjust contrast and color, etc) and can do it all with one click.

Paint Shop Pro has pretty much the same functionality, but there, you record and run "Scripts" instead of "Actions". I'm sure Cynthia uses scripts a lot with her web designing. Neat feature.

[Mike McCarty]

Michele,

Try looking on page 168 of your D70 hand book. It reads in part:

"Image Rotation"

By default, the D70 records camera orientation with each photograph taken. This allows "tall" (portrait) orientation photographs to be displayed in the correct orientation when played back on the camera or viewed using the supplied software or Nikon Capture 4 version 4.1 or later.

When the Automatic option (yes) is selected - Camera records whether shots are in landscape (wide) orientation, portrait (tall) orientation with the camera rotated 90 degrees clockwise, or portrait (tall) orientation with the camera rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise.

It sounds like if you select the Automatic (yes) option you should get an automatic rotation to the desired orientation. It sounds like the camera records whether it was turned clockwise or counter-clockwise, but I'm not sure that matters in a practical sense.

After a quick test I can confirm that it does matter as it relates to how the images are played back in the camera. Without the Auto (yes) the images are displayed 90 degrees to the desired orientation.

Of course your question goes to the download so you'll want to test that with your own setup. Also, you might want to double check that you are using version 4.1 or greater of the Nikon capture software, or whether you're using that software at all.

[Michele Rushworth]

Thanks, Mike. Guess I ought to "RTFM" (Read The Flippin' Manual) once in a while when I buy new gadgets!