rotating JPG's, Windows explorer context menu, ImageMagick, anyone?

Try hunting down a utility called "cPicture". I'm pretty sure it's
freeware, and it states that its rotation function is lossless. I don't
know about automating the process.

(I've used it and I don't doubt that it's lossless, but of course I'm
not enough of an expert to say with certainty.)

Todd H. wrote:
Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

What I'd like to do is create my own Context menu entries RotateLeft
and RotateRight for the JPG file type, leveraging the ImageMagick
command line program convert, in this way:

convert -rotate 90 -quality 95 %1 %1_rot.JPG

Unfortunately, I'm running into some issues debugging the entry I've
made in Explorer's ToolsFolder OptionsFile TypesJPGAdvanced New
actions dialog box despite having added the appropriate cygwin
directories to my path.

I thought I'd throw the question out with the confidence that some has
had to have done this before.... It seems to do it right, a batch
file will be involved, and will need some fancier batch file
constructs than I've used in the past.

Anyone invented this wheel already? Googling has yielded no fruit for
me thus far, and I'd appreciate any help to get me into the endzone on
this one! :-\

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Try hunting down a utility called "cPicture". I'm pretty sure it's
freeware, and it states that its rotation function is lossless. I don't
know about automating the process.

(I've used it and I don't doubt that it's lossless, but of course I'm
not enough of an expert to say with certainty.)

Todd H. wrote:
Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

What I'd like to do is create my own Context menu entries RotateLeft
and RotateRight for the JPG file type, leveraging the ImageMagick
command line program convert, in this way:

convert -rotate 90 -quality 95 %1 %1_rot.JPG

Unfortunately, I'm running into some issues debugging the entry I've
made in Explorer's ToolsFolder OptionsFile TypesJPGAdvanced New
actions dialog box despite having added the appropriate cygwin
directories to my path.

I thought I'd throw the question out with the confidence that some has
had to have done this before.... It seems to do it right, a batch
file will be involved, and will need some fancier batch file
constructs than I've used in the past.

Anyone invented this wheel already? Googling has yielded no fruit for
me thus far, and I'd appreciate any help to get me into the endzone on
this one! :-\

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

What I'd like to do is create my own Context menu entries RotateLeft
and RotateRight for the JPG file type, leveraging the ImageMagick
command line program convert, in this way:

convert -rotate 90 -quality 95 %1 %1_rot.JPG

Unfortunately, I'm running into some issues debugging the entry I've
made in Explorer's ToolsFolder OptionsFile TypesJPGAdvanced New
actions dialog box despite having added the appropriate cygwin
directories to my path.

I thought I'd throw the question out with the confidence that some has
had to have done this before.... It seems to do it right, a batch
file will be involved, and will need some fancier batch file
constructs than I've used in the past.

Anyone invented this wheel already? Googling has yielded no fruit for
me thus far, and I'd appreciate any help to get me into the endzone on
this one! :-\

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

"Todd H." wrote in message ...

Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

This thread indicated xp jpg rotation was lossless with some evidence to
back it up. Some talk of it only being lossless for resolutions that are
multiples of 16 though.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...hread/thread/8
4fcba5d56fea8c7?hl=en&rnum=1

Tony

"Todd H." wrote in message ...

Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

This thread indicated xp jpg rotation was lossless with some evidence to
back it up. Some talk of it only being lossless for resolutions that are
multiples of 16 though.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...hread/thread/8
4fcba5d56fea8c7?hl=en&rnum=1

Tony

"cyclone" writes:

"Todd H." wrote in message ...

Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

This thread indicated xp jpg rotation was lossless with some evidence to
back it up. Some talk of it only being lossless for resolutions that are
multiples of 16 though.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...7?hl=en&rnum=1

Thanks for the interesting link. I strongly question its assertion of
lossless compression, however because I can generate counter
datapoints at will on my XP home machine, it seems.

Trying to figure out then why images from my digital rebel (which is
x16 in X and Y of all resolutions) go, for example from 1.52MB
filesize to 1.18Mb for a 2048 x 1360 image.

I'm no information theory expert, but Windows XP's rotate function is
certainly tossing away something there, and I don't think there's
300MB of metadata that can explain the file size reduction.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

"cyclone" writes:

"Todd H." wrote in message ...

Howdy,

Windows XP has a context menu Rotate Left and Rotate Right commands in
the Explorer context menu for jpeg's (the context menu is the you see
when you right click on a JPG file in Windows explorer).

That's mighty darned handy. Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

This thread indicated xp jpg rotation was lossless with some evidence to
back it up. Some talk of it only being lossless for resolutions that are
multiples of 16 though.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...7?hl=en&rnum=1

Thanks for the interesting link. I strongly question its assertion of
lossless compression, however because I can generate counter
datapoints at will on my XP home machine, it seems.

Trying to figure out then why images from my digital rebel (which is
x16 in X and Y of all resolutions) go, for example from 1.52MB
filesize to 1.18Mb for a 2048 x 1360 image.

I'm no information theory expert, but Windows XP's rotate function is
certainly tossing away something there, and I don't think there's
300MB of metadata that can explain the file size reduction.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

"Todd H." wrote in message ...
Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

What I'd like to do is create my own Context menu entries RotateLeft
and RotateRight for the JPG file type, leveraging the ImageMagick
command line program convert, in this way:

convert -rotate 90 -quality 95 %1 %1_rot.JPG

This won't help you add a context menu, but you might want to consider the
latest beta of BetterJPEG (http://www.betterjpeg.com/). I am currently
evaluating
it and it seems to be a good tool for lossless rotation and cropping.

You also might something of value in one of the programs listed he

http://sylvana.net/jpegcrop/losslessapps.html

All of these programs incorporate lossless JPEG transforms.

"Todd H." wrote in message ...
Unfortunately, Microsoft's version of
that in XP results in smaller files as well as a noticeable loss in
image quality in the process, likely due to using a default low JPEG
quality factor in the conversion, and further unfortunately, it does
me no good in Windows 2000.

What I'd like to do is create my own Context menu entries RotateLeft
and RotateRight for the JPG file type, leveraging the ImageMagick
command line program convert, in this way:

convert -rotate 90 -quality 95 %1 %1_rot.JPG

This won't help you add a context menu, but you might want to consider the
latest beta of BetterJPEG (http://www.betterjpeg.com/). I am currently
evaluating
it and it seems to be a good tool for lossless rotation and cropping.

You also might something of value in one of the programs listed he

http://sylvana.net/jpegcrop/losslessapps.html

All of these programs incorporate lossless JPEG transforms.

(Todd H.) writes:

Trying to figure out then why images from my digital rebel (which is
x16 in X and Y of all resolutions) go, for example from 1.52MB
filesize to 1.18Mb for a 2048 x 1360 image.

I'm no information theory expert, but Windows XP's rotate function is
certainly tossing away something there, and I don't think there's
300MB of metadata that can explain the file size reduction.

It's easy enough to check whether something was really lost: Take an
original, make a copy of it, then rotate the copy. Read both into
Photoshop or other editor. Rotate the copy image back to its original
orientation. Calculate the difference between the two images (Photoshop
has a difference operator; other editors probably have something
similar).

The rotation in Photoshop is lossless because it's done on a fully
expanded image. If XP's rotation was lossless too, then the two images
should match exactly.

Dave