Fuji Raw Files Not Displaying in Proper Rotation

[Beach Photog]

I shoot both jpeg and raw files simultaneously, currently for both Fuji and Nikon. The Fuji RAF files shot vertically do not rotate to the proper orientation in the file windows or viewer. This is not a problem in other programs such as Photo Mechanic and Photoshop, nor with the Nikon files in IMatch. Is there a simple setting somewhere that I am missing?

[Mario]

Which EXIF orientation is the RAF reporting?
IMatch is using this metadata tag to rotate the image.
You can see the EXIF orientation when you switch the Metadata Panel to the browser layout.

Also: Do you use FPC codecs?
They have an option which you can configure during installation (!) that tells FPV to automatically rotate the images before delivering them to an application (IMatch).
This must be off for applications like IMatch which apply the EXIF orientation themselves. FPV rotates the image but does not neutralize the EXIF orientation and hence IMatch will rotate an already rotated file.

[Beach Photog]

1. EXIF rotation shown is "rotate 270 degrees CW" for both RAF (which doesn't display properly) and jpeg (which does display properly).
2. I'm not familiar with "FPC Codec", which doesn't mean that it could not have been installed by another program. I do have Nikon and Microsoft Windows codecs installed. The question got me to thinking about Photo Mechanic doing something to the file when it is downloaded, so I copied some of the same untouched files directly from a secondary (backup) memory card onto the computer and opened them in IMatch with the same results

[Mario]

1. Please run a WIC diagnosis on one of the problem RAF files.
Select the file in a file window and then go to Help > Support > WIC diagnosis.
Save the result to a text file and attach. This will show us which WIC codec is used to load the file.

May be a Microsoft WIC codec issue (IMatch loads RAW files via whatever WIC codec is installed for the format on your computer).

2. Provide a sample file somwhere I can download it. Or send it to my support email https://www.photools.com/support

I need to see if I can reproduce the problem here and what WIC is delivering for the file when IMatch loads it.

[Beach Photog]

OK, here we go. This is one of the "virgin" files, untouched by any program other than IMatch.
The link is: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jdcdyq5pzd5osm3/AAC_oxATvxZHdMtrA6uOdXcKa?dl=0

The WIC diagnostic file is included in the link, but repeated here:


List of installed codecs:
   Codec 'BMP Decoder' for extensions .bmp,.dib,.rle
   Codec 'GIF Decoder' for extensions .gif
   Codec 'ICO Decoder' for extensions .ico,.icon
   Codec 'JPEG Decoder' for extensions .jpeg,.jpe,.jpg,.jfif,.exif
   Codec 'PNG Decoder' for extensions .png
   Codec 'TIFF Decoder' for extensions .tiff,.tif
   Codec 'DNG Decoder' for extensions .dng
   Codec 'WMPhoto Decoder' for extensions .wdp,.jxr
   Codec 'DDS Decoder' for extensions .dds
   Codec 'FUJIFILM .RAF Raw File Decoder' for extensions .raf
   Codec 'Microsoft Camera Raw Decoder' for extensions .ARW,.CR2,.CRW,.ERF,.KDC,.MRW,.NEF,.NRW,.ORF,.PEF,.RAF,.RAW,.RW2,.RWL,.SR2,.SRW,.DNG
   Codec 'Photoshop Codec' for extensions .psd
   Codec 'Adobe Digital Negative Format File Decoder' for extensions .dng


Testing file 'G:\RAPTOR IMAGE FILES (G)\A-1 ORIGINAL IMAGE FILES - Level 0\A - RAW and JPG Files at Level 0\1. NEW DOWNLOADS\IMatch Sample\DSCF2183.RAF'
   Thumbnail: Codec 'FUJIFILM .RAF Raw File Decoder'
      () 160x120 pixel in 2125 ms.
   Preview: Codec 'FUJIFILM .RAF Raw File Decoder'
      () 1920x1280 pixel in 2094 ms.
   Full resolution: Codec 'FUJIFILM .RAF Raw File Decoder'
      () 4000x6000 pixel in 2078 ms.

RESULT: A codec for this file format is installed and it looks like it fully supports the format.


I see that contrary to what I said before, I am not currently using a Nikon codec, and have not found any problems with the one from Microsoft.

[Mario]

Hi,

I've tested the image on A) my system (FPV codecs) and B) on a plain Windows 10 system (only Microsoft Codecs installed).

A) FPV Codecs. Image orientation is correct.
But the FPV codecs don't understand the RAF format variant. They deliver the embedded preview, which is a 1280x1920 image.

B) Orientation is correct.
The MS WIC codec for RAF does not support the format, not even the embedded preview.
IMatch falls back to trying the image libraries it uses, and once can extract the embedded preview (1280x1920 image)

The image shows with the correct orientation on both as thumbnail and also in the Quick View Panel, Viewer and Slide Show.

C)
You seem to be using a 'FUJIFILM .RAF Raw File Decoder'. I searched for that and it seems that Fuji offers it on their web site "Powered by SilkyPix".
So I installed the WIC codec and rebooted my test system.
Then I did a WIC diagnosis (file format is now supported) forced update of the file. Same result. Orientation correct.
But the file in the Viewer had only 1920 pixel so the preview was loaded.

I switched IMatch to require at least 2000 pixels for cache files to prevent it from using the embedded preview.
And when I now try to re-create the cache image, IMatch reports an "unknown" error because it does not get anything useful back from WIC via the FUJI codec.

I tried the official Microsoft WIC Explorer test tool. It was hanging for a minute, then returned the 6000 pixel file.

It seems the code is not working properly.

Please open a bug report. I may then look into this at some later time. Diagnosing this further will require me to make massive changes to my developer machine, e.g. uninstalling the FPV codecs., installing software from external sources ("Powered by SilkyPix") and I won't do that. I will need to setup a development environment in a Virtual Machine, and this can take days of time. Unless this problem becomes a problem for more than one user, I won't invest that time, sorry.