jpeg-autorotate

A node module to rotate JPEG images based on EXIF orientation.

---

• What does it do
• Installation
• Usage
  • Options
  • CLI
  • Node module
    • Sample usage
    • Error handling
• Troubleshooting
  • Thumbnail too large
• Changelog
• License
• Contributing
• Credits

What does it do

This module applies the right orientation to a JPEG image, based on its EXIF tag. More precisely, it:

• Rotates the pixels
• Rotates the thumbnail, if there is one
• Writes 1 in the Orientation EXIF tag (this is the default orientation)
• Updates the PixelXDimension and PixelYDimension EXIF values
• Does not alter the other EXIF tags

It may be useful, if:

• You need to compress your image with a tool that strips EXIF data without rotating the pixels (like the great ImageOptim)
• You need to upload the image, but the destination application does not support EXIF orientation (like WordPress)
• You just want to get rid of the orientation tag, while leaving the other tags intact

More information about EXIF:

• EXIF Orientation Handling Is a Ghetto
• Standard EXIF Tags

Installation

This module needs Node >=14.

Install with npm:

$ npm install jpeg-autorotate --global
# --global isn't required if you plan to use the node module

Usage

Options

Option	Default value	Description
quality	100	Quality of the JPEG. Uncompressed by default, so the resulting image may be bigger than the original one.
jpegjsMaxResolutionInMP	jpeg-js default	maxResolutionInMP option in jpeg-js (doc)
jpegjsMaxMemoryUsageInMB	jpeg-js default	maxMemoryUsageInMB option in jpeg-js (doc)

CLI

Rotate a single image:

$ jpeg-autorotate /Users/johan/IMG_1234.jpg

Rotate a set of images:

$ jpeg-autorotate /Users/johan/images/IMG_*.jpg

Glob support:

$ jpeg-autorotate "/Users/johan/images/IMG_*.{jpg,jpeg,JPG,JPEG}"

Passing options:

$ jpeg-autorotate /Users/johan/IMG_1234.jpg --quality=85 --jpegjsMaxResolutionInMP=1234

Node module

The Node module will load the image, apply the rotation, and return the binary data as a Buffer, allowing you to:

• Save it on disk
• Load it in an image processing module (like jimp, lwip, gm...)
• ...

Sample usage

const jo = require('jpeg-autorotate')
const options = {
  quality: 8,
  jpegjsMaxResolutionInMP: 1234,
}
const path = '/Users/johan/IMG_1234.jpg' // You can use a Buffer too

//
// With a callback:
//
jo.rotate(path, options, (error, buffer, orientation, dimensions, quality) => {
  if (error) {
    console.log('An error occurred when rotating the file: ' + error.message)
    return
  }
  console.log(`Orientation was ${orientation}`)
  console.log(`Dimensions after rotation: ${dimensions.width}x${dimensions.height}`)
  console.log(`Quality: ${quality}`)
  // ...Do whatever you need with the resulting buffer...
})

//
// With a Promise:
//
jo.rotate(path, options)
  .then(({buffer, orientation, dimensions, quality}) => {
    console.log(`Orientation was ${orientation}`)
    console.log(`Dimensions after rotation: ${dimensions.width}x${dimensions.height}`)
    console.log(`Quality: ${quality}`)
    // ...Do whatever you need with the resulting buffer...
  })
  .catch((error) => {
    console.log('An error occurred when rotating the file: ' + error.message)
  })

Error handling

The error object returned by the module contains a readable message, but also a code for better error handling. Available codes are the following:

const jo = require('jpeg-autorotate')

jo.errors.read_file // File could not be opened
jo.errors.read_exif // EXIF data could not be read
jo.errors.no_orientation // No orientation tag was found
jo.errors.unknown_orientation // The orientation tag is unknown
jo.errors.correct_orientation // The image orientation is already correct
jo.errors.rotate_file // An error occurred when rotating the image

Example:

const jo = require('jpeg-autorotate')
jo.rotate('/image.jpg')
  .catch((error) => {
    if (error.code === jo.errors.correct_orientation) {
      console.log('The orientation of this image is already correct!')
    }
  })

Troubleshooting

Thumbnail too large

The piexifjs module has a 64kb limit when reading thumbnails. If you get the Given thumbnail is too large error, you can try to remove the thumbnail from the image before rotating it:

import piexif from 'piexifjs'

function deleteThumbnailFromExif(imageBuffer) {
  const imageString = imageBuffer.toString('binary')
  const exifObj = piexif.load(imageString)
  delete exifObj['thumbnail']
  delete exifObj['1st']
  const exifBytes = piexif.dump(exifObj)
  return Buffer.from(piexif.insert(exifBytes, imageString), 'binary')
}

Changelog

This project uses semver.

Version	Date	Notes
9.0.0	2023-02-11	Drop Node 12 support
8.0.1	2022-01-10	Remove colors package from dependencies
8.0.0	2021-11-12	Node 16 support Drop support for Node 10
7.1.1	2020-10-11	Introduce code coverage Fix an error if options are not passed
7.1.0	2020-10-10	Introduce jpegjsMaxResolutionInMP & jpegjsMaxMemoryUsageInMB options (#26)
7.0.0	2020-09-19	Don't publish test and linting files on NPM
6.0.0	2020-05-30	Dependencies update Drop support for Node < 10 From jpeg-js update: images larger than 100 megapixels or requiring more than 512MB of memory to decode will throw
5.0.3	2019-12-24	Fix multiple file support in CLI Dependencies update
5.0.2	2019-09-28	Dependencies update
5.0.1	2019-06-08	Fix CLI support
5.0.0	2019-03-03	Drop --jobs CLI option Drop support for Node 6 & 7 Introduce new quality property in the jo.rotate callback Public API now supports both callbacks and Promises Update documentation accordingly Update dependencies
4.0.1	2018-11-29	Fix rotations 5 and 7 (issue #11)
4.0.0	2018-07-15	Drop support for Node 4 & 5 Unpublish lockfile Use prettier for code formatting Update documentation Update dependencies
3.1.0	2017-12-03	Output dimensions after rotation
3.0.1	2017-07-30	Node 8 support Update dependencies
3.0.0	2017-02-11	CLI supports glob No more node 0.12 support Drop semicolons Add eslint rules
2.0.0	2016-06-03	Supports buffers in entry Returns a buffer even if there was an error Improves tests
1.1.0	2016-04-23	Adds test suite, removes lwip dependency
1.0.3	2016-03-29	Displays help when no path given in CLI
1.0.2	2016-03-21	Adds missing options in CLI help
1.0.1	2016-03-21	Fixes NPM publishing fail ^_^
1.0.0	2016-03-21	Initial version

License

This project is released under the MIT License.

Contributing

Bug reports and feature requests are welcome! More details in the contribution guidelines.

Credits

• piexifjs
• jpeg-js
• exif-orientation-examples
• yargs
• FontAwesome
• Chai
• Mocha
• eslint
• glob
• prettier