Getting 360 Images to Work After Resize: EXIF technique

A community member recently asked about resizing images using Photoshop or other tools.

Problem

The original image looks like this in the THETA Desktop App.

The resized image looks like this

Why the Orientation Problem Occurs

The THETA camera stores camera orientation data as metadata. The THETA Desktop App reads in the metadata and orients the image properly. When you edit the app, you lose the metadata.

Solution

You can copy the metadata from the original image into the resized image.

Tools to Edit the Metadata

You need the following to edit the EXIF data.

Organize Original and Resized Images

The community member sent me these files.

Install ExifToolGUI and Configure with exiftool

Extract both archives.

Take the binary for exiftool(-k).exe and rename it to exiftool.exe. Copy the file and put it into the exiftoolgui folder

Process of using ExifToolGUI

Double-click on ExifToolGUI.exe

In ExifToolGUI, browse to the resized image.

With the resized image selected, under Modify select Remove metadata…

Select -remove all metadata. Click Execute.

With the same resized image selected, go to Export/Import → Copy metadata into JPG or TIF files…

Select the original image.

Copy everything.

Click Execute.

Test the resized file.

Drag the resized image from your folder onto the THETA Desktop App. The orientation now looks correct.

You’re done.


Other Tools

  • pyExifToolGUI Mac, Windows, Linux and open source code
  • ricoh-theta-autoit script to automate process and edit all THETA image files in a folder with a single command

Other Techniques

1 Like

Liked because of the roaring bear when you finish. Wanted to double-like.

1 Like

Post a picture of a roaring bear?

Another editing technique using file with XMP data exported from RICOH THETA Desktop Application.

http://lists.theta360.guide/t/using-photoshop-to-resize-theta-images/1079

Community member GrassboyWu had this to say.

Finally, I found that the essential reason for the problem that I cannot resize the photo and view them correctly in desktop app is: I used the older version of ExifTool and ExifToolGUI…
(I used ExifTool 9.2.4 and ExifToolGUI 5.15 before)
After I downloaded the newest version (ExifTool 10.4.7 and ExifToolGUI 5.16) and follow the process in your reply, I can resized them correctly!!

Now I can resize the image in two command:

exiftool.exe -overwrite_original -all= [DestImg]
exiftool.exe -overwrite_original -tagsfromfile [SrcImg] "-all:all>all:all" [DestImg]
1 Like

That’s so great, I like hearing success stories! :3theta_s:

1 Like

Just another day in the life of codetricity

@jcasman another thing to note is that although the official THETA desktop application can export XMP PhotoSphere data (as mentioned by TK), this particular user wanted to use exiftool, possibly because it helps with with a batch process of all the images on his camera.

I think he may be resizing the images with script to make all the images on his camera smaller to reduce storage space on his mobile phone and still show to his friends. So, it does seem like there’s still a need for the EXIF editing technique described in this topic, especially since it looks easy to batch process all files with a script.

1 Like