Orpheus

Rotate or Flip an Image

Baked into the pixels, not left in a flag.

Every tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.

Rotating re-draws the image at the new orientation and re-encodes it, so the change is part of the picture rather than a flag a viewer might ignore.

How to use Rotate and Flip Image

  1. Add your images. Drag them in or click to browse. A whole batch turns at once.
  2. Choose the turn. Quarter turns either way, or 180 degrees. Mirroring is separate.
  3. Download. The rotation is baked in — it will look the same in every viewer.

About rotating and flipping images

There are two ways an image can be rotated and the difference explains most of the confusion around sideways photos. The first is a metadata flag: JPEG files carry an EXIF orientation field, and phone cameras typically record the picture in whatever orientation the sensor was in and set the flag to say which way up it should be displayed. Nothing about the stored pixels changes. Software that reads the flag shows the photo correctly; software that ignores it — and plenty does, including some upload forms, older viewers and image processing libraries — shows it on its side. The second way is to actually redraw the pixels, which is what happens here. The image is decoded, drawn onto a canvas at the new orientation, and re-encoded, so the file itself is the right way up and no flag is involved. That removes the ambiguity permanently and is why a rotate tool is worth using rather than relying on the viewer. It is also why the operation is not perfectly lossless for JPEG: decoding and re-encoding costs one compression pass. At sensible quality settings that is invisible, and rotating the same file repeatedly is not a good idea. Dedicated tools can perform a truly lossless JPEG rotation by manipulating the compressed blocks directly, but only in quarter turns and only when the dimensions are multiples of the block size. Quarter turns swap width and height, which is the one thing worth checking if the result is going somewhere with a fixed aspect ratio.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my photo look right on my phone and sideways elsewhere?
Because phone cameras usually record the picture in the sensor orientation and add an EXIF flag saying which way up it should be shown. Software that reads the flag displays it correctly and software that ignores it does not. Rotating here removes the ambiguity by redrawing the pixels.
Is rotating lossless?
Not quite for JPG. The image is decoded, redrawn and re-encoded, so it goes through one more compression pass. At the default quality the difference is not visible, but a photo rotated repeatedly will degrade. PNG and WebP in lossless mode are unaffected.
What is the difference between rotating and mirroring?
Rotation turns the image about its centre and preserves what it shows. Mirroring produces a reflection, which reverses any text in the picture and swaps left and right. They are applied in that order here, so mirroring acts on the already-rotated image.
Do the dimensions change?
On a quarter turn, yes — width and height swap, so a 4000 by 3000 photo becomes 3000 by 4000. A 180-degree turn and mirroring both leave the dimensions alone.
Can I rotate by an arbitrary angle?
Not here. Anything other than a quarter turn leaves triangular gaps at the corners that have to be filled or cropped, which is a different operation with its own choices to make. Straightening a tilted horizon belongs in a photo editor.

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