Photos App Import Previews Photos Upside Down

Great troubleshooting suggestions, Richard! Thank you.

For anyone else that finds this post, here is what I found from following Richard's suggestions--and a new development.

• Use the "Image Capture" app -- Same behavior: photos upside down, videos rightside up
• Restart the computer -- Same behavior
• Restart in Safe Mode -- Same behavior
• Try an empty test library on internal drive -- Same behavior
• Make a new user -- Same behavior

My understanding is that the iPhone uses its internal accelerometer(s) to determine the phone's orientation, and then embeds that orientation data in the photo file metadata. It is then up to the client application to render the image correctly using the orientation data from the metadata. So, I tried one further test: I took four photos, one in each of all four orientations. Check out this screen shot of the Photos import preview screen (and yes, I see the same in Image Capture):

That may be a little hard to read, but the only orientation with a problem is first one, where the phone is in landscape mode with the volume buttons up. I always take landscape photos with the volume buttons up because (1) I find it easier to grip the phone with both hands and trigger the shutter release (or "image capture," if you prefer) with the volume button, and (2) If I'm shooting my son's tennis match, I enable burst mode, which requires the volume button. Reviewing all of my unimported photos in preview, it appears that portrait-oriented photos, panoramas, videos, and landscape-oriented photos sent to me by other people via iMessage and saved to Photos on my phone, are all showing in preview with correct orientation. It is only landscape photos taken with the volume buttons up that have the problem (i.e., 98% of my photos).

I would be very curious to know the following:

1. Does anyone else see this behavior with Photos 8.0 (560.0.110) on a Mac with 13.6.6 "Ventura" when previewing an import via USB cable?
2. Can anyone confirm that his behavior works correctly on 14.7.0 Sonoma (i.e, all four orientations preview correctly)?

Major upgrades are hugely disruptive and break so many things that I'm always reluctant to update, especially since Apple's architectural changes destroyed Carbon Copy Cloner's ability to do one-click backups and restores of bootable volumes. Upgrading a Mac to test-drive a new release, and then easily downgrading if necessary doesn't seem to be an option any longer. :-(

Just in case somebody else stumbles across this thread, I though I'd make one more post.

I finally got around to breaking out my old iPhone 5 running iOS 10.3.4. I did an import preview in Photos 4 on macOS 10.14.6 "Mojave", as well in Photos 8 on macOS 13.6.6 "Ventura". In both cases, photos taken in all four orientations rendered correctly in the preview. Here's a screen shot.

I think this pretty much proves the issue in my original post is a bug in iOS 18, and nothing to do with Photos. Or maybe it's a bug in something to do with the interaction between iOS 18 and Photos, but I'm pretty certain this behavior didn't manifest in versions of iOS prior to 18, because as I stated previously, I have always taken all of my landscape photos with the volume buttons oriented up, and they have never been rendered upside-down in the Photos import preview--I would have noticed.

Well, I guess this thread now technically belongs wherever iOS 18 posts belong. Anybody know how to file an iOS bug report with Apple? :-)

Thank you for taking the time to confirm the behavior on your instances of 13.x "Ventura" and 14.x "Sonoma".

I've kept an old 27-inch late 2012 iMac running 10.14.6 "Mojave". I tried my iPhone 16/iOS 18 with Photos 4.0 (and Preview and Image Capture) on 10.14 and the behavior is happening there as well. I'm pretty confident this behavior didn't used to happen prior to my upgrade to the iPhone 16 and iOS 18, but since I traded in my iPhone 13 with iOS 17.x, I no longer have an older phone to test with. I do have a really old iPhone 6 around here I might dig out and try.

You asked about Preview and GraphicConverter; I don't have the latter, but the behavior is the same in Preview as it is in Image Capture and Photos. I suspect (although admittedly this is just a guess) that all of those apps use the same API calls to preview photos on the iPhone, so it makes sense to me that their behavior is consistent.

When I take a picture downward, as when copying a document, the orientation of the GUI on the phone will shift based on how the accelerometer(s) determine I am holding the phone. If I hold the phone parallel to a flat surface but tipped only slightly (say, just a few degrees) away from myself, the GUI (and corresponding image) will be an "upside down portrait". If I tip it slightly toward myself, it will be a "rightside up portrait". Similarly, if I tip the phone slightly left or right, the GUI and image will render as a "buttons down landscape" or "buttons up landscape" accordingly.

At this point, the behavior is looking like it has less to do with macOS or Photos, and maybe more to do with a change in iOS. I agree with your comment that Apple may very well consider this a feature, although IMHO I would argue that if Apple considers a "buttons-up landscape" photo as upside down and show it that way in preview, then for consistency they should also consider a "USB port-up portrait" photo as upside down and show it that way in preview as well.

Thanks again for your help.