Fix Metadata in Samsung Galaxy Nexus Panorama Photos

The camera in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus makes it simple to create landscape panoramas, the problem is (at least in ICS 4.0.1 ) that it has a bug which forgets to add the camera and picture details (meta data).

Apart from not being able to easily see what camera took what picture in Windows Explorer, it prevented me from fixing up images modified by Picasa as described at "https://plus.google.com/101791833503159629380/posts/ceH1fTsWRyM".

I have created a batch file which can be run over these file, it prompts for the name of a JPG file or directory name and will create a copy of the image and mark it "FIXED", it does not change the original image as a safe precaution.

You can download  "FixUpPhotoMetaData.zip" from my site, it has been tested in Windows 7 but would be surprised if it didn't run everywhere.  It does require that you also download "exiv2.exe", you can install this in the "PATH" or in the same directory as my batch file.

It easiest to create a shortcut to the file on your desktop.

This is an example of the added metadata:

Exif.Image.Make                   = [Samsung]
Exif.Image.Model                  = [Galaxy Nexus]
Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal  = 2011:12:21 12:03:00
Exif.Photo.DateTimeDigitized = 2011:12:21 12:03:00
Exif.Photo.UserComment       = _FixUpPhotoMetaData_.cmd (FIX_NEXUS_PANORAMA_PHOTO_INFO, v11.263)

Auto Rotate not working on Samsung Galaxy Tab? Blame Samsung...

My wife asked me why auto rotate (swapping between portrait and landscape modes) wasn't working any longer on her Samsung phone. I found this was fairly common but no one had a fix, I was hoping it wasn't a hardware issue...

After a bit of playing I posted this solution.

Basically some idiot decided that the "Orientation lock" in Samsung's notification bar should toggle a different value than Android and all existing toggle widgets! This means that there are two autorotate locks and both have to be on for it to work!

So to avoid this issue either never use Samsung's "Orientation lock" (and leave it turned on) or always use it and never use a widget.

To fix the issue make sure Samsung's "Orientation lock" is on and then reinstall or use your widget/tool to also turn it on and confirm that autorotate now works (then uninstall or never use it again). If you have a hardware issue then bad luck...

I documented this issue to help you, so hopefully it has :-)