The Rotator is used to change the orientation of an image.  It can be configured to always rotate to the left, right, or upside down.  However, the most useful setting is "Query" which asks you which way you would like to rotate the image.

If you have chosen the "Query" option, then each image you drag and drop will be presented to you in all four possible orientations.  You simply click on the one that is right side up and you have rotated your image.

If you have a camera with a built in orientation sensor, your camera senses and saves the information about the orientation of the camera (portrait or landscape).  Unfortunately, not many pieces of software recognize this notation in the image.  DPU can recognize this metadata tag, rotate the image to the proper orientation and change the tag to reflect the change.  By simply running your images through an action that includes this task, your images will be automatically rotated correctly.  Cameras that we know of that support this feature include the Canon 10D, Digital ELPH  S200, S230, S330, S400, PowerShot G3, G4, S45, S50, A300, Kodak 14n, Casio QV-5700.  If you know of others, please let us know.

About Lossless Rotation

Many programs decompress and recompress your image in order to rotate it.  This causes some loss in quality.  It may not be very noticeable.  The problem is that the cumulative effect of several such edits can be very visible, especially in prints, and once the image is distorted, the detail will never come back.  digital photo utilities allows you to do "lossless" rotation which is a completely reversible process.  No detail is lost.  This can be done only under certain conditions.  This will only work on JPEG images whose height and width are both multiples of 16.  In addition, when the image is saved, it must be saved at Original Quality Setting (see Saver for more information).  If it is not possible to rotate the image without any loss, digital photo utilities will do its best to maintain as much image quality as possible.