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General discussion

Help needed for photos

Feb 24, 2015 12:14AM PST

I have many, many pictures on my computers. I have a strange problem with them and have tried a few programs without any success.
Here is my difficulty: I can see all my pictures in Windows Explorer with the files column set to view thumbnails; however, if I double-click on some pictures to view them larger, it is a gamble as to what will appear. It is either a small horizontal strip from the top of the picture, or a larger strip or nothing at all. The rest of the picture is a solid grey or brown. The same thing happens if I try to view in the preview pane.
What is baffling is if the thumbnail can show the whole picture, why is it that if you enlarge it, you get that solid color? Vice versa, if there is a solid color in the larger picture, why does it disappear in thumbnails?
I found some freebie programs which were able to regenerate "lost data" and recover pictures but this only worked for 1 or 2 photos.
Did anyone ever run into something like that?
Running WIndows7 Home Premium on both computers.
Many thanks in advance

Discussion is locked

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Why does the thumbnail look OK?
Feb 24, 2015 12:24AM PST

It's usually this or that.

1. A thumbnail is created and stored when you first put this file into the folder. (this)
2. Later your OS may change or you change the viewer for the actual file. The thumbnail is from the cache so it looks the same as it did back then. (that)

REMEMBER THAT MICROSOFT PATCH FOR JPEG EXPLOITS? This means that pictures that used to work may not. This is also why I use IRFANVIEW to view such when such a complaint comes up.

3. No. Simply no. It's up to Microsoft to fix or extend the Windows photo viewers so there is no fix for Microsoft broken things other than to use something else.

That covers the issue of the viewers. Try another. If the files are damaged, well, that's all about backup copies now.
Bob

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Re: corrupted pictures
Feb 24, 2015 12:27AM PST

If you don't have the original uncorrupted ones on your backup, it doesn't look good.

Just copy a few to a USB-stick and have look at them on any other PC. Any friend, family member or work PC is fine for the purpose. if they show corrupted there also, consider them gone and lost.
For your new collection of pics, start thinking about a backup strategy.

Kees

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This may (or may not) work
Feb 24, 2015 5:12AM PST

Windows cleanup function offers the option to delete thumbnails. If the actual image isn't corrupt, deleting and recreating the thumbnails might work. It will work for image files Windows can handle natively.

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Slow down.
Feb 24, 2015 5:55AM PST
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I suppose that if it's the last scan from an old
Feb 24, 2015 6:34AM PST

daguerreotype of your great-great-grandparents, one may think it important to salvage. I'm not a hoarder of anything so forgive me if the suggestion seems impetuous.