Guntry

Q: Please Help Me With iPhoto. I have been searching through my old loved photos to print some. I have realised that all my beautiful old high res photos are now only thumb nails and I can't work out how to restore them to their former glory. PleaseHelp

Please Help Me With iPhoto. I have been searching through my old loved photos to print some. I have realised that all my beautiful old high res photos are now only thumb nails and I can't work out how to restore them to their former glory. PleaseHelp

MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 9.1

Posted on Nov 15, 2015 12:53 AM

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Q: Please Help Me With iPhoto. I have been searching through my old loved photos to print some. I have realised that all my beautiful ... more

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Nov 15, 2015 1:17 AM in response to Guntry
    Level 10 (105,523 points)
    iLife
    Nov 15, 2015 1:17 AM in response to Guntry
    I have realised that all my beautiful old high res photos are now only thumb nails

    What happens, when you click the thumbnails to enlarge the photos?

     

    We need to know more.  What version of iPhoto are you using?

    When did this problem first occur?  Did you move your iPhoto library to a different drive? Did you restore the library from backup?  Did you run any cleaning application to save space?  in short, what changed, since you last the the high resolution originals?

  • by Guntry,

    Guntry Guntry Nov 15, 2015 2:27 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 15, 2015 2:27 PM in response to léonie

    Hi leonle, Thank you so much for getting back to me. 

     

    My Macbook Pro is a late 2013 model. Originally I assumed that when the photos were transferred from my old computer to my new one that something had happened to the quality of the photos. The strange thing is, that some photos from before 2013 are fine and others from 2014 are the thumb nail options.

     

    The thumb nail options when clicked are around 53KB

     

    The good high resolution photos when clicked are around 2.6MB jpegs

     

    There seems to be no pattern that I have noticed. i.e.. The 6/5/13 The photos are all thumbnails. The 9/5/13 they are full res. 10/5/13 back to thumbnails.

    All taken from the same camera and imported to the same computer.

     

    I do check the photos when I import them and I know that something has happened to change these photos to thumb nails as I have used them as high res in the past.

     

    The only program I run to clean and organise is called MacKeeper.

     

    I can't honestly say what may have caused this to change except for the usual OS updates.

     

    Thanks for your help and I'm really hoping you know the secret to fix this.

     

    Kind Regards. Josh

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Nov 15, 2015 11:50 PM in response to Guntry
    Level 10 (105,523 points)
    iLife
    Nov 15, 2015 11:50 PM in response to Guntry

    The thumb nail options when clicked are around 53KB

     

    The good high resolution photos when clicked are around 2.6MB jpegs

    Are you seeing these sizes in the Info panel?  Check the original image files directly in the Finder. Select one of the photos in thumbnail size and use the command "File > Reveal in Finder > Original file".  Can iPhoto find the original or is it missing?

     

    • If iPhoto cannot find the original, rebuild the iphoto Library, as described by Old Toad.

    Re: iPhoto has crashed on a number of occasions, but on 2 occasions also seems to delete several events, including the one I'm editing. When I go to reimport the last event, it shows them as already there. But I can't find them.

    • If iPhoto reveals a thumbnail, you have damaged the library by removing the originals. I suspect MacKeeper did that.  Some of the cleaning applications are not safe to use with an iPhoto Library, because they try to save space by replacing the originals by edited versions, and that can go badly wrong.  I never tested MacKeeper, but it has been known to cause damage to libraries. In that case restore your iPhoto library from the last backup you made, before you cleaned the Mac.
  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Nov 16, 2015 12:43 PM in response to Guntry
    Level 10 (140,898 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Nov 16, 2015 12:43 PM in response to Guntry
    The only program I run to clean and organise is called MacKeeper.

    This is probably the main cause of your problems.  Read this user tip and uninstall MacKeeper: Do not install MacKeeper.

     

    It is one of the worst malware apps for Macs.  "Cleaning" or "optimizing" apps are not needed to keep OS X working efficiently. They only mess up the system and apps. 

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