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dddeitrich
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Images come up as black with exclamation mark only--help!

For some reason some of my pictures have been messed up and come up at a black screen with exclamation mark only. They are visible when I open the folder in events/albums/photos but if you click on the photo to print or do anything the image disappears and the other screen comes up. I am able to find the file if I search in the finder window as a jpeg but it is a very low quality image (seems like a thumbnail only). Any ideas???

MAC OS 10, Mac OS X (10.0.x)

Posted on Feb 5, 2010 7:10 AM

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dddeitrich

Q: Images come up as black with exclamation mark only--help!

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  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Feb 5, 2010 7:43 AM in response to dddeitrich
    Level 10 (139,572 points)
    iLife
    Feb 5, 2010 7:43 AM in response to dddeitrich
    Welcome to the Apple Discussions.

    The ! turns up when iPhoto loses the connection between the thumbnail in the iPhoto Window and the file it represents.

    Option 1
    Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Rebuild iPhoto Library Database from automatic backup.

    If that fails:

    Option 2
    Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords, faces and places back.

    Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

    Regards

    TD