Intermittent editing problem in Photos

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Intermittent editing problem in Photos

Almost exactly a year ago, a picture I was editing became a collage of picture elements. I had the problem with only the one picture, not other pictures from the event were affected.

Since then I've had no problem. But it has reappeared.

Well into editing a batch of pictures, the edit suddenly turned the photo into a collage of picture parts. This time I got I got the problem in steps.

First, a photo became a thumbnail. I had been editing it when the size got small and I could not manipulate it with edits or change the on-screen size. So I went to the next photo. That one edited fine.

The next picture seemed to be cropped properly but changed its boundaries when I clicked <Done>. The section I had cropped out appeared in the lower left corner. When I tried to edit it again, it became a collage of the picture and parts of the picture:

I am running Photos Version 2.0 (3161.4.140) on an iMac with Intel Core i5 using OS 10.12.6.

I don't know where to begin to diagnose and fix this problem.

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.12

Posted on Dec 28, 2019 8:25 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Dec 29, 2019 12:04 AM in response to bobbieinSDcounty

What is the file format of your photo? Is it a JPEG or another format?

Photos, that are stored in a compressed format, like JPEGs, can look like this, if the file gets damaged and one or more bits get changed. The damage can happen, when we first import the photo during the download by transmission errors, or later, when the image is moved to different disk blocks and parts of the disk are failing, or because of a bad memory.

The big problem is, that we are rarely seeing our original image files, when we are working with Photos. Photos is showing us the previews or thumbnails when browsing, and the originals are hidden in the library, until we need them for editing. Photos can get damaged in the background and we may only see this years later, when we open this image for editing.

To find out what is happening, I would first check, if the original image file has become damaged or not. Save a copy of the image with "File > Export > Export unmodified original" on the Desktop. Then check this copy with the Preview.app or another image editor, to see, if other programs can read it correctly. Is the original undamaged?

Next, run a hardware check on your Mac. You need to check the memory, the system volume, and the external volumes, if you are storing your Photos Library on an external volume.

How to run the hardware check will depend on the age and the model of your Mac, see: How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support

Does the diagnostic find any problems with the disks or the installed memory?

I am also scanning the folders with the originals of my image files occasionally for damaged files with the program "Corrupt JPEG Checker" (http://www.failedinsider.com/corruptjpegcheckermacosx/)and found several damaged image files, that needed recovering from the backup of my originals, that I create, when I import image files.

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Answer 2

tygb

Level 9

65,010 points

Dec 28, 2019 11:04 PM in response to bobbieinSDcounty

See some articles https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht6d60d10f/mac

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht6d60348f/mac

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht6be18f93/mac

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204968

You can create a new test user account and check the behaviour of photos in this account https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204443

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-13101

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Intermittent editing problem in Photos

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