Portrait type photos are corrupted (grey area appear) when transferring from iPhone to PC

Hi Jo,

Sadly yet I haven't heard anything from them, they don't even call you back when they promise it; I'm still waiting for the conclusion of the ticket so I guess they're "still working on it". I'll give them a call tomorrow and I'll let you know.

On the other hand, you're absolutely right! I was taking a look at mi photo album from Dec 2019 and I have portraits as IMG_EXXXX.HEIC blur background and so on, no issues with those, unfortunately I didn't realize about this "bug" and I've imported so many HEIC portraits with the gray line at the bottom along OCT-NOV 2020 ... I'm so upset about it.

Correct, the only workaround we have for now is going back to JPEG but you'll not get the benefits of P3 gamut, 12-bit image, deep fusion and... Smart HDR (?) Oh boy, I'll love to hear something about this from someone at Apple who actually cares.

Best regards,

Walter

You got it Peter, we all know more about this than the genius bar, techie reps, supervisors and mangers at Apple.

I'll keep you posted If they come up with anything (don't thinks so but, just in case). Please let us know if you have some news as well.

Best regards,

Walter

Hi everyone,

As I promised, I callback today, another senior advisor has taken my call; unfortunately there's no updates so far. I'm supposed to get a callback anytime during next week, I'll keep you posted.

Best regards,

Walter

Hi,

I'm having the same problem with all my pictures - a quick fix is to go to Settings / Pictures / select "automatic" in the "Mac or PC transfer" section - I didn't have any issue with JPG pictures.

Best regards,

Flavien

I am having the same issue with my iPhone 11 Pro since I moved to iOS 14.

Currently I am running the latest version of iOS 14.3 and issue is still there.

As all others said, it happens whenever "Transfer Original" is selected in Settings -> Photos.

It happens only for the "enhanced photos that are "IMG_EXXXX" and whenever they are in HEIC format.

Prior to iOS 14 those files always appeared as JPG (even with "Transfer Original").

It seems that Apple changed something in iOS 14 and ruined those files.

It's really frustrating now because I have to deal with hundreds of images that I have in that way.

I hope to see a fix from Apple as soon as possible.

Hi Tony,

thanks for sharing your experience with this issue. However, I’m afraid that is incorrect, HEIC/HEVC format has been introduced since 2017/iOS 11. We were able since then to choose the format of our convenience by going to Settings > Photos > Automatic/Keep Originals.

Indeed, we can “solve” the problem by switching from “keep originals” to “automatic” as iOS devices will always convert to JPEG files while transferring outside, BUT then; what’s the point of introduce a new “enhanced and advance” format which gives you the benefit of P12 wide gamut, Deep Fusion, and high compress technology without sacrifice quality? It does not make any sense to us, the people facing this error since iOS 13.xx

Im following up since my first response on this topic long time ago, and believe me, it’s been a headache, most when you paid more than $1.5k for getting gray areas on your pictures.

Best regards,

Walter

Hi Tony,

It was a misunderstanding then, you’re absolutely right.

I just send an email to the senior advisor who’s going to get news about the “engineering escalation”, unfortunately I was told there’s no updates so far (as mentioned on this thread, I’ve send them some HEIC files breaking down what’s exactly going on).

I already submit this via feedback and I hope/believe the 30 people more having this issue did it as well.

Feel free to reply or share any news you may get in the future; unfortunately, our hands are tied and we all depend on Apple time response.

Best regards,

Walter

I also see this issue in LATEST IOS 14.0 also while transferring normal edited photos in KEEP ORIGINAL. There is a grey line at the bottom of every image which is EDITED.

For debug if same image is copied to icloud in FILES and then downloaded on PC, the EDITED image is fine.

This means APPLE is doing some logic since the EDITED image uploaded to FILES in ICLOUD and COPIED to PC doesn't have a same size also.

Ideally when we say KEEP ORIGINALS then EDITED PHOTOS COPIED to ICLOUD IN FILES and COPIED to PC MUST HAVE SAME SIZE and SAME CHECKSUM

Hi everyone,

Updating the thread, I've received an email from the Apple senior advisor who's taking care of my case, they want me to send my iPhone "just to double check there's nothing wrong with the hardware going on".

This already has crossed the line, it is unbelievable that an entire team of "engineers" at Apple can conclude there's something wrong with the 60 devices replicating this issue as well (as per the "I have this question too" for this thread).

I don't know, I'll keeping you posted soon.

Best regards,

Walter

APPLE ENGINEERS PLEASE OPEN A JIRA TO TRACK THIS

BUG - SOFTWARE ISSUE WHILE COPYING EDITED IMAGES IN KEEP ORIGINALS IN HEIC FORMAT TO WINDOWS

This is not a hardware issue.

Edited images in format IMG_Exxxx.HEIC are corrupted in 14.3 version on iPhone11

It's **** easy to repro. Just take a photo and edit it and use Keep Originals.

While copying to Windows you will see GREY AREA

If you upload same edited image to icloud in FILES there is no GREY AREA and even file size is different.

I agree, this is ridiculous, there’s no hardware issue associated to these corrupted HEIC files.

If that’s the case, why previous versions such as iOS 13.3, 13.3.1, 13.4 haven’t caused this problem?

Its been more than 2 month, I did send feedback, so many people have sent feedback but I guess they don’t take us seriously.

Im not sending my iPhone, certainly they don’t need it. I’m updating the post once I’ve news, I feel the same way than you folks.

Best regards,

Walter

Hi Walter & everyone else posting here

I previously mentioned that prior to iOS 14, my iPhone 11 saved IMG_XXXX as HEIC, and for portraits there was also a file IMG_EXXXX.JPG showing the portrait effects, no artifacts. After the update to iOS 14, IMG_EXXXX are saved in HEIC format and have those gray artifacts after they get transferred to a PC. As a workaround, I changed the storage formats in the Camera app to 'most compatible'. Photos are saved as JPG and are fine after transferring to a PC.

Interestingly, on my spouse's iPhone 10, with Camera formats set to 'High Efficiency' , IMG_EXXXX are still saved as JPG even though it's now running iOS 14.3. I did some tests on my iPhone 11 after the update to 14.3. Selecting 'High Efficiency' for the camera formats still gives those broken IMG_EXXXX.HEIC files, unfortunately.

That comparison between different phone models makes me wonder if faulty hardware is somehow contributing to the problem ...

That has always been the case with Apple they don't listen and the Apple Care team is like send your iPhone.

It's a software issue with iPhone11 and all edited images IMG_EXXXX.HEIC are broken while transferring.

This is not a hardware, nor a uniquely iOS 14 issue. It has been happening to me with my old iPhone 8 from at least iOS13.6 version and it continues with every iOS update on an iPhone 12 Prom Max now (iOS 14.4). As others posted, it only happens to the edited pics and portraits (regardless of editing). None of the suggested workarounds made a difference and reaching to Apple support was as fruitless as ever (direct comments to Microsoft).