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

The issue with the grey areas seems to be of a more general nature - and it seems still unsolved.

Below I have highlighted additions to your entry in CAPITAL letters:

When using the INDIVIDUAL OR bulk transfer from iPhone to PC (Windows 10) with "Keep Originals" settings in Photos, the imported PHOTOS - BE IT ORDINARY PHOTOS OR portraits (IMG_Exxxx) are corrupted and they are imported as HEIC as well as the originals. THIS HAPPENS WITHOUT EXCEPTION WITH ALL PHOTOS THAT HAVE BEEN EDITED WITH THE EDITING PROGRAM INTEGRATED IN THE PHOTO APP OF THE IPHONE.

If I change to the "Automatic" setting when transferring to PC in the Photos application, the portrait images are transferred properly in IMG_E.jpgTHIS HAPPENS WITHOUT EXCEPTION WITH ALL PHOTOS THAT HAVE BEEN EDITED WITH THE EDITING PROGRAM INTEGRATED IN THE PHOTO APP OF THE IPHONE.

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Thank you lesterw, for shading some mor light at the issue.

Oddly, on a photo that I had only trimmed but not otherwise edited, the workaround with the two system settings changed on the iPhone worked.

On the two test exported photos that had colors reworked, the bottom edge was still truncated.

So it doesn't seem to be some insignificant color information that is affected, but the edits that turn a dull, highly mediocre photo into an acceptable photo.

Issue I have found with automatic is the transfer of large quantity of photos will most likely make the windows Photo application to fail mid process. Same things occur if I transfer files from file explorer. So something bad happens when iPhone converts the photo from heic to jpg. For this reason, I have no choice but to have Keep Original option checked.

@lesterw, that fixes this problem, but introduces another. If you have "Keep originals" then transferring more than just a couple of photos causes the iPhone to disconnect from Windows. So it is not usable if you have many photos to transfer.

Also, as shown in the small print, "Most Compatible" on the camera side will limit other features, such as cinematic video.

This might be a workaround, but it is barely feasible. Thanks for trying anyway :-)

We were already pretty close.

But the settings of the photos must not be set to "keep the originals". The correct setting is "automatic". (As already before correctly stated from Lesterw you have to click on "most compatible" in the settings of the camera). Anyway, this combination of settings has solved my problem.

I guess that the setting "keep the original" limits the size of the file during the transfer process.

Tried it again today transferring the photo's from my Iphone12 with the latest IOS 15.2.1 and my Windows 10 notebook. Still nothing's changed. IMG_EXXXX files yet again corrupted in windows file explorer. Looked at some older pictures I imported in the past from my previous Iphone (Phone-XS) and the IMG_EXXXX files were fine then.

I would like to share a solution that worked for me after trying all other settings. To recap, Transfer Photos to PC "Automatic" setting caused my phone to time out with transferring any video or a large number of photos. Removing screen lock did not rememdy this. Transfer Photos to PC "Keep Originals" setting introduced the gray bar on all portrait mode photos. Downloading the photos from iCloud online was not an acceptable work around becuase when you download from a web browser it almost halves the photo quality. My solution was to download iCloud for Windows, and then copy from the "iCloud" folder to my external hard drive or other storage location. No time outs, no gray bars, and 100% photo quality. Hope this helps some of you!!!

For your work around to work I would need an Icloud subscription, since the free 5GB free Icloud storage won't cut it for all the photo's on my iPhone. But I understand when using Icloud for Windows to transfer the pictures to an external disk the picture quality and exif data aren't altered/changed? And the portrait type photo's (img_e files) are available without the grey bars?

Yes, the pictures are full quality and the portrait photos are not corrupted. However where as you were getting the _E photos (portrait mode effect and corrupted) and an original version of the photos, with this method, I’m pretty sure you only get the portrait mode photo. But it’s fully quality and no grey bar. I don’t believe they have the _E name any longer. Yes, you would need a subscription if you’re over the 5GB.

To read HEIC files on Windows 10 it needs the "HEIF Image Extensions" to be downloaded and installed from the Microsoft store. Just search for "HEIF Image Extensions" in the store. It is free.

I have installed it on my Windows 10 machines and they can read HEIC files just fine.

There is also "HEVC Video Extensions" for videos. It is not free however. Costs about a dollar (depending on your country/currency).

Once you install this, you can read the files. You will then see the grey bar though. It is not caused by some bug in the HEIF extension though. That is some issue in iOS itself which Apple have not deigned to fix (yet).

@AussieLyndal I’m not at my computer right now, but I believe something you are doing is different from what I intended to provide as the solution. I can assure you the photos were full resolution and had the meta data to boot. I don’t believe I remember a “Downloads” folder in my process. Did you download the photos by accessing iCloud through your web browser (which does halve the quality)? Or did you download the iCloud for Windows app and copy them directly from the new iCloud folder? Happy to help you try to figure it out!

(For the record, the earlier post from you and @davidg82 about having to download extensions, I did not have to do that to open files. In my “testing” once the grey bar file is on the computer, if you send it back to your iPhone it remains corrupted and opens on the iPhone with the grey bar. To me, that meant that the file is truly ruined at that point.)

As I mentioned on an earlier page, the grey bar files are incomplete JPEG files (despite the file extension claiming they are HEIC). So they can't be "fixed" in any way, the grey area is missing data.

Hi, I responded to the other thread. That's interesting it's not just the portrait mode photos. I knew the issue occurred in MAC too. I'm running Windows 11, and I did not knowingly download anything to open HIEC files. I don't think I was the one saying the corrupted photos were jpegs. I pulled up an old one and it says this. Looks like HEIC to me.

Bad news, using an iPhone11Pro with iOS15.4 and transferring brand new photos (taken today) to my Windows 11 machine, I still see the grey corruption, grey block, or whatever you want to call it on all "Portrait Mode" IMG_Exxxx.HEIC files.

This is getting crazy.

This thread was initially reported back on Nov 2020 with iPhone 11 and iOS 14

We are now April 2022 and issue still exist every with Windows 11, iPhone 11/12/13 and iOS 15.4.1

Come on Apple... Do something! It doesn't make sense that you are abandoning the Windows users that way.