When I go an edit a photo in the Apple Photos app after clicking done the photo and the thumbnail get grayed out. I am running Version 6 of Photos under BigSur Version 11.6. Tried all the fixes mentioned/no luck

How large is your Photos Library? And how much free storage do you have? Could it be a storage problem?

What is the history of most of the greyed out photos? Have they been edited in an older version of Photos or even iPhoto or Aperture?

• The "revert to original" recommended by Tony will help, if your photos have adjustments applied from older system versions, that need to be removed, before Photos can process the image.
• Reprocessing the Raw will help, if the RAW support has been updated.
• Freeing storage will help, if Photos is simply pausing the creation of thumbnails because of lack of storage.

When you edit an older photo with a greyed out thumbnail - is the command "reprocess Raw" available in the "Edit" menu? This would tell us, if the RAW support for your camera model has been updated by a recent update.

You wrote "Tried all the fixes mentioned/no luck" - which fixes exactly did you already try? It is hard to suggest additional fixes, if we do not know exactly, what you tried and how you tried it.

As far as I can tell from what you wrote, most of your RAW files can be processed by Photos. You already tested that you can force Photos to recreate the thumbnails by repairing the library or by applying minor edits. You are just concerned about Photos dragging its feet about doing it automatically. If Photos is stuck and does not make any progress with creating thumbnails or other tasks it could indicate problem with incompatible files in your library. Have you checked your library for items in a legacy format? The Catalina upgrade removed the support for some media formats. Older videos, PDFs, graphic files, sound files, old image formats, files with unsupported color sync profiles? One bad apple in your library could be causing Photos to get stuck, trying to process and update this file, and this will prevent it from updating the files that it could handle. I have been using the iMovie list to remove and to convert all potential conflicting media from my Photos Library: About legacy media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support

bbrocks214 wrote:

It is an external drive that was formatted as a "MAC" drive with the Photos Library stored on it.

What exactly is the formatting? OSX Extended (journaled) or APFS?

Are these RAW image files? If so from what camera?

As a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library.  Import some photos and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it? This tells us if the problem is limited to your current library or is more wide spread.

Next, log into a basic admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac,  and repeat the test library to see if the problem persists. This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide.

What model Mac and year do you have?

Are you running a "managed" or "referenced" library?

Where is the library located? If on an external HD how is that drive formatted and connected to your Mac?

Do you have the iCloud Library enabled and, if so, do you also have "Optimize Mac Storage" enabled?

Hi

Can I guess that you are editing raw files?

If so this seems to be a bug I was experiencing also - If it is the same problem I am seeing, reverting edits to original will bring the image back to normal - after which you can edit again without problems.

The workaround I used was:

Import the raw files

Select them all (in all photos view)

CMD-E (auto enhance)

Image menu>Revert to original (while they are all still selected)

From then on they all work fine.

(seems to be fixed in Big Sur - for my raw files at least)

bbrocks214 wrote:

Sorry, the formatting is MAC OS Extended (journaled). Yes, these are RAW images shot with a Nikon D850.

I created a test library, imported 5 raw files into it and edited 2 of them. The 1st edited file was fine, the 2nd one after editing the thumbnail greyed out but the picture did not.

We're now getting into an area where I'm out of my league, RAW files and Photos. I'll see if I can get the most knowledgeable person I know on the subject to pop in and continue.