Iphoto wont open jpegs from D800 that have been transferred from pc using external hard drive

What version of iPhoto?

As a Test:

Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Create Library'

Import a few pics into this new, blank library. Is the Problem repeated there?

What version of iPhoto?

Create a new account (systempreferences -> accounts or Users & Groups on 10.7 and 10.8), make a new Library in that account, import some shots and see if the problem is repeated there.

And the result of the other test?

Try opening the pictures in something else, like Preview, just to see if they open properly.

Also double-check the names of the files - do they end with appropriate file name extensions, like ".jpg" or ".png"? If those are missing, it's possible that the Mac is a little confused about what type of file these are (but there's a trick - the Finder may be hiding the file name extensions. If you don't see filename extensions on any of your files anywhere, go to the "Finder" menu, click "Preferences", then click "advanced" and check the option to "show all filename extensions").

Sounds like those files are damaged, doesn't it. What size are they?

Well there is something non-standard about those files because nothing QuickTime based will oprn them. Can you view them in a web browser?

Try doing this:

1. Open "Terminal" (it's in the "utilities" folder in your applications folder)

2. Type the word "file " (no quotes, no capital letters, and type a space after)

3. Drop one of the pictures onto the terminal window. It will fill in the full location of the file, so you should end up with something that looks like this:

file /Volumes/MyExternalDriveName/folder/picture.jpg

4. Finally, in terminal, hit the "return" key on your keyboard.

This won't change anything about your file, but it will take a peek inside to see what kind of file it really is (for instance, maybe it's a RAW format mislabeled as a JPEG - this should report that).

And actually, it might work best if you rename the file first - just remove the ".jpg" from the name (before you drop it on terminal) - so you'll be sure that the "file" command isn't still using that to make the determination of the file type.

Message was edited by: Joseph Delaney (I corrected the instructions - I meant to type "all lowercase letters" or "no capital letters" but ended up typing "all capital letters" - Sorry!

Try this with one of the files:

1 - download from Toad's Cellar and unzip Convert to JPG and Embed sRGB profile.

2 - drop a copy of one of the photos (before you fixed it) onto the app.

3 - import the resulting file into iPhoto.

If that works then you can batch change all of the new files coming over from the PC by selecting them all and dropping onto the Automator workflow app. As a precaution don't run it on originals as they are deleted and reiplaced with the new file like the note says

OT