Getting 'black panels' on photos? Wrong location?

Question

Getting 'black panels' on photos? Wrong location?

I've just opened 'Photos' and discovered that some of my photos have black panels on them. It seems quite random and means that I've lost portions of my original images. has anyone else had this problem. I've exported the images out of 'Photos' and the black panels are still there. Also and this is also weird - as you can see from the photo apparently I took these pictures in the middle of the 'North Sea'. They were actually taken in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in the UK.

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Jun 19, 2015 2:47 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,813 points

Jun 19, 2015 5:06 AM in response to richardesigner

Such a JPEG corruption can happen, if the originals on the card are corrupted, because the card has a problem and needs reformatting or the drive with the Photos Library has a few bad blocks. The problem is, that a JPEG corruption can go unnoticed for a very long time, as long as the previews or thumbnails are o.k. Only when the photos are opened for editing and the thumbnails recreated again from the originals will the damage become visible.

Try to restore the damaged originals from a Time Machine backup. You may need to go back in time a long way to find an undamaged version.

If there are several damaged photos, I'd move the Photos Library to a different drive to prevent further damage. Are the black thumbnails only from one recent import or are also older photos corrupted?

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Answer 2

Jun 19, 2015 5:12 AM in response to léonie

Hi Léonie,

The photo was taken on my iPhone only a few days ago and I haven't backed up since I took the photo. The photos are in a folder on my iMac's 2TB hard drive.

Any other thoughts?

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,813 points

Jun 19, 2015 5:32 AM in response to richardesigner

The photo was taken on my iPhone only a few days ago and I haven't backed up since I took the photo. The photos are in a folder on my iMac's 2TB hard drive.

Can you download them again from the iPhone? Perhaps it was just a transmission error. Are they o.k. on the iPhone?

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Answer 4

Jun 19, 2015 6:11 AM in response to léonie

No. Unfortunately I always tick the 'delete after importing' button in 'Photos' when importing photos from my iPhone.

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,813 points

Jun 19, 2015 7:33 AM in response to richardesigner

Hmm, then we cannot check, if the problem occurred already on the iPhone, during the transfer, or on your hard drive due to bad disk blocks. Make a backup on a different disk, just in case, and check the system drive with Disk Utility.

No. Unfortunately I always tick the 'delete after importing' button in 'Photos' when importing photos from my iPhone.

That is a bit risky. I would always wait with deleting the photos from the card or device, until I have checked each photo if it transferred correctly and I have made the first backup.

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