Q: TIFF photos appear black in Preview, Finder, and Photoshop

This phenomena is not limited to only the TIFF format but also the IIQ format raw files that are the basis for Phase One digital camera backs.  Worse than a TIFF that just won't preview on your system, this bug is corrupting entire sessions (shoot project folders) in Capture One.

I've had two clients late last week have problems with this bug, one of them far worse than the other.

Client A:

Processing out 16-bit Tiffs and they all appear black to Preview.  Sent them to me and they look fine on my 27" iMac running Yosemite.  [Problem of viewing 16-bit TIFF isolated to his machine - Non Destructive]

Client B:

Migrating Capture One-7 sessions to Capture One-9 and all the thumbnails are black.   I had him zip the converted session and when I opened it in Yosemite, the IIQ’s (raw files) were actually black as seen in either Capture One 9.2.1 or even in the finder, but for some reason Adobe Camera Raw could see the images.  [Problem of viewing IIQ Raw files transfers also to my machine - **Potentially Irreversibly Destructive**]

In the case of Client B, he has no ability to make use of images that had been shot into a previous version of Capture One because the mild database conversion to the new version inspires a re-generation of thumbnails which overwrites them in black where there were unique previews before and ALSO alters the RAW file. 

These altered RAW files appear to be wiped of image information as I cannot open the session on a Yosemite computer and regenerate the thumbnails or process files out to any format including PSD or JPG that results in anything but an absolutely black file.

This is potentially a horribly destructive bug to Phase One shooters using Capture One, because without redundant untouched backups of the work that they're trying to open, this bug could lead to losing access to their raw images forever, at least to the extent of the deep RAW information contained in the Phase One format file that Adobe Camera Raw doesn't read or have access to. 

Brad Kaye

Technical Support Manager

Capture Integration

FWIW, this may be totally irrelevant to your post but here is the list of Apple Raw Support on Yosemite…

Digital camera RAW formats supported by OS X Yosemite - Apple Support

Also, I downloaded a few sample IIQ files and was able to open and work with them using Affinity Photos including exporting them to TIFFs without losing EXIF data. Once exported to TIFF, Preview opened them without a problem.

fwiiw, this is the list for El Capitan:

Digital camera RAW formats supported by OS X El Capitan - Apple Support