Repair Corrupt Photos

Best Tips to Repair Corrupt Photos

Feb. 25, 2014 11:24 am / Posted by Bobby Hills to Card Tips
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Photos Got Corrupted?

Digital photos mean a lot since they preserve life's most important memories and moments. When you're trying to open a photo, suddenly, the photo could be trashed: split into chunks; colors displayed incorrectly, bits missing, maybe you can no longer view it at all. Your photo has been corrupted.

Typical Error Messages Indicating Corruption

• No Preview Available - Windows Explorer.
• Drawing Failed - Windows Picture & Fax Viewer.
• This document may be damaged (the file may be truncated or incomplete) – Photoshop.
• Could not complete your request because an unknown or invalid JPEG marker type is found - Photoshop.
• Can't read file header! Unknown file format or file not found! – IrfanView.

Example of Corrupt Photos

The following shows a few examples of corrupt photos: the damaged photos are on the left, while the original photos are on the right.

Why Photos Got Corrupted?

There are several reasons why your photos got corrupt. We list them in order of probability:

• Bad SD card (by far the most likely, especially with cheap cards).
• Bad cable or card reader (more common than you might think).
• Something wrong on your computer (many things can go wrong!).
• A bad connection inside the camera.
• Something horribly wrong with the camera's electronics.

How to Repair Corrupt Photos (JPG, JPEG, PNG)?

To fix corrupted pictures, you need to utilize a third-party software program. Card Data Recovery for Windows (Free Trial ) stood out straight away thanks to its easy-to-use and powerful features. It does its best to recover all kinds of photos including JPG, JPEG, PNG, etc. on computer, SD card, smart phone, external hard drive and other storage media. This software enables you to preview each picture so you can judge the results right away. If you're using Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7 and lower, turn to Card Data Recovery for Mac (Free Trial).

How to Prevent Corrupt Photos?

You can't completely eliminate the chances of eventually encountering photo corruption, but there are a few steps you can take that will increase the odds of successfully recovering a photo.

• For memory cards, periodically Format the card instead of using single-file delete or delete-all.
• Run a RAM test on your PC whenever you buy/change/upgrade your Memory DIMMs.
• Use the Safely Remove Hardware taskbar button when you want to unplug a memory card / card reader if you have been doing anything other than viewing files.
• During USB transfer operations (e.g. copying files from card to hard drive), limit other activities on the PC.
• During CD/DVD burning operations (e.g. burning photos to CD/DVD), limit other activities on the PC.

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