Summary: Living in a digital world where no event like a wedding, vacations, business programs, or birthday party, etc., go without capturing hundreds of photos. But then maintaining and protecting them is a big task. You tend to lose them if not stored or secured properly. Some photos may become inaccessible, do not open properly, or show different file names that are not supported by your Photo Viewer. Photos may turn blurry, pixelated, grainy, or develop color bands over them. Often, you cannot open photos after recovery from photo recovery software.Here in this post, will tell you how you can fix your inaccessible photos.
Contents
- Method 1: Restore photos from backup
- Method 2: Convert photos to another format
- Method 3: Download/transfer the pictures again
- Method 4: Use a third-party photo repair software
- Method 5: Repair in Image Editors
- Method 6: Perform Drivers update
- Method 7: Perform CHKDSK
- Method 8: Repair with Command Prompt
- Method 9: Repair corrupt JPG with Hex Editor
- Method 10: Use the Apple Photo Repair tool
- To Wrap Up
This post addresses such complaints of photos getting corrupt or inaccessible due to any reason. You can use this guide to fix photos shot from any camera, DSLR, mobile, GoPro, dashcam, or surveillance camera, etc. Irrespective of the file formats of your photos – PNG, JPG, JPEG, HEIC, BMP, GIF, MxPEG, TIF, etc., the below methods can help you restore lost photos due to corruption.
Method 1: Restore photos from backup
Managing a large number of photos and keeping them safe for a long time is difficult. Multiple backups are your best bet in such a situation. If you have lost your photos due to deletion, corruption, formatting, virus infection, or bit rot, etc., restore from the backup that you may have created on the external drive, flash media or cloud storage, etc.
Method 2: Convert photos to another format
Often the inaccessible pictures open correctly in different file formats. Use Windows MS Paint or any free online image converter tool to access photos that are not opening. For instance, JPG or JPEG image files can be converted to PSD or vice versa, using any free online image converter tool.
You can also open your picture in Windows MS Paint and use the ?Save As? option under ?File? to convert to other image formats such as JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, etc.
Method 3: Download/transfer the pictures again
When the pictures are not downloaded or transferred properly due to a power cut or abrupt system shutdown it can lead to corruption or file errors. Download or transfer the photos again properly from the source to access them.
Method 4: Use a third-party photo repair software
If the photos are inaccessible, distorted, grainy, blurred, choppy, pixelated, or showing errors while opening, the efficient way to repair them is through third-party photo repair software. Along with having good success rate, choose the one which is safe, free from virus, and does not harm your system applications. For instance, to repair photos, Stellar Repair for Photo is the best tool. If the photos have turned severely corrupt, the software also extracts their thumbnails for your record. It can repair CRW, DNG, NEF, TIFF, JPEG, ORF, MxPEG, HEIC, PEF, etc. stored in any corrupt media such as HDD, memory cards, SDHC, SDXC, memory sticks, etc.
Method 5: Repair in Image Editors
Certain images like grainy or pixelated ones can be fixed to an extent with the help of image editors such as Photoshop, Picasa, Lightroom, or Pixlr, etc. Whichever Image Editor you are using, you can also buy its supported Plugins to reduce noise and fix corruption in the photos. Some commonly used noise reduction plugins are Topaz DeNoise, Noise Reducer Pro, Neat Image, Photo Ninja, and Noise Ninja, etc.
Popular image editors & supported image file formats
- Photoshop: PSB, Cineon, DICOM, TIFF, JPEG, PDF, Photoshop Raw, PNG, Portable Bit Map, and TIFF
- Lightroom: PNG, DNG, TIFF, JPEG, HEIC, and Raw camera images
- Fireworks: PNG, GIF, JPEG, BMP, WBMP, TIFF, SWF, AI, PSD, and PICT (Mac only).
- Picasa: JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF (not animated), PSD, PNG, and TGA
- GIMP: JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, PSD, PNG, XCF, MxPEG, ICO, and Raw camera images
Method 6: Perform Drivers update
Sometimes outdated drivers may not let you access stored photos. Your photos may give errors like ?Invalid Registry error? on trying to open the image file. To fix such photo issues update the system drivers as below:
? In the Start tab type Device Manager. Select Device Manager from the list
? Expand Display Adapters and right-click on the graphics driver listed and select Update Driver
? Select Search automatically for updated driver software.
Method 7: Perform CHKDSK
Fix the corrupt pictures by performing CHKDSK. It helps in SD card photos recovery by fixing simple issues of corruption in the storage media. Connect your memory card or SD card containing photos to your computer and follow the steps to perform CHKDSK:
1. In Windows Search box type ? COMMAND
2. Click on Command Prompt. Type in CHKDSK (drive letter) / r in the command window
3. Once the process is complete, restart your computer
Method 8: Repair with Command Prompt
Another way to fix minor corruption in photos is through Command Prompt (CMD). Connect your storage media containing photos to the PC and follow the below steps:
1. In the Windows Start search box type CMD
2. Right-click on CMD and select Run as Administrator
3. Open the command prompt, type sfc/scan now, and press Enter
4. Once the process completes, restart your computer
Method 9: Repair corrupt JPG with Hex Editor
Only technical users who are familiar with bits and bytes should use Hex Editor to repair corrupt photos. Hex Editor tools like HxD, Cygnus, Hex Workshop, and Neo, etc., display the raw data of the images in the form of hexadecimal and alphanumeric values. You can change these values to fix image file issues.
Make sure you work on a copy of the image in Hex Editor and not on the original copy.
Method 10: Use the Apple Photo Repair tool
Mac users can repair corrupt photos with the help of Apple?s Photos Repair tool. If your photos in Photos Library are showing grey triangles and are inaccessible, the inbuilt repair utility detects any inconsistency and fixes it. Make sure you are using the latest version of macOS and the network speed is good and continuous when using this method. To repair photos, first close Photos by selecting Photos > Quit Photos. Follow the below steps:
- Press Option-Command and double-click the Photos icon in the Applications folder or in the Dock
- Repair Library window opens. Click Repair
Tips to protect digital photos
- Do not use the same memory card on multiple devices
- Carefully eject the memory card from your computer
- Prefer to format the memory card rather than deleting the unwanted image file
- Save in Cloud storage such as Google Drive, Backblaze, or Carbonite
- Archive photos on different media
- Periodically save photos as new
- Have a sound backup plan
To Wrap Up
Now losing a photo due to any kind of corruption is no more an acceptable fact. You have several methods as mentioned above to fix any kind of photo loss issue. Also, tools like Stellar Repair for Photo have made the recovery of corrupt photos easy. Regardless of the cause of the jpeg corruption or errors, this jpeg repair software assures quick fixes and efficient restoration of all your corrupt pictures.
Do you also recommend any other method to fix the inaccessible photos issue? Share with us in the comment box below.
