Lightroom 2 corrupting files?

davebmck · Apr 6, 2009

Just got back from a camping trip this weekend and was reviewing some of my shots. The first pass through the pictures, I selected the pictures I wanted to reject. Once I rejected those photos I was looking through the photos again and noticed several pictures had banding and odd patterns and/or colors. I am sure these problems were not there on the first pass through the pictures. The attached shot is an example.

I would have thought it was a bad CF card if I hadn't see the uncorrupted images previously. Has anyone seen this kind of thing happening in LR2? Any suggestions on what is causing this?

Garbz · Apr 7, 2009

Lightroom does not edit files. It is a non-destructive editing program storing any changes you make in it's own database. Either the database is corrupt, or more likely and more scarily there is some HDD corruption not relating to Lightroom at all.

/EDIT: As an after thought find the file and open them in another program. It may be possible Lightroom is just corrupting the output if the source file is intact), but if the source file is corrupted then I doubt lightroom is to blame.

davebmck · Apr 7, 2009

Good idea. I'll have to try converting the files with DPP. Have to learn to use it first though as I've never opened the program.

JerryPH · Apr 7, 2009

If you are shooting in JPG or RAW, any JPG or RAW viewer used when looking at the original files on the storage card would solve that mystery. My bet is corruption of the storage card. I've seen that before and the storage media was the blame in that instance.

This can also happen if you are shooting... take 2-3 fast shots and then turn off the camera before it has had a chance to finish the write. In most cases, it corrupts the entire card, but often can just corrupt the files that are written incompletely when the camera is shot off too soon after taking a shot.

Let us know what you find!

BlueEyes01 · Apr 7, 2009

I have to say that I was experiencing something similar although it doesnt look exaclty the same. Mine was a more solid banding on the photos & it would happen to every 1 in 10 or so photos. I still have not figured out exactly what was causing it but highly suspect it was my USB cord. Photos looked fine on the camera, until I uploaded them.
I have a card reader built right into my computer so if i take the card out of my camera and insert it into my computer it does not happen.

Not sure if this helps or not but thought I'd put it out there for you.

davebmck · Apr 7, 2009

I looked at the files in DPP and the thumbnails look OK. But when I try to open one in an edit screen, it says the file is corrupted. I think I have discovered the problem, although I am a little embarrassed to admit it. It appears that the four corrupted files are part of a group that I flagged for deletion, but for some reason weren't deleted when the rest were. The files, while not deleted were corrupted though. I've never seen that happen before, but at least that solves the mystery and I haven't lost any of my "keepers"

JerryPH · Apr 7, 2009

Flagged for deletion? Is that a MAC or in camera thing? Never heard of this one before.

Garbz · Apr 7, 2009

I had an interesting case where I couldn't copy files properly from an xD picture card the other day. Importing from Lightroom the first half worked, the second half didn't. No error, just when I selected the image it said it was corrupted. So I tried copying the files in windows, no error, but couldn't open the RAWs in photoshop.

Eventually I tried via USB cable from the camera which worked just fine.

If this is a recurring theme, then I would investigate USB related problems, either the card reader, cable or camera.

davebmck · Apr 7, 2009

JerryPH said:
Flagged for deletion? Is that a MAC or in camera thing? Never heard of this one before.

It's a Lightroom thing. You can go through a series of photos and hit the "X" key to mark a photo for rejection. When finished going through them you just click on Delete Rejected Photos and Lightroom deletes them. There are other flags you can set as well.

JerryPH · Apr 8, 2009

I knew about the rejected flag, just never heard of it as called "flagged for deletion" and was not sure if he was talking inside or outside of LR or possibly a Canon thingie.

Thanks for the clarification.