JPEG File Repair - bad or lost headers

Picciano · Joined: Dec 29, 2002 Posts: 2

Hi - with all the digital photgraphy going on I've got a freind who takes lots of pictures professionally and she has a bunch of pictures (about 100) that will not open and will not even display a thumbnail - the file sizes look about right compared to other pictures - but it looks like when she moved the files from a memory card to her computer, she lost the file headers.

I've looked into the files with a byte editor - and tried replacing some of the header info and also tried replacing all of the header info - but it's very difficult to find where the header stops and the picture data starts - so I've only been marginally successful - I've gotten about 1/2 of one image - not very good.

Does anyone know of a piece of software that might help out here? I've even tried asking Panasonic (maker of the camera) - and they said they do not provide any restoring functions in their software - so no luck there.

Because of the large number of pictures to be repaired, it would be great if there was a piece of softare that could be automated or has automation built-in to fix them all as quickly as possible. But if not, I will do each one at a time.

I've tried using Photoshop and tried all sorts of different ways to open the files - I've tried opening as RAW and JPG, and even renamed the files to try other formats - but no luck fooling any photo-editor into opening the pictures.

It looks like the data is there - I just need a program that can look at the data and re-write the header data for the pictures. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Pat.

seaeagle

Hi Pat -

Could you please confirm what operating system your friend uses? It will help us narrow down what software might do the trick.

Thanks,

seaeagle

seaeagle

If your friend is prepared to fork out $29, then she might be interested in this program:

PhotoRescue - data-recovery solution for digital photography

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2747

http://www.diskinternals.com/
She might try Flash Recovery on the camera card. There is a free trial where she can view a file, if it is successful. If not, then this software isn't what she needs.

Werebo

Allo Picciano Smile

I don't know if this might help, it's the only freeware jpeg repair tool I could find. Link

goretsky

Hello,

I have had good results recovering photos using DataRescue.Com's PhotoRescue. While it is not free, a demo version is available and it is inexpensive to purchase.

Regards

Aryeh Goretsky

pbp33411 · Joined: Dec 01, 2006 Posts: 30

Too bad it's so many broken files. If it were just one, some of the tools already mentioned will show you the image but not allow you to save. "PrtScr" will put the image on the clipboard. It's up to you what you do with it after that.

diptera · Joined: May 23, 2007 Posts: 1

Hey pat would you be able to tell me how you manually restore the pictures you have. I have attempted to restore them using an automated software but to no avail was i successful. I have the same corrupted headers, size of the files are okay but the pictures are not showing...

thanks

regards

Diptera

chuzie · Joined: Jan 06, 2008 Posts: 1

So did anyone ever get the photos hesders fixed?

qosmio · Joined: Mar 03, 2008 Posts: 2

Werebo

Allo quosmio and welcome to Lockergnome forum

I found that, if the worst gets to the worst, playing around and renaming the extensions to various graphic formats (.jpg - .png - .bmp etc.) can sometimes do the trick, or enough to get something usable. Wink

liamsteadman

Okay, so thats your problem. This may work, but it may not be the solution to the problem.

If you've got the image, rename in by slowly double clicking on the name. Leave the name alone, but just add .jpeg after the name.

Then, press enter or return to set that name in place, and try opening it by double clicking on it. Hopefully that solves it!

qosmio · Joined: Mar 03, 2008 Posts: 2

thats not it, i use irfanview and it supports most images and if it dedect image with wrong extention it ask if u want to rename.
its not the extention but a file corrupt problem, some image programs can fix that but i dont remember which one, still searching, and the ones here dont do it.

gadn · Joined: Apr 28, 2008 Posts: 1

i have the same problem, size of the files are okay but the pictures are not showing. PhotoRescue Advanced doesn't help. I need these pics very badly, please heeelp!!