Some pictures read only files.

Anybody got any ideas on this?

I just returned from a trip to the ocean and nearly filled two 512 mb SD cards with highest quality jpeg files using my *ist Ds. When viewing them with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer about 25% (guessing) of them will not rotate and it tells me that the file is read only and cannot be saved rotated while the other 75% are OK. None of the files' attributes show as read only. This happens on both of the memory cards and the even stranger thing it affects only some of multiple shots of the same scene. I have never noticed this before and I'm stumped.

Drew

Hi,

are you viewing them direct from the card or after loaded to your hard drive?

Also, try using Irfan View, as opposed to window's own viewer. You can also select and rotate loads of images in one go, using the batch conversion tool. If that still doesn't work, although I see no reason why, open in Photoshop and rotate manually.

I use ULead to open from the card and to save to the hard drive, and although it can be a bit slow with lots of portrait shots to rotate, I've never had one that wouldn't?????

The only other thing I can think of, is that the cards both have a quarter of their memory corrupted.. which would be very strange indeed. When was the last time you formatted them (in camera). This is just phishing now..

Cheers

Liam

I have noticed the same, but only when using the direct USB connection to the camera.
When I use a card reader the problem isn't there. It has something to do how the files are transfered from the camera to the PC.

If you have a picture preview up in some Windows application (not Photoshop) and right-click the image you can select Properties. There is a "read-only" box that can be un-checked and this should solve the problem for that image.

Of course that doesn't address why it happens sporadically....

Thanks for the replies.

Liam: I load my cards to the HD via a SanDisk card reader using Windows wizard. I do format my cards after all files have been backed up to DVD.

John: Yes, that is the weird part, ALL the files' attributes show Read-Only as unchecked. Only the files that fail ALWAYS fail. That makes me lean towards it being a camera problem.

I will have to determine if it is a Windows corruption, a card reader problem, or a camera problem and try to eliminate each one. I will also look into getting IrfanView Liam. It sounds good even if I can correct the problem.

golfdiesel: Just plain good news to hear that I am not alone on this.

Thanks again

Drew

try this:
format yourcards in camera.
Erase your cards in camera.
don't use your computer for those functions, only do it in camera and see if that resolves your problems.
also are you switching formats? pef-jpeg?

Thanks Don but already doing all that. No, not switching between RAW and jpeg but sure wished I had taken some of them with RAW now.
OK, off to work I go.

Drew

Try this for one file. Even though the files read-only attribute is unchecked, check it, apply changes, then uncheck it, apply changes again. Note and report any errors that might pop up.

In other words, force the file to be read-only in Windows. Then make it readable.

Also, you might use Windows disk checking utility to determine if any errors exist.

If you are using Windows XP, you'll find it under DriveLetter > Properties > Tools . Substitute your actual drive letter. You also have the option to fix errors, I suggest you don't for the first pass. If errors sre found, decide whether you want to check the 'fix errors' box.

I have been working on this all night trying to eliminate the possible causes and have ended up going in circles.

I have saved the first 24 files of one card in a seperate folder and found 9 consistent photos of the 24 that erroneously report as Read Only. I downloaded them in every different way possible using the camera and cable, and the card reader, as well as using different software only to prove that some of the files seem to be corrupted(?) on both memory cards. I also have proved that this only happens using Windows Explorer and Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to rotate but again, only on those specific 9 of the 24 files. There must be something different about those files that Windows doesn't like. I am however able to rotate those 9 without a problem in Elements, Photoshop and now InfranView but must save each individual file as rotated and they never mention those files being Read Only. I'm not sure what the heck I have proven now.

I have tried Mannesty's suggestions of forcing it out of Read Only and also checked the disk for errors, all to no avail.

Here is a very weird observation that I never noticed before; if I rotate any file on the card and save it in the camera, the picture stays rotated when viewing in the camera but still downloads to the HD unrotated. What is going on with that?

I only loaded Firmware version 2.0 about a month ago, maybe something to do with that because I have never had this problem before doing that. Coincidence??? Golfdiesel says he has experience this problem as well. Is it since you upgraded your firmware?

Still looking for ideas.

Drew

I seem to remember that there are some issues in the Windows libraries. Nikon users have had EXIF data ripped out, and images corrupted when rotating under the Windows tools.

My suggestion - leave Windows tools well alone!! If you have Photoshop - use that first. If you shoot JPG then IrfanView can do a completely lossless rotate.

Most rotates on a JPG will decode to BMP-style then re-encode as JPG - losing heaps of quality in the process!! Irfanview has a separate and special menu item to losslessly rotate - but it touches the original file to do it.

Some other rotates don't actually rotate at all - they just set the rotation attribute in the EXIF data

But - personally I always leave the original files alone. Normally they are RAW. I process from the RAW into TIFF or JPG, stored in a "Develops" subdirectory, and from there I work with them in PS and resave to a "Processed" directory (saving the layered PSD file and the flattened, resized output JPG).

Matt

The way Matt describes is allso the way I tend to do it, but I'll have to invest in a bigger harddrive very soon... Even my external HDD is quickly filling up with the PEF files.

Thanks to good old Matt I have located the problem and just like he said, it is a problem with Windows. Here is the Windows Knowledge Base article if anyone else is interested.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896269
Who would EVER of thought Windows would be the culprit.
Sorry to trouble the Pentax Users but in the end it did prompt me to finally download InfranView so it was not a bad thing.

Many thanks to all that responded with your suggestions.

Cheers

Drew Peabody

I get suspicious of Microsoft if my toilet doesn't flush....I'm sure somebody at the public works dept has a pc crashing...call me paranoid...but I blame Everything on Microsoft.

Everything? I blame them for much more than that.

We used to have scapegoats, now we have scapeGates.

Coming to Irfanview, that jewel of a program. It will never replace a proper image manipulation program, but it's wondefully efficient at basic editing tasks like cropping, resizing and simple colour and contrast corrections.

Don't use the Sharpen option in the Image menu. Press ctrl-E and you will find a sharpening tool which can be varied.

Do experiment with Display options in the View menu. I tick the top and bottom ones. Then, when the image is displayed, press Enter, and it will be resized, if necessary, to fit the window.

Load the plugins, and use shift-J to rotate and save without loss of quality.

The various options in the Batch Conversion/Rename tool are powerful.

The Thumbnail tool can be set to create webpages of thumbnails and images, and if you know even a little HTML you can edit the templates to do exactly what you want.

Irfanview is in my view the best program available for the pc. And it's free. By "best", I mean it does what it says it does, quickly, efficiently and with a very shallow learning curve.

Can't say the same about Mr Gates' products. Or Adobe's.

Any program that requires a user to take a course to learn it has fallen at the first hurdle, IMHO.

G

I second that with IrfanView.

As you may have read, I had trouble calibrating my monitor. When I finally got it right, I had hundreds of images that needed reprocessing. I took one (from a folder of the originals) and got that corrected, and then put the same settings into the batch converter, pointed it at a folder (in one case 360 odd images of Bruges), clicked go, and 10 minutes later, came back to a brand new folder full of corrected images. Repeat as necessary.

Obviously if you were to publish these then a little more care would be used to process them, but as passable snaps, they were just fine.. in 10 minutes.

I'm going to check out the web wizard though, George. I have a gallery maker that does that anyway, but if I want to use the images minus the formatting, I have to muck about.. this looks easier.

Cheers

Liam