120 x 160 pixel photos - why??

[lbish]

almost everytime I take a bunch of pictures at one time, I am guaranteed that a small percentage of them will come out with a really poor resolution when I download them. I keep the settings on the camera the same while I shoot the pictures, but some will come out bad. They appear to be alright on the camera's screen when I view them. I can even zoom in on them and they seem to be alright. But when I download them, they are bad. I've tried to use different software to download them, and the same pictures always come out bad.

Help?

[sdommin]

Hmmm. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. You're saying that some of your pictures are 120X160 pixels?

Are you shooting RAW? If so, you might be seeing the "THM" files. These are little thumbnail files that your camera uses to show you what you've captured. That way, it doesn't have to convert a RAW file every time you want to view it. You can view THM files on your computer, too, but they're tiny. I usually delete mine, but some people keep them because they have some EXIF info on them.

If you're shooting JPG and getting these small files, I'm going to have to think about that one!

[lbish]

Yes, some of my pictures are 120X160 pixels. And the only way I can see that I should get that resolution is in movie mode. I am shooting JPG and they should all be 2272x1704.

When I review the pictures using the camera, they seem to look ok. When I download them, them come out 120x160. and I've tried 3 or 4 different pieces of software to download them. All have problems with those pictures.

So... I'm not exactly sure where my problem is.

[Chris1le]

Are the file prefixes CRW or IMG? if they are CRW you are shooting RAW and those are the little preview thumbnails. they should have THM suffix. The real picture should be right next to it with the same file number. This will be a RAW file and you will need to use the software that came with your camera to view it. There are also other programs to view and process this file format.

[lbish]

I went back and looked and the pictures were all IMG files. I couldn't find any difference with the files themselves that should be causing the problem. So, I went back to figuring it has to be how they are getting downloaded. I decided to try the one piece of software that I hadn't played with yet. (the Canon File Viewer) I guess I should have tried it first, but the others seemed to work fine and I didn't think I had a problem with the software. Anyway, with that software I am able to download those photos and get the regular resolution. I still have no idea why the other software has problems with those specific pictures, but at least I have a way to get them downloaded correctly now.

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

[PacAce]

I read someplace on the forum that JPG files contain embedded thumbnails along with the EXIF info. Maybe you're using older generation software that isn't aware of embedded thumbnails and is picking up the thumbnails instead of the real images.

[marcel wouters]

lbish wrote:
almost everytime I take a bunch of pictures at one time, I am guaranteed that a small percentage of them will come out with a really poor resolution when I download them. I keep the settings on the camera the same while I shoot the pictures, but some will come out bad. They appear to be alright on the camera's screen when I view them. I can even zoom in on them and they seem to be alright. But when I download them, they are bad. I've tried to use different software to download them, and the same pictures always come out bad.

Help?

One time i got a strange effect like you describe! This happens after a card download on CD in a photo shop. Something was bad with the thumbnail, i reformat directly the card (twice in a row) in the camera and from there all is working O.K.
I suspect that the card structure was clobbered by the download process.
Anyway it's a good usage to reformat your card after download.