Please help - powershot doesn't see images!

Hello. I'm hoping someone out there can help me! I made a BIG mistake. I was trying to help out an older gentleman who was frustrated b/c he got a new digital frame that displays his pictures out of order. In order to fix this I renamed all of his photos. Now, they work properly in his frame BUT the camera doesn't recognize the photos anymore For ME this wouldn't be a problem... but I found out AFTER I did this that he doesn't have a computer or even a DVD player. He keeps all of his images on his cards. I explained that the images are STILL on the card and he can can still print pics, but he is NOT happy with this. I tried to rename the photos back to the original names, with NO luck.

I would appreciate any tips on how to make it viewable in his camera please! I offered to make him a CD or DVD, but he doesn't want that b/c he has no use for it.

I feel HORRIBLE even though I was trying to help him. I'm glad his frame now works, but I am praying I can fix my mistake.

Thanks in advance!

Hmm, well, first how many photos are you talking about?

And then, when you tried to restore the original file name, did you have a way of doing so that ensured you were being accurate, each filename being its own exact original?

Well... it's about 500 photos!! The way I renamed them is using photoshop bridge... I did a batch rename and named them all the way the canon names them IMG_0???. I renamed them a canon name, but the numbers may not have been exact. I think I remember it was IMG_0123, but there is a chance my memory is failing me

Any other thoughts you have would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks,
Donna

Donna --

Just trying to think of some possibilities here ... IMG_####.JPG seems to be the correct format. A couple of other things to look at:

Did you preserve the folder structure that the camera uses? I don't have a card from a PowerShot here right now, but it seems that in the root directory there should be a folder named DCIM and then under that CANON_100 or maybe 100_CANON or something like that, and then the image files in that folder.

Did you make both the file name and extension all caps? I don't know if that would matter to the camera or not. It wouldn't to Windows, but would to a Unix or Linux system, for example. Again, I don't know if the camera's operating system would care or not.

(NB: In your example you didn't mention the extension ... you did include the .JPG extension, I assume.)

No other ideas right now ... If none of that helps I'll get out my old S3-IS tomorrow and experiment with copying some images onto an SD card and see what happens. (I love a challenge...)

As the siggy line say, "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!"

Thanks, Rimmer! I did include the extension. I also tried w/ a subfolder and without. I am going to retry with the jpg in caps, I think I did it in lowercase. I didn't even think of that. I normally love a challenge too... that's what got me into this mess, lol. Even after I renamed the files into 4 digit format the frame was not putting them in order. I found that putting them into a 6 digit format was the charm. I've never had to use that before. So, I was glad to have figured that out. But, it seems like this problem is more upsetting to the gentleman than the frame was!! I am not going to give up... if I figure it out before you do I will post my solution. Today I was unable to play with it due to some other obligations, but I'm going to make time for it tomorrow if possible. If not, Saturday for sure.

I appreciate your suggestions and offer to dig deeper! Thanks so much!

This morning's experiments didn't reveal much. I tried changing the case of the filenames and the camera still read them. I tried using a naming convention different from the camera's and it wouldn't read them. No real surprises there. I tried copying images that had been edited back on to the SD card and the camera would read them, but reported that they didn't match the camera format. Again, no real surprise.

I can only think of one more thing for you to try at this point, and that is to copy the images to a backup drive, format the card in the camera, then copy the image files back on, making very sure to follow the IMG(underscore)####.JP​G format.

I note that my S3-IS reports a folder number and a sequential file number in the display and that this is different from the "real" file name. I don't know if this is embedded in the metadata somewhere or if it keeps track of that in some other way, and I don't know what that means with regard to this problem. Just thinking out loud at this point to try to stimulate further thought.

So far I haven't had any luck either... sorry I haven't posted sooner. Lots of other things going on at the same time. Tomorrow I'm going to try to reformat in a canon camera and follow your suggestions. I don't have his camera at this point, and I don't want to get his hopes up. So, I'll see if I'm able to make this work first.

Thanks!

Years ago, Canon tech support confirmed that the camera writes information on the memory card about each photo in such a manner than any computer-modified files will not be playable on the camera.