iPhoto problems with Pentax RAW

bawill · 08-26-2008, 07:07 PM

I am having some trouble with Pentax RAW files in iPhoto on my mac. As far as I can tell, this is a problem whether I shoot in PEF or DNG. Many of my photos end up being solid black in iPhoto. I used to have a trial version of Aperture 2, and some of the photos showed up as solid blue in that program (the same photos showed up as black in iPhoto). This is a problem that seems to be getting more frequent. The pictures show up fine when I preview them in the finder. But once they are in iPhoto, a number of them show come up as solid black. Any ideas about what may be wrong? It seems strange that the frequency of this problem seems to be increasing. It also seems weird that the pictures preview okay in the Finder but give me trouble in iPhoto. I also just opened one in the Pentax Photo Laboratory program and was able to make adjustments okay. This issue is driving me crazy. Any ideas? I would be suspect of my SDHC cards, except that I am able to see the pictures okay in Finder and in Pentax Photo Laboratory.

Arpe · 08-26-2008, 07:20 PM

Are you using the latest firmware for the K20D? 1.01 is it? (You don't mention your camera) That caused a few problems.

WJW · 08-26-2008, 09:39 PM

Have you checked the EXIF data and File Info (on the Mac) to see if anything seems odd?

Have you tried a different card reader/cable? Different card?

Do you have all the latest OS and iPhoto updates installed?

Knock on wood, I have never had this problem with iPhoto or Aperture and if I can view the pic on the camera, my Mac can see it. I'm using and *ist DS2 and an assortment of cards from 512MB to 2GB, Sandisk card reader, and an iBook.

*Frank Fletcher* · 08-27-2008, 12:21 AM

Um... ok... how did you get it to come up in Finder / Preview even???

PhotoLab works fine for me. Finder sees the file but can't read/thumbnail it. Preview doesn't work. IPhoto (which I hate) won't read the file. So you are waaaaay ahead of me.

Frank.

*Derridale* · 08-27-2008, 04:29 AM

My Macbook Pro, in both iPhoto and Aperture, reads both the K10D and the K20D DNG files no problems.

So does Picasa, Photo Mechanic, and Lightroom on the PC.

I'd do as suggested and check that you have the latest firmware version in the camera for a start.

If that fails, then try opening a DNG file on someone else's Mac if you have access to one - in iPhoto or Aperture, - and see if the problem is with your Mac hardware setup, or somewhere else.

As I said - works just fine here....

bawill · 08-27-2008, 07:17 AM

It's actually a K200D. I am not aware of any firmware updates for the K200D yet. But I could be wrong.

Redfish · 08-27-2008, 07:41 AM

Is your system software up to date? The RAW interpreters are regularly updated with system updates.

bawill · 08-27-2008, 10:38 AM

Yes, as far as I know my system software is up to date. When I run Software Update, there is no new software for my computer.

bawill · 08-27-2008, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by WJW

Have you checked the EXIF data and File Info (on the Mac) to see if anything seems odd?

Have you tried a different card reader/cable? Different card?

Do you have all the latest OS and iPhoto updates installed?

Knock on wood, I have never had this problem with iPhoto or Aperture and if I can view the pic on the camera, my Mac can see it. I'm using and *ist DS2 and an assortment of cards from 512MB to 2GB, Sandisk card reader, and an iBook.

What would I look for in the EXIF data and File Info to see if anything is odd?

I should do some experimenting with my two card readers and with plugging my camera directly in to my computer via usb to see if that makes any difference.

I could also try different cards, although I doubt that it is the cards. . . after all, the pictures seem to be okay in the Finder.

WJW · 08-27-2008, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by bawill

What would I look for in the EXIF data and File Info to see if anything is odd?

I should do some experimenting with my two card readers and with plugging my camera directly in to my computer via usb to see if that makes any difference.

I could also try different cards, although I doubt that it is the cards. . . after all, the pictures seem to be okay in the Finder.

EXIF: Is it reporting the right info?
File info: Are all the files sizes the expected size w/ no odd fluctuations? Is it reporting the file as the proper format and size?

BTW, are you shooting RAW or RAW + JPEG? I guess it is possible if you are shooting R+J that the Finder or Preview is reading the JPEG portion and not the RAW portion. Kinda grasping at straws here........

Jeff

P.S. Of course, you can try the old Mac default of trashing the iPhoto pref files ( trash it and reinstall)and see what happens. It might be an iPhoto corruption issue.

bawill · 08-27-2008, 01:14 PM

So if I delete the iPhoto preference files from the library folder and then reopen iPhoto, that might help?

One thing I realized this afternoon is that the issue became a serious issue when I switched from the sRGB setting to the AdobeRGB setting on my camera. I think I had an issue with several photos before this, but the issue got totally out of hand after I switched over. What would cause that? Does iPhoto not like AdobeRGB?

*RollsUp* · 08-27-2008, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by bawill

I am having some trouble with Pentax RAW files in iPhoto on my mac. As far as I can tell, this is a problem whether I shoot in PEF or DNG. Many of my photos end up being solid black in iPhoto. I used to have a trial version of Aperture 2, and some of the photos showed up as solid blue in that program (the same photos showed up as black in iPhoto). This is a problem that seems to be getting more frequent. The pictures show up fine when I preview them in the finder. But once they are in iPhoto, a number of them show come up as solid black. Any ideas about what may be wrong? It seems strange that the frequency of this problem seems to be increasing. It also seems weird that the pictures preview okay in the Finder but give me trouble in iPhoto. I also just opened one in the Pentax Photo Laboratory program and was able to make adjustments okay. This issue is driving me crazy. Any ideas? I would be suspect of my SDHC cards, except that I am able to see the pictures okay in Finder and in Pentax Photo Laboratory.

Create a new (test) account and see what happens when you import the files to iPhoto.

Originally Posted by Frank Fletcher

Um... ok... how did you get it to come up in Finder / Preview even???

PhotoLab works fine for me. Finder sees the file but can't read/thumbnail it. Preview doesn't work. IPhoto (which I hate) won't read the file. So you are waaaaay ahead of me.

Frank.

There was a software update a few months ago that enabled one to view Pentax PEF files with Preview among other things. It's only for Macs with iLife 08 installed, and OS X 10.5 I think.

Originally Posted by bawill

So if I delete the iPhoto preference files from the library folder and then reopen iPhoto, that might help?

It might not be iPhoto's preference file that is corrupt, but then again it could be too. What I mean is a different corrupt preference file may be affecting iPhoto. I once had the dates in iPhoto and Apple Mail all showing the same date for all the photos and e-mails spanning a few years. I deleted iPhoto's and Mail's preference file but the same date showed. To make a long story short I found a preference file in duplicate (I don't know which was one corrupted but since a new one was created I deleted both of them) that was causing iPhoto and Mail to show the same dates for all photos and e-mails. I deleted those preference files and now iPhoto and Mail show the right dates.

After deleting preference files you should logout of your account and back in to create new preference files.

One thing I realized this afternoon is that the issue became a serious issue when I switched from the sRGB setting to the AdobeRGB setting on my camera. I think I had an issue with several photos before this, but the issue got totally out of hand after I switched over. What would cause that? Does iPhoto not like AdobeRGB?

I don't know if this will help but try using Image Capture to import the PEF files to the HD and import them to iPhoto. There is an option to embed a color sync profile to the images, one of the choices is to use the cameras profile.

Dale · 08-29-2008, 05:24 AM

Did you want one of us to test an image of yours?

Post one of the suspect images up to a file sharing site, and we could check it out for you.

Dale

bawill · 08-29-2008, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by Dale

Did you want one of us to test an image of yours?

Post one of the suspect images up to a file sharing site, and we could check it out for you.

Dale

That would be great. It might be up to a couple days before I get one up though. We are between internet providers at home, so I have been doing the internet thing at school and at a cafe. Not much fun.

bawill · 08-31-2008, 08:18 AM

Okay, I have put a couple files up online, one that works okay in my iPhoto, and one that comes up black in my iPhoto. When I tried saving one of the files, it seemed like my computer wanted to download it as a tiff file rather than the PEF files that it is. Hopefully you all can figure out how to overcome that issue. Let me know if I can do anything else to help you to be able to download these RAW PEF files to test. Thanks for your help on this. The url is: Problematic iPhoto photos "www.brentandcheriewilson.com/Site/iPhoto_Problems.html"