Unusual PS CS2 image corruption problem

TC
Posted By
Tom_Catchesides
Nov 5, 2006
Views
401
Replies
9
Status
Closed
Hi everyone,

I hope this post isn’t a waste of everyone’s time, but I’ve come across an image corruption problem that seems to be a bit different to your usual "it’s obviously the hard disk failing" type of thing.

My setup: G5 quad, OS 10.4.8, 4.5GB RAM, two internal hard drives, Photoshop CS2 9.0.2, Camera RAW 3.6 (and previous versions…). All images are stored on the internal hard drives and no networking is involved.

Processing images from: Canon EOS 1D MkII, 30D, 20D, 350D

I’ve been using this setup since December 2005, but I’ve been seeing occasional corrupted images in Bridge and Photoshop since July this year. These may appear:

* in Bridge while viewing RAW thumbnails. The preview will also be corrupt in these cases. However, sometimes the corruption will disappear when opening the image in ACR and clicking the "done" button will reset the corrupted preview. In this case, the corruption will tend to be fairly extreme with large parts of the image only displaying one or two channels.

* in ACR after opening what looked like a healthy image from Bridge. In this case, clicking "done" creates a new, corrupted preview in Bridge. Checking the raw file in Preview or Lightroom shows that it is not in fact corrupt. Re-opening the image in ACR immediately still shows a corrupted image, but sometimes coming back to it several days later (n.b. without relaunching PS or Bridge in the meantime) will clear the corruption. Again, in this case, the corruption will tend to be fairly extreme with large parts of the image only displaying one or two channels.

* after saving the image as TIFF from either ACR or Photoshop. In this case, the corruption will normally take the form of a coloured stripe a few dozen pixels wide across the image. Going back to the RAW file shows no corruption, and re-saving a new conversion of the image will always work properly.

* the fact that I’m processing RAW files may be a red herring because I’ve been getting occasional corrupted TIFFs when I’ve just been working from a saved TIFF.

My first thought was "hardware problem", although I should point out that I haven’t had any of the other symptoms you might expect from a bad hard disk or RAM – other apps seem to be perfectly happy and I don’t suffer from any unexplained crashes or corruption problems in other documents. Both my RAM and hard drives check out okay using Apple’s hardware diagnostics utility.

I’ve also tried removing all trace of Adobe apps from my system before reinstalling Photoshop and Bridge. Unfortunately, the first folder of RAW files I’ve looked at in Bridge is showing several corrupted previews out of the 3534 images it contains.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what else I should be trying in order to resolve this problem?

With thanks in advance,
Tom

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CC
Chris_Cox
Nov 5, 2006
It still sounds like symptoms of bad RAM or a bad hard disk. But it could be due to a bad processor as well, and that would fit with other applications not seeing the corruption (because they aren’t using the same vector instructions).
TC
Tom_Catchesides
Nov 5, 2006
Hi Chris,

Thanks for the reply – it’s much appreciated.

How would I go about testing for a bad processor?

Best,
Tom
CC
Chris_Cox
Nov 6, 2006
Find other applicaitons that show problems, or replace the processor and see the problems go away (which is pretty much the only way an end user can test all hardware).
OO
Omke_Oudeman
Nov 6, 2006
Tom

You did mention that it happened to Tiff also, but nevertheless, assuming that you copy your RAW files directly from CF card to your HD, did you try an other card reader for testing?
TC
Tom_Catchesides
Nov 6, 2006
Omke,

Thanks for your reply. I have indeed tried using different card readers although, as I mentioned, it always turns out that the RAW file looks fine if I try another RAW convertor or if I come back to it a while after ACR first shows it to be corrupt.

Cheers,
Tom
OO
Omke_Oudeman
Nov 6, 2006
Sorry to hear that, looks like you have to follow the instructions Chris gave you.

The explanation that different app’s use different vector instructions is far above my knowledge but it sounds like a reasonable explanation.

Regarding your detailed post you tried very much to tackle the problem, so maybe the next questions are not relevant but then again it might help:

With removing traces and re install PSCS you also removed the existing data bases I assume?

And your post mentioned Camera Raw 3.6 and earlier versions does mean that you have only one version installed?

And finally, you already did system maintenance with permissions check etc.

regards
Omke
AR
alan_ruta
Nov 6, 2006
My guess is RAM or CPU. If it was HD I think you would see problems in other places.

I’ve had corruptions problems due to bad RAM a couple of times and each time when I ran RAM tests (I think I used the "Gauge" series–if they still exisit they were good.

I don’t know what sort of computations are being done in the conversions you are doing, but that is why Chris thinks it might be the CPU. I wonder if the people at the Genius bar have any tests for that. They do keep certain utiltiies secret (too much knowledge is dangerous). Maybe they can help.

I don’t envy you on this one.

alan
TC
Tom_Catchesides
Nov 6, 2006
Chris – I’ve never heard of anyone replacing the processors in their Quad G5 before. I guess that would be something that only Apple would have the resources to do?

Omke – in reply to your queries, I removed anything Adobe-related from my Library folders before reinstalling and only have one version of ACR installed at any one time. The problem started occurring in July 2006, so I’ve been using whichever versions of ACR have been available since then. I haven’t tried flattening my Mac and starting from scratch yet.

Alan – I’ll look into the possibility of using other types of hardware diagnostics. What I’m wondering is that, if I can’t get my hands on a utility that shows there is a problem, how on earth would I go about persuading Apple that there might be something wrong with my Mac, if indeed there is something wrong with it? And, if they took it away for testing, would their tests find anything that the hardware diagnostics they bundle with the machine wouldn’t? Or would I just be dismissed as a crank?

Many thanks to everyone who has responded with suggestions so far – I’ll look into the hardware tests and report back if I make any progress!

Tom
CC
Chris_Cox
Nov 6, 2006
Yes, replacing the processors on those machines is a bit involved.

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