I am editing images in LR (RAW) and every once in a while I will be editing a file and it will glitch, or when I pull it up it will glitch. By glitch I mean it looks like an odd CMYK file with a lot of lines or solid places , distorting part or all of the image. I don't know how else to describe it. This has never happened before and today it has happened four times. My questions are:

What is happening and can I prevent it?

Can I recover the images that have been distorted?

I am also going to search adobe and this forum, but I thought I would go ahead and ask anyway. TIA!

First of all, please post a screen shot of the problem. I think I'm familiar with it.

You need to make sure you have backups of your original RAW files... LR shouldn't physically change the files themselves since all changes are written to the database, but since my problem actually affected the original images I was glad I had DVD and Time Machine backups of the original RAWs.

Second, what version of LR are you using? Have you recently updated your library from one version to a newer one?

Here's an example:

Click to view attachment

you can see in the strip at the bottom to the left another instance as well.

I'm using v1.4 and the only updates that have been done have been automatic ones. I do back up...just wondering what's going on.

Thanks!

I can't access that screen shot. Try hosting it on your own web server and referencing the image from there... or just post a link to the image.
Are you on 1.4 or 1.4.1? You may want to look at exporting all of your shoots to a new library and starting fresh. That way you'll still have all your edits and pick/rating settings but you'll be working with a brand new library. Again, I really need to see what is going on but I assume it's the same problem I was having. Adobe hadn't heard of it at the time but I experienced it all the way from Beta3 on up to v1.4 but never with 1.4.1

You really should consider upgrading to 2.0... it's rock solid and I've never had any problems with it at all (although that's the mac version - not sure if you're on windows but that could b e a different ballgame all together)

Let's see that screen shot and your version info and we'll go from there. I may have a few other tips to help you out.

Here's a link:

screen shot

I'm using 1.4...I have heard nice things about 2.0, but I'm not ready to yet, though one day I will.

Thanks for your help!

Yep, same exact problem I was having. Check out your original files... CTRL/Right click on one of the thumbnails of the affected images, click "show in finder" and take a look at the original image in preview or quick look... are they affected outside of LR?

If so, you can do this:

Delete the affected images from your lightroom library, first taking down a note as to which file numbers were affected. You can CTRL/Right click on the image and say "delete" or just hit the delete/backspace key and LR will ask you if you want to remove from the library only or remove original files from the hard drive. Say remove from hard drive. Empty your trash

Get your CD/DVD of backed up RAWs and drop the previously noted file numbers into the same folder with your other images. Import those images to LR. See if they glitch when you try to edit. This only worked to solve my problem about 40% of the time, other times it would glitch the same files then spread to other files. Basically you've got a corrupt library.


UPGRADE TO 1.4.1 and that should solve your problems... but you will most likely need to build a new library which takes a bit more time but isn't too painful.

Thanks for the info!