DNG File Will Not Open

[ErikaUlrich]

Hi All,

I have a very old session that my client finally selected her images for. When I went back through Lightroom to locate the files they were mysteriously gone. They were also completely gone from my Time Machine backup. I have no idea how this happened. I used a Data Recovery program (EaseUS) to find the files. They are a .DNG extension, and no matter what I do I can not get any program to open them. I have used the Adobe DNG converter and still can't get it to work. Any advice?

[Damien Symonds]

First things first, STOP USING LIGHTROOM.  This is exactly the kind of crap you're subjecting yourself to.

http://www.damiensymonds.net/bridge-30-day-challenge

[Damien Symonds]

This is not a DNG file, sorry.  See how small the file is - only 416KB.  A real DNG file would be at least twenty times bigger than that.  This is just a thumbnail file.

I'm so sorry to be the bearer of bad news

[ErikaUlrich]

[ErikaUlrich]

Hi Damien,

Thank you so much for responding. I definitely need to try Bridge. I was able to recover the whole session (roughly 350 images) and many of them are very large files (20MB) and even those will not open. Any thoughts on those ones?

 

Thank you again for your help!

[Damien Symonds]

And?  Have you compared it to other DNG files from your camera?  Is 20MB correct?

By the way, you're in Adobe RGB.  This is disastrous.  Fix it right away.  Click on the blue link at the bottom of the ACR window, and change from Adobe RGB to sRGB.

[ErikaUlrich]

Yes I have compared it. The files range from about 3MB-22MB which seems like a huge range, but that is consistent with other sessions of mine that I haven't had any file issues with. I changed from Adobe RGB to sRGB. The files still will not open. It is giving me the error "Unable to open full size image. There was an error parsing the file." I've called around to various data recovery services and no one seems to know what to tell me that will help.  

[Damien Symonds]

2 hours ago, ErikaUlrich said:

Yes I have compared it. The files range from about 3MB-22MB which seems like a huge range, but that is consistent with other sessions of mine that I haven't had any file issues with.

With respect, that's impossible.  All DNG files from one camera should be a very similar size.  Please check again.  It sounds like you were looking at jpeg files.

[ErikaUlrich]

You are totally right. Sorry! I was looking at JPG files. Yes, the DNG's from my camera are 20MB.

[Damien Symonds]

Ok, could you send me one of the recovered 20MB ones?

[ErikaUlrich]

Absolutely! Thank you! Sending it now.

[Damien Symonds]

I get the same error message

I don't know if there's anything you can do, sorry.  I've spent some time googling "dng file repair", as I'm sure you've done yourself, but there don't seem to be any good solutions leaping out at me.