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Photo Repair 4 minute read

How to Fix Grey Box in Photos or Greyed-Out Photos

Updated on May 17th, 2022
Sumona Chatterjee
Written By
Sumona Chatterjee
Rohit Arora
Approved By
Rohit Arora

Summary: Photos are a precious part of life. We save them as lifelong memories but sometimes due to technical glitches, we face strange distortion in our digital photos. Photos being greyed out is one such distortion. Read this blog to learn how to fix greyed-out photos in Windows and Mac.

How to Fix Grey Box in Photos or Greyed-Out Photos How to Fix Grey Box in Photos or Greyed-Out Photos

‘I have lots of photos taken from DSLR during our recent vacation. I transferred the photos to the laptop. But was shocked to find almost half of the  photos have a grey box over them. The images appeared perfect in camera. It is very upsetting. Is there a way to fix grey box in photos or greyed-out Photos?’

Memories are priceless and it is natural to be upset about the distortion in photos. Pictures can often appear distorted with grey bands or missing parts over them.

Contents

  • There could be several reasons for the grey box appearing over your photos such as below:
  • How to Repair Half-grey photos
  • Conclusion

There could be several reasons for the grey box appearing over your photos such as below:

  • Files did not transfer or copy completely
  • Abrupt power shutdown during transfer of photos
  • Pictures are corrupt
  • You have used an unsafe photo recovery tool that has led to corruption in recovered photo.
  • Your storage media (hard drive, SD card, CF Card, memory card etc.) is logically or physically corrupted

How to Repair Half-grey photos

  1. Download the Photos again
  2. Restore pictures from backup
  3. Use a third-party Photo repair software
  4. Repair with Command Prompt
  5. Repair corrupt picture with Hex Editor
  6. Open greyed-out picture in Image Editor
  7. Download Photos again

Sometimes incomplete download or transfer of photos due to abrupt shutdown of computer, disconnection of storage media in the middle of the process can cause images to appear partially. Try downloading the pictures again.

  1. Retrieve Photo from your backup

Maintaining backup is an overt advice for all kinds of photo loss situations. If you follow it then retain the correct  photos from your backup folder in your PC, flash drive, SD card, or memory card etc.

Did Photos turn grey after importing from Lightroom? Backup works in critical situations like when you edit the photos in Photoshop or Lightroom and they turn half grey after import. If you edited the copy of Photos, you are safe. You still have the original  picture and can edit it again in Lightroom or Photoshop.

3. Fix grey box in photos with Stellar Repair for Photo

Photos covered with grey bands or having missing parts are efficiently repaired with Stellar Repair for Photo.

Remember, most third-party repair programs are not smart enough to analyse and fix completely unreadable Photo with corrupt header/ data, invalid file structure, unknown or invalid JPEG marker, missing SOS marker etc. Stellar Repair for Photo is one tool that fixes corruptions in photo header, file data, or file structure while maintaining the original quality of the image.

Even the most severely corrupt pictures can be retained with its thumbnail recovery feature.

Why you should choose Stellar Repair for Photo

  • Quickly repairs an unlimited number of photos at a time
  • Preview repaired photos
  • Extracts thumbnails of severely corrupt photos
  • Supports all types of cameras and storage devices
  • Available for both Windows and Mac systems

Steps to repair half of picture missing,  grey box in photos or greyed-out Photos

  1. Download Stellar Repair for Photo and connect the storage media to the computer 
Stellar Repair for Photo - repair half of picture missing,  grey box in photos or greyed-out Photos
  1. On the home screen of software, select Add File option 
Stellar Repair for Photo - Add File
  1. Select the files for repair and click Repair 
Stellar Repair for Photo - Repair greyed-out Photos
  1. Save your repaired photos to the desired location
Stellar Repair for Photo - Save Repaired Photos at desired location

       4. Repair half grey Photo with Command Prompt

Command Prompt fixes minor corruptions in pictures on Windows PC. Try this fix to resolve missing parts in photos.

Steps to repair with Command Prompt

  1. Type and search for CMD in Windows Start
  2. Right click Select Run as Administrator
  3. Open command prompt, type sfc/scannow and hit Enter
  4. Once the scan and repair process finishes, restart your PC

View your pictures again, the problem should be resolved.

5. Repair corrupt picture with Hex Editor tools Repair corrupt JPEG with Hex Editor tools

HxD, Hex Workshop, or Cygnus are Hex Editor programs that are used to change the binary data of corrupt file. Also known as Byte Editor, this method is for more technically inclined users who have knowledge of ASCII encoding. You can change the data which is in form of 0 and 1. Even a single wrong byte in a picture can cause corruption in the image and make it distorted. Choose Hex Editor to repair pictures that show grey boxes or display partially, only when you are familiar with binary coding.

6. Open greyed-out files in Image Editor

Try fixing the issue by opening the half grey picture in an image editing software like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Make some minor change and ‘Save As’ the photo to the same location, overwriting the original file. Most of the time this is helpful, as it writes the missing data in the image file, which might be absent in the original file.

Conclusion

Grey box in photos or greyed-out photos problem can be easily fixed by Jpeg Repair software. The ability to repair missing header, invalid data or file structure etc., in pictures make this software a preferred tool for image editors and other users compared to other options available in the market. Moreover, it is safe, incredibly easy to use, and fixes hundreds of photos in a few minutes.

JPEG REpairJPEG Repair Mac Sierra

About The Author

Sumona Chatterjee

Sumona is a tech blogger, avid photographer, & technogeek with vast experience in writing about media file recovery tips and tutorials. She has over 10 years of experience in media file recovery/media file repair technology. She is passionate about Photography, Creative Designing, Music, and Exploring lesser-known destinations.

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14 comments

  1. Ryan Mense says:
    July 12, 2019 at 10:41 am

    Awesome Post! It’s helped me repair my corrupt photos after shooting wedding corrupt images on camera SD card during low battery. When I changed the battery, couple of images were corrupt. I found your blog and used the software program to fix this issue. Thanks a lot!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      July 16, 2019 at 2:41 am

      Hi Ryan, Thanks for choosing our software and share your valuable experience with us!

      Reply
  2. Eric Walls says:
    May 23, 2019 at 10:36 am

    Hi, I had recently updated my iMac, I don’t know what the issue with photos album is displaying as grey boxes. All photos are very important for me. Any suggestion.

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      May 27, 2019 at 3:22 am

      Hi Eric, I suggest you can try our software demo and see the preview of repaired files. Thanks!

      Reply
  3. Josh Ginter says:
    February 20, 2019 at 10:38 am

    I had a greyed-out photos folder on my MacBook Pro, all photos nothing seems to be working, it stays greyed-out. Any help would be appreciated!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      February 25, 2019 at 10:30 am

      Hi Josh, I suggest you can try our software demo version and see the preview of your repaired files. Thanks!

      Reply
  4. Christine says:
    November 23, 2018 at 5:17 am

    I was scared to find my well shot pictures having grey box on them. Thanks for this solution

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      November 26, 2018 at 3:51 am

      Hi Christine, Thanks for sharing your feedback with us!!

      Reply
  5. Laurent Nicolas says:
    November 19, 2018 at 10:32 am

    I had hundreds of corrupted photos on my DSLR camera SD card. I tried many ways to recover these photos but I never used any software. My friend suggest me your Photo repair software. Its help me a lot. Thanks!!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      November 21, 2018 at 9:53 am

      Hi Laurent, Thanks for sharing your feedback with us!!

      Reply
  6. Michelle Bates says:
    October 10, 2018 at 10:22 am

    I had the same issue when I looked around for this problem and corrupt monitor profiles. I had tried to change the profile to RGBs in profiles. I found and read this article to repair grey photo in light room. It’s helpful for me. Thank you very much!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      October 11, 2018 at 10:16 am

      Hi Michelle, Thank You!

      Reply
  7. David Matt says:
    September 27, 2018 at 2:26 am

    Interesting! I found the solutions on your blog and its work for me in Win 10. I had fix grey X problem with the help of your software. Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      September 28, 2018 at 6:00 am

      Hi David, Thanks for using our software and share your valuable feedback with us!

      Reply

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Table of Contents    

  1. There could be several reasons for the grey box appearing over your photos such as below:
  2. How to Repair Half-grey photos
  3. Conclusion

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