Can you make a picture image from a Windows Explorer thumbnail?

[lui_boards]

Couldn't tell from the posts if this question was asked before so
hoping there is some guidance out there.

My hard drive crashed (Oh woe is me) so I went through the process of
recovering the files. Unfortunately, not all of the photo files were
able to be recovered ... or so I thought.

I've come across photo files that no longer contain the image but in
Windows Explorer I can still see the thumbnail. The thumbnail is
empty when I try to view thumbnails in any program other than Windows
Explorer.

I know the files are corrupted because of the HD crash but is there a
way to extract the "lost" photo from the Windows Explorer thumbnail?
In case it's asked, my operating system is Windows XP.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

Couldn't tell from the posts if this question was asked before so
hoping there is some guidance out there.

My hard drive crashed (Oh woe is me) so I went through the process of
recovering the files. Unfortunately, not all of the photo files were
able to be recovered ... or so I thought.

I've come across photo files that no longer contain the image but in
Windows Explorer I can still see the thumbnail. The thumbnail is
empty when I try to view thumbnails in any program other than Windows
Explorer.

I know the files are corrupted because of the HD crash but is there a
way to extract the "lost" photo from the Windows Explorer thumbnail?
In case it's asked, my operating system is Windows XP.

You can't recover a full-sized picture from a thumbnail, but the data
of the original photos may still be on the "crashed" drive.

You would need a photo file recovery program to discover what can
be recovered.

If you've already used a competent photo recovery program, then that
may be the end of it.

-michael

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

 

[Bob]

I think this will work. First use Microsoft's free TweakUI utility to
increase the size of the thumbnails.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspxYou
Then use this freeware http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
which is similar to the Vista snipping tool. Snip and save the thumbnail as
a jpg then edit/resize it with your photo editing program.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

I think this will work. First use Microsoft's free TweakUI utility to
increase the size of the thumbnails.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspxYou
Then use this freeware http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
which is similar to the Vista snipping tool. Snip and save the thumbnail
as a jpg then edit/resize it with your photo editing program.

You can make a thumbnail bigger, but you can't make it have more detail
than the tiny thumbnail. Almost all of the information in the original
photos is not in the thumbnails.

-michael

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

 

[lui_boards]

You can't recover a full-sized picture from a thumbnail, but the data
of the original photos may still be on the "crashed" drive.

You would need a photo file recovery program to discover what can
be recovered.

If you've already used a competent photo recovery program, then that
may be the end of it.

-michael

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I've used a competent file recovery program but not anything that is
photo centric. If there is a difference with the focus of the program
(file vs. photo) I am willing to try. Could you tell me some photo
recovery program you think are competent (freeware or trial
hopefully)? Thanks.

 

[lui_boards]

I think this will work. First use Microsoft's free TweakUI utility to
increase the size of the thumbnails.http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.ms...
Then use this freewarehttp://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
which is similar to the Vista snipping tool. Snip and save the thumbnail as
a jpg then edit/resize it with your photo editing program.

Tried the snipping tool which will at least gets me a copy of the
thumbnail. That's certainly better than the capture whole screen
option available with Microsoft.

I will try the TweakUI to increase the size but I know when I used the
Registry via regedit to change the size it blanked out the thumbnail
picture.

 

[Bob]

Another option is to use Windows Picture and Fax Viewer instead of TweakUI.
Zoom in on the snip and then snip the result.

I don't know if any of this will result in print quality photos but at least
you'll be able to view your lost photos on your PC.

I hope it works for you.

I think this will work. First use Microsoft's free TweakUI utility to
increase the size of the
thumbnails.http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.ms...
Then use this freewarehttp://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
which is similar to the Vista snipping tool. Snip and save the thumbnail
as
a jpg then edit/resize it with your photo editing program.

Tried the snipping tool which will at least gets me a copy of the
thumbnail. That's certainly better than the capture whole screen
option available with Microsoft.

I will try the TweakUI to increase the size but I know when I used the
Registry via regedit to change the size it blanked out the thumbnail
picture.

 

[Bob]

I think the goal is to be able to view and possibly print the lost photos,
not to have more detail.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

I've used a competent file recovery program but not anything that is
photo centric. If there is a difference with the focus of the program
(file vs. photo) I am willing to try. Could you tell me some photo
recovery program you think are competent (freeware or trial
hopefully)? Thanks.

Google <photo recovery> (without the brackets) and you'll have
lots of choices. I haven't used such software enough to give a
specific recommendation, but there's probably someone here who
has.

Photo recovery software searches for files with specific formats,
which allows it to locate photos when general file recovery software
may fail. I say "competent" because not all such software is equally
capable of recovering photos from a disk whose data structures have
been damaged.

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

I think the goal is to be able to view and possibly print the lost
photos, not to have more detail.

Not having more detail will result in unsatisfactory viewing and
printing. (Imagine if your camera had 0.01 megapixels. ;-)

If you doubt this, try resizing a photo to about 100 pixels on a
side, saving it under a *new* name, and then loading it and
resizing it back to its original size.

It isn't pixels that matter, its *meaningful* pixels.

-michael

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

Tried the snipping tool which will at least gets me a copy of the
thumbnail. That's certainly better than the capture whole screen
option available with Microsoft.

I will try the TweakUI to increase the size but I know when I used the
Registry via regedit to change the size it blanked out the thumbnail
picture.

TweakUI allows you to change the size of thumbnails that Windows
*generates* from the actual full-sized photos. It does not re-size
images.

You will need an image processing program to resize them--but you
probably won't find the results useful, since they will have no more
meaningful information than the original thumbnails.

You can make a photo larger, then smaller, and, if it's done well,
you will not lose much information. But you cannot make a photo
smaller, then larger, without losing information *irreversibly*.

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

 

[Bob]

Michael,
I tried exactly what I'm suggesting and the results looked just fine on my
monitor.