DPP 4.7.20 Convert and Save Issues

[GenXRailmedia]

Lately I've been having some unusual issues. When I try to edit photos (not taken by me, but photos that I've downloaded from different websites) the Convert and Save function doesn't seem to work right.  After I click Convert and Save, and select the file name and save location, the conversion dialog box opens, but it opens and closes very quickly -- like for 1/4 of a second.  The green bar progress bar only seems to go to less than 50% before it disappears. 

When I open the converted file, the image looks horribly over-sharpened.  

I should note that when I convert RAW images to jpeg, it works fine.  If I revise and overwrite that jpeg, again, the result looks overprocessed.

Any ideas on what is happening here?  Did I somehow screw up the settings?

[GenXRailmedia]

I'm going to try one more thing:  tweak the output image quality to see if that makes a difference in the output file.  Should have thought of it sooner.  

[RobertTheFat]

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GenXRailmedia wrote:

I'm going to try one more thing:  tweak the output image quality to see if that makes a difference in the output file.  Should have thought of it sooner.  

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I was about to suggest that. You're at least a jump ahead of me.

I believe you mentioned that some of the pictures that are causing you trouble were created by others. Maybe they had been saved with a sub-optimal image quality, which would compound any effect of you saving at a low quality level. Conceivably, raising the quality level could even make the problem worse. In that case you might want to do the conversion at several quality levels to see what gives the best result.

[GenXRailmedia]

Update: No, this made no difference at all. So now, I guess I'll just have to use DPP strictly for RAW conversion and do all of my other editing in GIMP, which is a pain in itself because I prefer the thumbnails in DPP. GIMP only shows you a small preview window as you scroll through a list -- which for me, is sometimes a huge folder with 1000 images.

I may just revert to my earlier version of DPP...