Canon T4i Rebel Photo Editing Issue

[ScottJetz]

I have a Canon T4i Rebel and as recently as last Saturday I was able to successfully choose the pictures I want to download, edit them and then save them to my computer.  I bought the camera in 2012 and have never had an issue with this.  I am using Windows 7 64-bit.  Tonight when I tried to download and edit my photos they were saved directly to "My Pictures" on my computer as blank images with no option to edit them at all.  This has never happened before and I want to see if anyone else has experienced this.  All help and guidance will be appreciated!

[cicopo]

Are the files jpg's or CR2's? If they are CR2's you may not have the necessary program installed to view them.

[ScottyP]

What editing software are you using?

I do not trust or like any of the automated pop-up windows that Windows throws at you when you pop a memory card into a card reader. I just keep it simple and I created a photo storage folder on my hard drive. (I switched to a portable hard drive when there got to be too many). Whenever i have a new batch of photos, i first create a mew folder within my main folder to receive them. i name each one with the download date, year first, followed by a short description. (2014-03-17; Egg Hunt at School). Then I select all the photos and drag and drop them into the storage file.

Then I just open Lightroom and select that file for "Import" and I am ready to delete the bad shots and edit the best ones. It handles the RAW files automatically. I then "export" the handful of best shots as JPG's to a keeper file for uploading to Facebook or to websites for calendars, prints or photo books.

I find that relying on the "select program" prompt, or the automated download prompts offered by Windows keeps you from really knowing what is going on, and where and how the files are saving, and can lead to weird glitches like you describe above. Do it manually, keep it simple, and it should be no problem.

[ScottJetz]

Thank you ScottyP and all of you for your help and suggestions.  I will try them to see if it will work for me.  I've always been able to connect the USB cable from my computer to my camera, which prompts the Cannon EOS utility to display on my computer screen.  It gives you the option to download individual photographs that you want to edit.  Previously, when all photos had been selected and downloaded they would all display in a window so that I could select them individually to edit and then rename them and save them into "My Pictures".  That functionality is now gone.  It now downloads those I select directly into "My Pictures" as a blank photo/file with the generic Windows Photo Gallery "orange flower" icon and no picture.

I will keep troubleshooting to see what may have happened and I really appreciate all of your help!

[ebiggs1]

Reset your T4i back to factory setting defaults and try again.

Go shoot some more pictures and see if it now works as usual.