Imported images from my iPhone became corrupted after importing.

Question

I Imported images from my iPhone and they became corrupted after importing. They appeared fine just after import, so I unfortunately erased my phone. When I reopened the aperture project where they were stored they had streaks, some were only partially visible, and others had no image just an exclaimation point with the words "incompatible file". thanks in advance for any suggestions or help.

Answer 1

What you describe are very typical symptoms: You import; the images look to be o.k.; you go ahead and delete them. The problem is that during the import you only see the previews created by your camera, not the actual images you are importing. When you afterwards try to edit or to enlarge the images Aperture will recreate its own, better previews and needs to access the original master image files. If Aperture cannot find the master image files or cannot open them, you may see warnings (unsupported) or corrupted thumbnails. Only then you will notice if the images have been imported correctly, and that may be too late, if you deleted the images from your camera.
How did you import? Are the imported master image files managed or referenced, i.e. included in the Aperture Library or referenced outside?
I'd suggest you look directly at the master image files to check if they are o.k. and can be read by other applications.
If your master image files are managed you'll find the images in the Aperture Library by right-clicking the Aperture Library package and selecting "Show Package Contents". Then Browse the folder "Masters". The master image files are stored in subfolders organized by the date of the import session.
If your master image files are referenced, open the folder where you told Aperture to move them to.
Check for two things:
Have all your images really been imported?
What is the  format and the state of the images? Try to open the images with Preview, or any other image editor you have and check if they really are corrupted, or if only Aperture has a problem to access them.
If all your images are there, but Aperture cannot access them, your Aperture library may need fixing.
Back up your Aperture library (just a precaution) and use the Aperture Library First Aid Tools to repair the permissions or/and to repair the database; see this section of the Aperture 3 User Manual on how to do that: Repairing and Rebuilding Your Aperture Library
If repairing and rebuilding did not help, but you found the original masters and can read them, then copy them to a location outside Aperture and try to convert them to another file format with Preview or another application that can read them. Then try again to import those files to Aperture.
Post back, if you have more questions.
Good Luck
Léonie