Is the picture on the computer displayed as gray squares? This article will explain why photos on computer hard drives, SD cards, USB drives, etc. will turn gray, and how to fix gray photos on Windows 10/11 systems.

Many users have encountered the common problem of "photos are shown in gray". When you open the picture, you will find that the whole picture or part of the picture has turned gray. Here is a real example:

There is a large gray square on the picture covering more than half of the image. I've found that this happens not only on Windows, but occasionally on my phone. I always thought it was the file corruption, but I just downloaded these pictures. Yesterday was fine, but today every picture became like this. I need these pictures for the course, I need to know how to prevent this from happening, or how to recover these pictures. There are some pictures I can't get a copy.

Have you encountered the same problem? Let's take a look at the cause of this problem.

Why did my picture turn gray?

Only by understanding the reasons why the picture becomes gray can we take corresponding measures and prevent it from happening again. Here are the common reasons why "images appear as gray squares":

• File transfer or file download interruption causes picture problems, such as USB file transfer stuck at 0%.
• The storage media (such as USB drive or SD card) is damaged.
• The image format is RAW.
• System files are corrupt.
• The picture is damaged.

How to fix grey photos on Windows system?

After understanding the reasons why the picture turns gray, try the following solution to fix the gray photos.

Method 1: Recover photos from backup files

If you have backups of pictures that appear as grey squares, you can restore them from the backup file. The pictures in the backup file should remain in their original state. For example, you can download images from OneDrive or restore them from data backup software.

Method 2: Use photo editing software to open pictures

Some users reported that they solved the grey photo issue by opening the picture using photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop.

Step 1. In File Explorer, right-click your image and select Open with > Adobe Photoshop .

Step 2. Check that the image is normal and save it to another file location.

Step 3. Open the resave image and check if the "Image Displayed as Gray Squares" problem has been resolved.

Method 3: Use photo repair tools to repair damaged pictures

When pictures are damaged or damaged, you need to use professional photo repair software to fix them. Among the many photo repair tools, Stellar Repair for Photo is the most recommended one. It supports repairing pictures in various image file formats, including JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIFF, DNG, CR2, RAW, etc.

For more photo repair tools, you can refer to this article: Top 8 free photo repair software to repair damaged photos .

Method 4: Use CMD to repair corrupt files

When your system files are corrupted, the image may appear gray. In this case, you can run an SFC scan to detect and repair corrupt system files.

Step 1. Type cmd in the Windows search box. Right-click the command prompt in the best match result and select Run as administrator .

Step 2. Click Yes in the UAC window. If you don't want to perform this step every time, you can disable UAC.

Step 3. In the command line window, type sfc /scannow and press Enter .

Step 4. Wait for the scanning process to complete. Then open your image and check if the gray squares still exist.

Method 5: Repair the storage device

As mentioned earlier, a corrupt file storage device can also cause your images to appear as gray squares. Running the CHKDSK command is the most common method to repair storage devices. Follow the steps below to complete the necessary operations.

Step 1. Run the command prompt as administrator.

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, type the chkdsk drive letter: /f /r and press Enter . Remember to replace the drive letter with the actual drive letter. For example, you can enter chkdsk E: /f /r .

There are a variety of ways to repair storage devices, and you can get other methods from this article: How to repair hard drives and recover data for free in Windows 10/8/7 system .

Highly recommended

Your images are sometimes lost for a number of reasons. To recover deleted photos, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery, the best free data recovery software.

It can effectively recover lost picture folders, lost or deleted Office documents, video recovery, email recovery, and more.

Download its free version and give it a try.

Alternatively, you can use MiniTool Photo Recovery, a tool designed for recovering photos, videos, and audio from nearly every data storage device.

Summarize

When you encounter the problem of "Image Shows as Gray Squares", you can try the methods listed above.

If you have found other effective solutions to this problem, please leave a message in the comment section. Thanks in advance.

For further help with MiniTool software, please feel free to contact us via contact information .

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