Recovering Deleted Photos

I’ve had this question come up all the time, from work, friends and just random conversations: “Is there any way I can recover pictures off my camera’s memory stick/flash card if I accidentally deleted them?” It’s not as idiotic as it sounds. It’s sometimes easy to make the mistake of pushing “Delete All” instead of just “Delete” if you’re trying to get rid of one bad picture. But, the answer is YES you can recover your deleted photos.

Deletion of data on flash memory works similar to how it does on a hard drive. The data is not erased immediately, but is overwritten by the next bit of data that needs space (the next batch of pictures you take). You can use special software to help read this “hidden” data. PhotoRescue, made by DataRescue, is one of the most popular options and my personal favorite. As long as you have not written new data on your card (took new pictures since your accidental deletion), the software should be able to recover all your deleted photos. The program may be slightly difficult to use for a non-savvy individual, but it’s worth dealing with and figuring out considering its capabilities. A drawback is the program also takes awhile to gather your supposedly lost files. You can set it to run, go eat your lunch and come back and check on it in an hour. By then it should have had time to recover your photos.

PhotoRescue will work directly with your camera’s internal memory. As long as it can read something that is plugged into your computer from an external source (i.e. dedicated USB or Firewire connection), it should work. The software is optimized to work with jpeg, tiff and other typical RAW (not yet “cooked” – not processed and ready to be used) file formats. PhotoRescue also works beautifully even after other attempted recovery methods have further corrupted your card.

Backups of card image files can additionally be created with PhotoRescue. This is a good tool to have and utilize, especially if you’re an avid photographer. I use this to backup my memory stick often. PhotoRescue offers three levels of usage: Wizard (easy), fully controllable Expert (mid-level) and specialist (Advanced) version.

You can download a free demo of PhotoRescue to try (www.datarescue.com/photorescue). The full version of the software is available for $29 (both PC and Mac). It’s a small price to pay to save your priceless picture memories. To see more options on image recovery, check out www.ultimateslr.com/memory-card.php.