How To Recover Pictures
Computers are fantastic but sometimes they just don’t work as we like. There are also times when we hit the wrong button and suddenly something really important is gone…or maybe not. This article is about how to recover pictures.
The procedure is quite the same no matter if the memory card is damaged or if the photos were deleted by mistake.
There are several programs to fix this and the one I am going to use is called Art Plus Digital Photo Recovery. This is windows software so I have to recommend Mac users to try out the X Mac File Recovery program instead.
First you have to download the art plus digital photo recovery software. You find Art Plus just by clicking this link and then follow the instructions on that page. There is a choice to buy the software now, but I recommend to first test if you get the results you want. (yes you can do that)
Download the photorec4.exe file to your desktop and you get an icon that looks something like this.
Now, it’s time to install the recovery program by double clicking on the icon. Next, click on “Run” and after that “Start”.
Read the information on the next window and for most users it is ok to go with the default choice which is to restore photos directly from memory card.
My memory card was at Disk(I) and you should just go for the option that suits your computer and memory card. Click “Next” and you can choose the file types you want to find.
I knew that I had jpg files on my card so I chose only them from this window. If you don’t know this, just go for all formats.
When you click Start, the software is going to search the card for photos. It can take some time depending on the number of pictures it will find.
My wife deleted all the pictures the other day so I took 2 sample pictures only to test the software. I deleted the pics before the test and I also emptied the Recycle Bin folder.
Searching for lost pictures
I should say that the test went perfect as the software didn’t only find the 2 most resent photos but also all of the pictures that were deleted earlier. I stopped the software before it restored all of them but I did see the power of it.
Next you can choose which pictures you want to restore. After this you get a window that says that you have to buy the software if you actually want to restore the photos.
When you have entered the activation code you got when you purchased the software you should restore the photos to a new folder first. This is only for safety if there could be any issue with the memory card. Later when you have the photos saved in a new folder you can copy them to your memory card if you like.
I think it is a nice procedure as we can see what pictures the software is able to restore before we purchase. If you don’t get any results when searching, I would advise to try some of the other two search options you had initially.
Finally I found a video about this process that you might enjoy. It is about a year old and there is one major update to the recover picture software since: it is not free anymore.