subject: How to correctly recover photos on your Mac [print this page] Whether you are an amateur or a professional photographer, taking photographs is your passion. When your treasured photos are lost from your digital camera memory cards or backup storage devices, it is understandable that you might go from hysteria to panic.
The same situation occurs when we accidentally delete pictures of our family, friends, and memorable vacations. If we have not been diligent about backing them up, it is back to despair and panic. The best solution to combat this sort of situation is to always backup your important data, including your photos.
How Are Photos Lost?
Deleted or lost digital data can be recovered from your Mac. Did you know that the loss of your image files is only temporary? Before you understand Mac photo recovery, you need to understand the causes of data loss. This will help you to take certain steps that might increase the chances of recovering your photos. Your photos could be lost owing to any one of the following reasons:
Accidental deletion of photos from digital camera or back up drives
Formatting of memory cards such as SD, MMC and others
Corruption of the File System
Errors when turning off camera
Improper removal of memory cards
Memory card errors while connecting to Mac
Corruption of any sort that renders storage device unreadable
How To Ensure Photo Recovery Mac
When you know you've lost photos from your digital camera's memory card, follow these steps immediately as a precaution to achieving best photo recovery results:
Turn off your camera and remove the memory card.
Make sure your memory card is kept in a secure, dust free and dry environment at room temperature
Once you realize that you have lost data on the card, do not store any more pictures in it. Doing so might overwrite the space occupied by the lost files and reduce the chances of recovery.
How To Choose The Right Photo Recovery Mac Software?
Ideally, the photo recovery software that you choose should conform to the following:
The tool should be performance and result oriented
The tool should have professional recovery capabilities
The tool should be designed for specific image files such as RAW camera files
Which Photo Recovery Software To Choose?
Once you are ready to start photo recovery Mac, you will need to identify suitable software and invest in it. Here are a few tools and their data recovery processes:
Disk Doctors
The Disk Doctors photo recovery software is a universal application that is compatible with both Intel and PowerPC Mac. This tool works with Mac OS X 10.4.x and later, and supports recovery of all standard digital photographic image file formats, digital camera RAW images, and several video and music file formats. Using this tool, you can:
Recover deleted files from your Journalized Volume
Process disk volume using more than one option
View hierarchical data tree of recovered objects
Select, scan and save lost data
Save scan information to avoid rescanning a drive
Evaluate files before data recovery
Use signature search in case of severe corruption to the volume
Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery Software
The Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery Mac can restore digital files that are lost owing to formatting or any logical corruption of the Mac storage media. This tool:
Is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.4 (Tiger), and 10.3.9 (Panther).
Supports various image, video and audio file formats
Can read from a number of storage devices
Allows you to view thumbnail of the recoverable data
Maintains an event log of the recovery process
MediaRECOVER Software
MediaRecover Software is a digital image recovery program for the Mac OS X operating system that recovers lost photos, audio, and video from removable media used in digital cameras, PDAs, cellular phones, and so on. This tool:
Uses a Basic scan process to scan for deleted files
Uses Advanced Scan and Quick Scan processes to look for formatted files or RAW data files
Uses Advanced Scan and Deep Scan to thoroughly search for files sector-by-sector
Recovers files from corrupted media as well
Recovers over 250 file types
This tool helps you repair files that are unusable due to the following:
Corruption due to the card being pulled out while the camera is on
Corruption due to turning the camera off during a write process
Inadvertent camera/computer shutdown
Data corruption to critical areas
Formatting and using between different cameras/computers
Other events that could cause damage to data
Before choosing the right photo recovery Mac tool, you should download and evaluate free demo versions, which will help you get an idea of how much data recovery is possible using a particular tool.
