It’s a wonderful world today when digital cameras enable us to get our photographs so quickly and conveniently. You carry this little digital camera along on vacation and create some precious memories that you can see right away. Your little girl’s first meeting with the sea, the light of the setting sun turning the sands into molten gold and your beloved with that glow on her skin!
All very easy, very convenient until you lose your pictures. While with a traditional camera, you can easily get copies made if you have your negatives, with a digital camera you need to know how to recover your pictures or you hire the experts to do it for you.
Bruce Cullen, President of eProvided, a digital image recovery service, says that most people mistakenly believe that the technology involved in digital imaging is so complicated that there is no way of retrieving lost images. His suggestion is to preserve the camera as close to the original condition as possible. This will increase the chances of a successful recovery.
Understanding the Basics of Digital Image Recovery
It is important to understand how digital images are stored on memory cards. A File Allocation Table (FAT) serves to list your files and their sizes on the card. The data in the files also has documented formats so that programmes like Photoshop can read them. Your image files may be scattered on the card as linked fragments. When you open the files, the parts are automatically reassembled.
When a file is deleted, so is its entry in the FAT, but the file contents remain. Because the allocation table does not list the entry, that space becomes ready for an overwrite. Once this space is overwritten with a new file, the old file is permanently lost. However, if the file is corrupted, you can rebuild the image, provided you know how the file is structured.
Here are two programmes that are experts in image reconstruction, and both are compatible with Windows and Mac OS X.
One is the Lexar flash card which features a programme called Image Rescue. Make sure you copy that onto your computer before you go out shooting. You never know when you might need it. Image Rescue is compatible with other memory cards.
Another highly recommended programme is Photo Rescue from Data Rescue which comes in both expert and wizard modes. Both modes make selecting your images easier with a thumbnail view feature. What’s more, unlike Image Rescue, this programme automatically gets the file extensions correct so you don’t have to rename your recovered files.
Photo Rescue also has a neat trick: it can read your memory card even if it’s too corrupted for your computer to decipher. It does this by reading the physical drive, rather than the logical drive letter.
A demo of Photo Rescue is available from the company's website and if you find that it can see your lost images, go ahead and buy it. Data Rescue guarantees your money back if you’re not satisfied. You can also get free updates for a year.
Get one or both of these programmes now to insure yourself against digital image loss. But a word of advice here: don’t use these programmes if you have problems with your card. You might just overwrite your files and lose them forever.
Backing Up
Once you download your pictures to your desktop, save them on a non-volatile media such as the high endurance gold CD. The gold layer makes it less prone to ravages than the usual aluminum layer of the regular CD. Besides, gold CDs can now store more. Or you can opt for DVDs. Whatever storage medium you choose, be sure to duplicate your image files and store them on two different hard drives. Also, store your CDs and DVDs in a safe location so they will not be endangered by water or heat.
Keeping hard copies of your images is an excellent idea. But make sure that you use paper recommended by the manufacturer of your digital camera. Inkjet paper is a good buy for this purpose. And reprint any images that are a year-old since such print longevity is poor.
Invest in a dye sublimation printer if you want your prints to last longer. Most of these printers coat prints with UV filters to control fading.
Given a choice, I would rather stick to my traditional camera and also get my pictures on CDs so I can send them to friends via the internet. I like riffling through my photo album and my son should have some fade-proof memories of our times together.
Computer forensics (or digital forensics) experts can advise you on steps to take if your data is corrupted or wiped to restore those precious photographs.