Rescue deleted pictures

A rescued Boxing Day photo

Before I downloaded my pictures from Boxing Day, I committed an oops; I erased my SD card. "Oops!"

If this happens to you, there is a solution: Image Rescue from Lexar, the card manufacturer. This program is available for both PCs and Macs and costs but $33.99 U.S., a bargain.

I first learned of Image Rescue while working at The London Free Press. I returned from shooting some aerials and the images wouldn't download. There had been a card error. The camera had had an oops.

Image Rescue found all the images, downloaded them and placed them in a folder on my computer.

Two warnings: First, sometimes damaged images are not complete. There may be only a partial image on the card. In cases like this, complete retrieval may be impossible.

And the other caveat is that Image Rescue 4, the version that I used, does not work when a camera is used to download the images from the card in question. A USB card reader/writer is necessary. I had to buy a USB 2.0 card reader/writer as my card is designated SDHC. My older reader/writer did not work with my SDHC card. Image Rescue could not find the device until I used the USB 2.0 reader.

I picked up a USB 2.0 card reader/writer at Tiger Direct for $6.99. Another store, right across the street, was asking almost $30 for a similar reader. Don't overpay for a simple card reader.

That said, if the problem is human error, all the images should be salvageable. Just do not take any more pictures using the card in question. You do not want to overwrite any of the "erased" images.

A few years ago I took pictures in Antelope Canyon in Arizona and Walgreen's lost the images when cutting a CD. If I had stopped using the card containing the lost images, I could have salvaged the shoot. I should have bought a new card and retired the other until I got home and retrieved the lost images using Image Rescue.

Continuing to use the card was the biggest oops of all.

I should contact someone like Grey Boyer, of One Horse Studio, and buy a picture of the famous canyon. With all my own images destroyed, this is my last remaining option.

Unfortunately, with something like lost Boxing Day pictures you don't have someone with the talent of Boyer backing you up.