Photo recovery

Photo recovery is the process of recovering lost, deleted digital photos from various media storage such as memory cards, USB pen drives, and hard drives. Typically, one should use photo recovery software to retrieve photos.

ReclaiMe photo recovery software is designed both for professional photographers using expensive equipment and home users with ordinary digital cameras.

If possible, use a card reader device for a photo recovery, not a camera itself. Certain cameras, especially Canon models, do not support direct card access. For these, a card reader is required. Anyway a card reader typically provides better result.

1. Download, install, and run ReclaiMe photo recovery software.
2. Identify the memory card you want to recover in the device list. Most likely, it falls into the "USB devices" category.

   As far as a name of the card is concerned, if neither you nor the vendor didn't give the name to the memory card then only the "drive letter" is displayed, e.g. "(E:)". However, a camera may set specific name automatically during each memory card format procedure. With Canon digital cameras you should see something like CANON_DC. On the other hand, most Nikon digital cameras typically erase the current name of the card; therefore you may see only the "drive letter" (e.g. "H:") in the device list.

3. Double click the memory card in the device list to start recovery. ReclaiMe allows you to preview photos even before the photo recovery process completes. However, a special program called "codec" may be required to preview a RAW format.
4. Select the file(s) or folder(s) you want to recover.
5. Click Save button on the toolbar. Alternatively, click Save and select Save All from the menu.

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Photo recovery techniques

If the filesystem is not too damaged, the photo recovery software uses filesystem data. Otherwise, the photo recovery software retrieves photos by searching for photo file headers. These methods are called filesystem-based and data-based accordingly. Our photo recovery software combines both techniques in a single pass and sorts out duplicate files.

If photo recovery was performed using the filesystem-based approach, file dates and times are also restored. Otherwise only JPEG EXIF information will be available, provided the camera saves it.

Usually the memory cards that are used in digital cameras are formatted to FAT or (rarely) exFAT filesystem. If the filesystem is significantly damaged, the fragmented files are lost in both FAT and exFAT. This is a limitation of data-based photo recovery.

In most cases, the memory cards are processed quickly, typically in less than an hour.

Photo recovery features

• ReclaiMe photo recovery software can restore lost photos from
  SD cards, miniSD, microSD, CompactFlash, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick DUO, Memory Stick PRO DUO, xD-Picture Card, MultiMediaCard (MMC), USB pen drive, hard drives.
• ReclaiMe can recover photos, movies and music in most known digital formats:
  3FR, 3GP, AMR, ARW, AVI, BMP, CR2, CRW, DCR, DNG, ERF, FLAC, FLV, GIF, JPE, JPEG, JPG, KDC, M2T, M2TS, M4A, M4V, MEF, MID, MKV, MOS, MOV, MP3, MP4, MPEG, MPG, MRW, MTS, NEF, NRW, OGG, ORF, PEF, PNG, PPM, PSD, QT, RM, RAF, RAW, RAM, RMA, RMV, RNS, RPS, RW2, SR2, SRF, TIF, TIFF, TGA, TS, WAV, WMA, WMV, X3F
• ReclaiMe photo recovery software successfully retrieves photos from most widely used digital cameras:
  Nikon, Olympus, Canon, Sony, Epson, Minolta, Panasonic, Pentax, Kodak, Fuji, Sigma.