Fighting Corruption. Image Corruption that is.
I was getting my lab work at the office done last night when my wife called. "Bill called and he said he needs you to call him as soon as you can," she said. "He is having some technical problem and wants to know if you can help." Bill is a photographer friend who gave me my big break into the photo world by hiring me as his assistant 13 years ago.
I called him, and he said that he shot a big job the other night and now when he put his card in the reader, it was not showing any images. He told me there was another shooter at the event who was having camera problems. He pulled his card from his camera and let her try it with her card in it. He did not shut the camera off before pulling out his card, and we suspect that caused a file on the card to become corrupted and screwed his whole take from the night. Lesson #1: Shut the camera off before pulling your cards out. It may not get you every time, but odds are it will get you.
I told him that we had this happen to a few of our shooters at the paper and we used a program by Lexar called Image Rescue 2. He told me it was a SanDisk card so I looked at their site and found a program called Rescue Pro. I will not recommend it because when he tried it, it found the images but they were all corrupted, according to the program. Next, I suggested a program called PhotoRescue. This program worked like a charm. It got back all his images except the two that were corrupted causing the error. Lesson #2: If the first program does not work, try another one. Many of these programs let you try and recover the files first without paying for them, then if it works you buy it to do the final recovery.
If he could not have recovered these images, he would not only not be able to get paid for the job, he would have had to either try and get the people together again for a re-shoot or he would have lost a well-paying, steady client. Now, you do not have to run out and buy a image recovery program; most are downloadable on the Internet. If you don't know which one is right for you until you try them, at least know they are out there and where to find them. I would recommend the Lexar Image Rescue 2 and the PhotoRescue as good places to start.
I called him, and he said that he shot a big job the other night and now when he put his card in the reader, it was not showing any images. He told me there was another shooter at the event who was having camera problems. He pulled his card from his camera and let her try it with her card in it. He did not shut the camera off before pulling out his card, and we suspect that caused a file on the card to become corrupted and screwed his whole take from the night. Lesson #1: Shut the camera off before pulling your cards out. It may not get you every time, but odds are it will get you.
I told him that we had this happen to a few of our shooters at the paper and we used a program by Lexar called Image Rescue 2. He told me it was a SanDisk card so I looked at their site and found a program called Rescue Pro. I will not recommend it because when he tried it, it found the images but they were all corrupted, according to the program. Next, I suggested a program called PhotoRescue. This program worked like a charm. It got back all his images except the two that were corrupted causing the error. Lesson #2: If the first program does not work, try another one. Many of these programs let you try and recover the files first without paying for them, then if it works you buy it to do the final recovery.
If he could not have recovered these images, he would not only not be able to get paid for the job, he would have had to either try and get the people together again for a re-shoot or he would have lost a well-paying, steady client. Now, you do not have to run out and buy a image recovery program; most are downloadable on the Internet. If you don't know which one is right for you until you try them, at least know they are out there and where to find them. I would recommend the Lexar Image Rescue 2 and the PhotoRescue as good places to start.
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