Sometimes, when you think that you no longer need certain pictures and you delete them, you might later realize that they could still be used somehow. What then would you do in this scenario? May be, you even accidentally deleted them from your PC, or the flash memory card of your mobile phone or digital camera, you would naturally get bothered about the loss, especially for flash storage media. You would be thinking about how you can recover the deleted pictures in such a condition where there is no back-up.

 

What you should know is that the link to the picture you delete would have disappeared, but then, the data would still be in the hardware storage location in form of compressed blocks or sectors until there is an over-write from newly stored photos. This implies that they can still be recovered if you use the right recovery tool.

 

Restoring Deleted Pictures on a PC

Basically, there are 2 ways to undelete pictures on a PC. They are as follows:

 

Use of the Recycle Bin

Open the Recycle Bin on the desktop and search for the pictures you have deleted. Hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key and select all the photos; right-click them while still pressing the key. Select ‘Restore’ from the drop-down menu, and all the photos will be restored to the original location where you deleted them in the first place.

 

Use of Previous Versions

From the ‘Start’ menu, go to ‘My Computer’ to find the folder or the drive of the files you wish to recover. It should not be a library, but a folder or a drive. Then, right-click it and select ‘Restore previous version’. Within the folder/drive, you would find a list of the previous versions of the files/folder. Find the most recent one and open it. You can then copy them to a new folder on your desktop or any other external storage device.

 

Restoring Deleted Pictures on a Memory Card

One of the most challenging issues in photography and any other events relating to handling of pictures is the sudden loss or deletion of photos from a flash memory card. Remember that there is no Recycle Bin on such a device. What then is the way out of this incident if you were to find yourself in it?

 

In order to recover deleted pictures from your memory card, you need to get image recovery software for memory cards. There are several brands you can find on the market today. Some require installation while some are just executable files that you only have to launch each time you want to perform photo recovery process.

 

If your PC has an in-built card reader, just insert the memory card into it. If not, you will need to buy a card reader that you can plug in via a USB port. Alternatively, you can connect your digital camera to the computer. The PC will recognize the flash element in the card reader of the camera.

 

Run the image recovery software. Select the drive of the pictures you want to restore as displayed on the screen. Select the location where you wish to save the pictures once they are restored. For easy access, it’s advisable that you choose the desktop.

 

Finally, click the ‘Start’ button to initiate the photo recovery process. This could take several minutes or hours to complete – it all depends on the number of the deleted pictures on the memory card.