Recovering photographs and video
Film cameras long ago gave way to digital cameras and phones that store high-quality photographs and video — usually in exactly one place. We handle images damaged by either logical or physical faults, whether they sit on a camera card (SD, micro-SD, CF), a USB device or a computer's hard disk.
Formats we handle
Our recovery tools deal with a wide range of formats, including JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIF, PSD and the RAW formats used by the various camera manufacturers, along with video formats such as AVI, MOV, MP4, MKV, MTS and M2TS.
How it works
- An initial assessment to establish how complex the fault is and the right approach to recovery
- A complete image of the media, so all work happens on the copy rather than the original
- Extraction of the images and copying to sound media
- Integrity checking — actually opening the recovered files
- Handing the material back along with a list of the files
Is quality affected?
No. Recovering a deleted photograph returns the original file exactly as it was; the process does not degrade the image or the video. Where damage was partial, some of a file may be missing, and that will be apparent from the integrity check.
What determines the odds
The single biggest factor is how much the media has been used since the deletion. A deleted photograph does not vanish immediately — its space is simply marked as free, and any new shot can overwrite it. So the most important rule is to take the card out of the camera and stop using it the moment you notice something is missing.