Harris Fogel
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"As a photographer, educator, and reviewer, I'm used to the ebb and flow of new products in the digital imaging
arena, and after a bit of time with these products you start to look past the press releases and shouts of new
and improved from vendors. But every once in a while you come across a product that does what it is supposed
to do, and which quickly becomes an indispensable tool in your arsenal of defenses against the dark lords
of Murphy's Law as it relates to computing.
A few nights ago, a student came to me almost besides himself. He was a senior photo major in our university, and had just shot a gig card full of images of an important client during a complicated studio shoot. And yes.. he thought he downloaded all the files before he hit format.. and he was certain that he had all of them backed up... But what he had done instead was to erase the important files, and then downloaded and backed up the discards! And after he did that, he then proceeded to format the card, and then, and only then did he realize what he did. So, at 10 o'clock at night, just as I'm trying to leave my office, he shows up, card in hand, utterly devastated. Did I know he asked, of any tools that might help him recover the images? Well, I loaded up the card, launched Picture Rescue from Prosoft Engineering, Inc. and to be honest I didn't have that much hope for the data. After all, not only had he erased the individual files, he also formated the card, and then while searching for the files, he shot a few frames, mostly in the RAW+JPEG mode, which possibly overwrote some files, and the card was full to boot. So, I let him down gently,.. maybe, but no guarantees, since this was pretty much a worse case scenario. I let the software go to work, and as the computer chugged along, sifting through the data on the card like arms inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction, amazingly, unlike those unsuccessful inspectors -- image after image slowly appeared. Not every image mind you, but all but 4 or 5 of the hundreds of JPEGs were usable, and while the RAW files were recoverable, they really weren't useful due to parsing errors. But hey, sometimes I think it's a miracle that RAW files open at all, given the lack of cooperation and proprietary nature of the files and the vendors involved! At the end of the night, he had all the images he needed for the client, and carefully wrote down the name and website (www.prosofteng.com) for the software, swearing at himself that not only was he going to be much more careful in the future, but that he wouldn't go anywhere without Picture Rescue. And you know, I agree with him. It's a great product, at a reasonable price ($59 MSRP), that does exactly what it promises to do. And sometimes it's a real lifesaver. Picture Rescue indeed!" Harris Fogel Host and Executive Producer Mac Edition Radio http://www.maceditionradio.com/ |
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