Journal: News & Comment

Photorescue lives up to its name

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A corrupted flash memory card is the digital equivalent of accidentally popping open the back of your film camera in bright sunlight. Luckily, Photorescue, a $30 USD program, just saved me a bunch of pictures from Victoria that I thought I had lost to the dreaded CARD ERROR on my digicam. Plus I now have a tip for you on corrupt cards.

Photorescue works on Windows and Mac OS X (I used the Mac version), and if you download the demo, it will tantalize you with tiny thumbnail images of the pictures it can recover—but not actually save them until you buy the full version. Smart selling, that.

The utilitarian interface is a bit odd, neither truly Mac-like nor very Windows-like, but it does the job, which is what counts. Especially when dedicated picture-recovery services charge three times the price or more to do a single job.

The tip: if Photorescue can't get to your photos on the first attempt, try actually reformatting (i.e. erasing) the card in your camera and give the program another crack at it. My "wiped" card was easier for Photorescue to process than the card as it was right after the error.

On an unrelated note, "Mr. Bean Can't Stay Awake in Church," which my kids watched today, remains one of the funniest things in the history of, well, funny things.

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