You needn’t panic if you accidently delete your photos from your memory card.

You probably move (or at least you should move) your important photos regularly from your memory card to a safer and more permanent location. But what can you do when the original images stored on your memory card never make it to your computer? What can you do besides PANIC if you accidently delete or format the memory card before you’re able to move the photos? This can happen to anyone at anytime (usually the wrong time). The good news is that you may be able to use recovery software to recover some, and hopefully all, of the deleted photos from your memory card – SD, CF, MMC, and most other cards.

Photo recovery software is designed specifically to recover deleted photos. You can find many affordable recovery programs on the Internet (usually from $19 to $39). All of these programs have similar features and the good news is that none require expert knowledge to use. Most programs have a trial version that you can download and install. You install the software, connect your camera to your computer (or insert your memory card into a card reader connected to your computer) and run the recovery software. This lets you run the program first to test whether it can recover any missing photos.

The program then displays thumbnails of the files it can recover. Then you have the option of buying a registration key for the program and recover the files. If you purchase a registration key, select the thumbnail image(s) you wish to recover and save them (for obvious reasons) to a new location.

One important note is that Windows unfortunately may not recognize your camera as a drive, which is what happened with my Canon XSi. If so, you’ll have to use a memory card reader but they’re not very expensive ($10 to $20).

Make certain to set aside enough time for the program to work. It depends, of course, on how many files are on your memory card but it took some of these programs thirty minutes or so to check out my SD card.

Here are a few Windows programs that I downloaded, installed and tested. My objective in this article isn’t necessarily to recommend one package over another. I wanted to show there are several options available in case you accidently delete or format your memory card. These programs are, however, among the most popular and have received excellent reviews and have won several awards from CNET, PCWorld and others.

This list is hardly exhaustive. You can find others by typing something similar to “card recovery software” as the search in Google or other search engine.

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One leading software recovery programs is Adroit Photo Recovery from Digital Assembly.

An important advantage of Adroit Photo Recovery is that it also recovers photos from a formatted card provided you haven’t written new photos to your card. This is something to keep in mind while you test these programs.

Perhaps the most important difference between Adroit Photo Recovery and other programs (besides its attractive price) is that it consistently recovered more photos than other recovery software programs. It was able to recover 840 of the 866 photos that I deleted from the memory card. It’s also very easy to use; the work was done after just three clicks.

Adroit Photo Recovery Digital Assembly photo-recovery.info $19.99 Trial version available (free to try)

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Cardrecovery from Win Recovery Software is another award winning recovery program and is a popular photo recovery software for memory card used by digital camera. You can use it to recover lost, deleted, corrupted or formatted photos and video files from various memory cards.

This was one of the easier programs to work with because the interface is simple and straightforward. It was able to find all the deleted photos on my memory card.

Cardrecovery Win Recovery Software www.cardrecovry.com $39.95 Trial version available (free to try)

Cardrecovery will also recover files from a formatted card as long as you haven’t written to the card since it was formatted.

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PhotoRescue is an award winning program from Data Recovery and has been available since 2001. Although PhotoRescue uses some technical terms, which are more for your information, in the dialogs, it’s easy to use. You probably won’t even need to worry about the terms; just accept the default values and you should be set. You can use PhotoRescue to recover photos and files lost on corrupted, erased or damaged memory cards and more.

There are two points for considering PhotoRescue. One is that it displays accurate previews of the recoverable pictures so what you see on your screen is what you recover.

The other point for considering PhotoRescue is that Data Rescue guarantees their data recovery performance. In other words, when the trial version previews the missing image(s), they’ll be recovered or you’ll get your money back.

PhotoRescue Wizard (www.datarescue.com/) Data Rescue www.datarescue.com $29 Trial version available (free to try)

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Although you might not have heard of ImageRecall before (it’s from the U.K.) versions of the program have been available for many years.

Image Recall is designed exclusively for digital camera users and recovers lost or erased images from all types of memory cards. It’s also easy to use and seemed to work noticeably faster than the other programs I listed here.

Image Recall Don’t Panic – Photo Edition (www.imagerecall.com) Image Recall www.imagerecall.com 24.98 Euros (about $36.50) Trial version available (free to try)

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Conclusion

It’s difficult to recommend one of these programs over another; each found a similar number of photos that I deleted from the memory card. I also only considered the photo recovery features of these programs. Many recovery programs can also recover video files, MP3 files and many other types of data files.

The program I would suggest trying first, however, is Adroit Photo Recovery. The bottom line is to try as many of the trial versions until you find the one with the best success. This is why it’s so great to use a trial version that shows how many photos the software can recover. Keep in mind that you should move your images from the memory card as soon as you can but in the meantime, if something bad should happen, these programs will give you at least a chance to save those important memories.

This also brings up a good security point. Be careful who gets a hold of your camera and memory card. It’s very easy for someone to use a photo recovery software program and recover some “old” photos that you might not want to share!