lost photo

[Glenn Vatter]

I cropped a photo and then saved it using the save command, thereby losing the original. I meant to use save as. Is the original anywhere in my computer that I might retrieve it? I know now the importance of creating a set of duplicates before I start doing enhancements.

[Ray]

Glenn,

Where did that photo come from? If it's a digital camera and you've not yet
erased or reformat the card, chances the photo is still there.
If it comes from the web, it may be in your temporary internet folder.

If you're using Windows, run a search on your computer and give the first
few letters of the name of the file as parameters. Search the entire
computer, including hidden and system disk, just to make sure.

Ray

[Paul L UK]

If you have Norton System Works installed, you may be able to recover it from the Norton protected recycle bin (windoze)

Paul

[Mac McDougald]

I don't believe the Norton Recycle Bin tracks overwritten files, only
deleted ones?

Do XP restore points track/revert to previous file versions?

Mac

[BobHill]

Mac,

XP doesn't know or care about file versions.

Glenn,

As Ray indicated, you can either go to your original source (if from a camera, etc.) or do a Search/Find for the file, if you remember the filename you used, OR, you can even do a SEARCH for the file format, perhaps and see where all your images are stored. But, I suspect you'll find it in My Documents\My Pictures. That's the usual default folder unless you signify other .. even easier, if you did a SAVE, then just open Elements, File, Open Recent and you should see the last ten images you've opened/saved. It should be there.

Bob

[Ray]

Bob,

The problem is that Glen lost the original by overwriting it. So, if Glen
opens Elements, of course, the file will still be under Recent. But that's
not going to do Glen any good. Elements will re-open the same croped file.
This is why I suggested a system wide search to see if the file wouldn't
stored some place else as well as under My Documents \ My Pictures.

By the way, this is the default storage folder for all applications. For
example, Photoshop Album uses My Pictures\Adobe\Digital Camera Photos\sub
folder, and some Logitech cameras uses My Galleries at the root of C:.

So Glen, look elsewhere, you might have another copy on your hard drive.

Ray

[RobertHJones]

Glenn,

You didn't mention what operating system you have. I'm going to assume
Windows as I don't know about the MAC.

When you save over an existing photo, it doesn't overwrite the exact same
area on the disk. Typically, the new file is written, the old file is
marked deleted and the space it used is marked free, and the new file is
given the old files name. The old space is not overwritten. If you have an
"undelete" utility, and you act fast, you can generally recover the file.
But, time is your enemy. The more you use the computer, the stronger the
likelyhood that the original space will be allocated and overwritten.

Here's an article that discusses recovery and lists some tools. It's a very
long url, you may have to cut and paste this into your browser if the full
link isn't recognized by your reader.

http://www.apcmag.com/apc/apcmag.nsf/EA67FCD4C82B07A1CA256AC200040A09/4D81DA
6CAF1A8066CA256D1A00252067

The article is written about Windows 2000 but it equally applies to Windows
98, NT, ME, and XP. (Windows XP doesn't support ntfs file system so that
won't apply to it of course.)

It's probably too late to recover this file but you may wish to obtain and
install an undelete utility for the next time.

If you have a Mac, someone else will need to tell you about whether undelete
is available or possible.

Good luck,
Bob

[Raymond Robillard]

Bob :

(Windows XP doesn't support ntfs file system so that
won't apply to it of course.)

Ehh.. Windows XP does indeed support NTFS. On the other hand, 98 and ME do not support NTFS, not natively anyway.

Ray