Oops, I've lost an image....possible to retrieve it???

[Clix Pix]

I'm afraid it's a goner for good but it doesn't hurt to ask.... Is
there any way to retrieve an image which suddenly has disappeared? I
did not deliberately delete it. I had intended to print it and then
realized that I had the wrong paper in the printer, was in a hurry
anyway because I was supposed to be heading out the door to the
doctor, so hit the cancel button for the print and everything went
away.... I didn't realize until later this evening when I came back
ot the computer to try another crack at it that anything was wrong
until I looked for the image and didn't find it in the appropriate
folder. Oops.... again this is an instance where I had not made a
backup earlier. GRRRRRR!!!!!

I thought about trying a "System Restore" (I have WIN XP Pro) but
looked in Google and found something that said that this only is
useful for correcting certain functional things and clearing out
screwups made by viruses and such, that it wouldn't restore data. ??
I then found a site online where I could download a free program to
see if it would find the file for me and then I would have to pay to
go ahead and utilize the full program in order to actually restore the
file. No joy there.... nothing showed up.

Does anyone have any suggestions or am I screwed? This makes me SO
MAD because it was a terrific image: two ducks coming in for a landing
on the water, one which had actually just hit the water and the other
one suspended in air above him, feet dangling, positioned to land....
I can't believe I messed up with this, of all images!

--Connie

 

[Larry Gleason]

Recycle Bin? Search of HD files in case it got moved to another location (temp)? Seems odd to lose a photo file just because the printer job was cancelled. Good luck.

 

[Chris101]

I hate computers.

 

[Carol Steele]

There is no way that simply cancelling a print job will delete the file. I've cancelled print jobs hundreds of times and never lost an image or any other document. In your rush you must have done something else.

Have a look in the Recycle bin as Larry suggested, you will probably find it there, sitting alone in a corner somewhere wondering why you hated it so much that you threw it away . Make it a happy file by restoring it

 

[gho]

Well, did you save the file before trying to print it? If you make edits, go to print, then cancel and exit the application without saving the file, all the edits are lost.

Of course there should still be the original file the folder you copy them to - You don't work on original files, do you?

 

[Clix Pix]

Thanks, all! It is 5:00 AM but I'm a happy camper. I had checked the Recyle bin straightaway and it wasn't in there, and in fact nothing was.... I got on Google again and found a data recovery program for a reasonable price that sounded like it would do the trick -- and lo and behold, it did! Unfortunately it took quite a while to do a "deep scan," but in the end it was worth it, as sure enough the image was there....

The folder this was in is one that I'd only just briefly looked through but hadn't yet taken the time to do a backup to CD or anything before actually beginning to work on the images. I just remembered this one image and thought it would be interesting to print it out to take with me to show friends, as I was in the midst of printing out some other pictures for them. I don't know what I was thinking, just messing with something like that when I was distracted and when I hadn't taken precautions to protect the image by first making a copy, etc....

To be honest, I still don't know exactly what happened -- I agree that it seems odd that cancelling the print job would've screwed everything up and deleted the file. I've cancelled print jobs in the past, too, and never had anything strange like this happen. Something sure did. Well, whatever, at least I've retrieved the image!

Thank you for your responses!

Lesson learned here....before I do ANYTHING else to that particular image or the other images that are in that folder, I'll be burning the backup CD....

Also I need to explore some sort of external hard drive to use as an additional backup system....

 

[gho]

Uh huh... Glad you found your file. I always copy all my files from my image download directory to my working directory and a backup directory (on seperate physical discs). I then edit the ones in the working directory. I leave files in the download directory until I burn them to CD/DVD - that way I have copies of files on 4 physical locations.

My image browser defaults opening files in the working directory, so I don't touch the other files. And I actually have a script to copy the files also, so it's quick and painless.