Photos & RAW · wedding photo cards
Deleted wedding photos: protect the complete card set
What should a photographer do after deleting wedding photos?
Short answer
First freeze every card and destination from the wedding, not just the one you deleted from: a second card slot, the ingest drive or RAW+JPEG pairs may already hold a complete copy. Inventory the gaps by file number and burst sequence. Then scan only the source that is truly missing images, read-only, and export elsewhere.
The situation
One card, one slot, or part of a wedding sequence is missing before delivery.
Before any recovery, this is an inventory problem. A wedding is usually recorded more than once, across two card slots, an ingest drive, and RAW plus JPEG pairs, so a complete copy of the deleted frames may already exist and needs finding before a card is touched.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
Deliverable sets go missing in three ways: a card was formatted after an ingest nobody verified, a second-slot card was never copied at all, or frames were deleted during culling. Each points at a different source. Burst numbering separates them, because a jump from IMG_4711 to IMG_4718 names exactly six missing frames, and that gap can be checked against every other copy before a scan starts.
Dual-slot copies, ingest destinations, RAW+JPEG pairs, and adjacent burst numbers can reveal whether a complete alternate exists.
Check the last known path, trash and backups without writing to the original device.
02 / Protect the source
Preserve the best recovery chance
- 1
Collect every card from the day, set the write-protect switch where the card has one, and label them; nothing goes back into a camera yet.
- 2
List the missing file numbers and burst ranges, then check them against the second slot, the ingest drive, and any preview set already exported.
- 3
Scan only the card that is genuinely short of frames, read-only through a reader, selecting both the RAW format and JPEG together.
- 4
Export into a dedicated folder on a separate disk, rebuild the day by capture time, and confirm every gap in the sequence is now closed.
Do not shoot the next job on these cards, and do not run culling or rating software over them while the recovery is open. Avoid letting a camera reformat a card it calls unreadable, because that replaces the directory holding the numbers you still need.
03 / Choose the method
Match the tool to the source
For stable, readable exFAT, NTFS and FAT16/FAT32 or uncompressed IMG, DD, RAW and BIN images.
Unconfirmed exports are marked .UNVERIFIED.
This is recovery of deleted entries, not repair. Frames already overwritten by a later shoot cannot be returned, and File Recovery Hero will not reconstruct a damaged RAW. Cards that are physically failing, or images that only ever existed in a client gallery, need another route.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
The set is complete when every missing frame number is back, each file opens at full resolution, and the RAW and JPEG of one shot agree in capture time and framing. Check the frames on either side of each gap as well, since a partly overwritten burst fails at its edges first.
Keep the source until two verified copies exist. One working preview is not enough.
Sources and technical references
FAQ
Questions about this recovery case
Can wedding photo cards be recovered in this situation?+
Before any recovery, this is an inventory problem. A wedding is usually recorded more than once, across two card slots, an ingest drive, and RAW plus JPEG pairs, so a complete copy of the deleted frames may already exist and needs finding before a card is touched. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not shoot the next job on these cards, and do not run culling or rating software over them while the recovery is open.
Does scanning write to my memory card?+
Your memory card is only read. Nothing is saved to it.
How do I know whether the result is complete?+
The set is complete when every missing frame number is back, each file opens at full resolution, and the RAW and JPEG of one shot agree in capture time and framing.