Stellar Phoenix Mac Photo Recovery: DIY Retrieval of Pics

a review by Tom Piper

Holiday and most of our pictures are precious, and the corruption of these files can be disastrous. Whether from my still camera, or movie camera, a fast and effective recovery tool is a must — Stellar has a great package that does it all.

Stellar Phoenix Mac Photo Recovery v6 is a complete do-it-yourself retrieval software that recovers photos, images, songs, movies, and other multimedia files deleted or lost due to corruption or formatting of hard drives, memory cards, or other external storage. This powerful multi-functional tool can do all of the following:

• Mac Photo Recovery: Recover any deleted or lost image from the Mac supported media; the supported image file types include PSD PSP, INDD, JP2, PCT, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, Tiff, JPEG, CR2, CRW, DNG, MRW, ORF, MOS, ERF, NRW, NEF, PEF, X3F, Sr2, SRF, ARW, RAF and RAW.
• Support for High-Capacity Drives: This competent photo recovery tool empowers me to recover all your lost assets from larger capacity hard drives that are becoming commonplace in the storage industry; the software supports hard drives with capacities over 2TB.
• Mac Digital Media Recovery: Use this Macintosh Digital Media Recovery Software to recover all my lost photos and multimedia files from any Mac supported Internal or External storage device; the list of supported storage devices include memory cards, digital cameras, iPods, USB storage devices, Flash Cards, Mini Disks, Zip Disks and Mac operating system based hard drives.
• Video Recovery for Mac: I can preview all of my lost/deleted/inaccessible video files and retrieve them back, keeping their visual quality as original; the supported video file types that I can recover include ASF, MP4, MOV, AVI, M4V, MPEG, 3GP, OGM, DV, MKV, 3G2, DIVX, M4B, ASX, VOB, MTS, MOI and WMV.
• Audio File Recovery: I can recover my lost/deleted music collections or any other audio file; the supported audio file types include MP3, RPS, AU, MIDI, OGG, WAV, AIFF, WMA, M4P, RM, RA and M4A.
• Recover various Camera brands: I can recover my lost photos and videos from any leading Digital Camera brand; the supported camera brands include Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Kodak, Minolta, Sigma, Olympus, Fujifilm, Polaroid, Epson, Yashica, Samsung, Panasonic, Mamiya, and more.
• Option to Add File Headers: The software gives me the flexibility to customize the recovery process according to my specific needs; I can add more unique file types to the list of supported file types by setting the desired preferences in the software (this can be done by simply dragging the sample files to the software drop section or uploading the same on to the software).
• Enhanced File Listing Options: The software easily groups the recovered files into their respective categories and displays them in three unique styles: 'Cover Flow View', 'Thumbnail View', and 'List View’; I can access any of these views according to my convenience.
• Deleted File Recovery Tree View: If I wish to preview or recover only the deleted pictures from my Mac, there is a Deleted File list, in addition to ‘Classic’ and ‘File’ list view; the software will pick the deleted folders and the files inside, and I can select them for recovery.
• Preview & Recovery of HD MOV Files: Stellar Photo Recovery now scans, previews, and recovers of HD MOV multimedia files, which are used by many high definition digital cameras, camcorders, and movie cameras; with supports for this kind of file type, the software now offers more advantages to us as users.
• Optimized, User-friendly Interface with Resize Option: This advanced photo recovery tool incorporates an intuitive interface that provides user-friendly environment similar to a Mac desktop; further, I can increase or decrease the size of the application window to suit my needs.
• Preview of Scanned Photos: It provides the preview of the photos simultaneously, while scanning the drive for the seemingly lost images; the software recovers all the photos, which I can see during the preview process.
• Create Images: I can create an image of the attached storage media, so that I can restore my precious photos and other multimedia files, if the device gets damaged or becomes inaccessible.
• Automatic Update Wizard: This wizard of the software automatically runs in the back-ground and checks for any latest available update; on receiving any update, it prompts me to download and install the same.

Using this software is easy and straight-forward once it has been installed. The initial screen (see right) allows me to either immediately start the recovery of a volume (after which it provides a list of all volumes connected to it from which I select the corrupted title), create image (make a digital replica of the corrupted volume before working on it), or Resume Recovery (in case my earlier recovery effort was interrupted). Other tasks like software registration, website visitation, or product information can be accessed in the upper left corner. The results can then be saved to a different selectable volume.

For more information or assistance, go to http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-photo-recovery.htm. Want to try it before you buy it? ... the go to http://www.stellarinfo.com/thank-you.php?val=photomac. If you like it and want to own it for only $39? … then go to http://www.stellarinfo.com/disk-recovery/photo-recovery-mac/buy-now.php. For a limited time, you can also get JPEG Repair for only $49.99 — a 30% savings! This is one of a family of excellent digital recovery tools available from Stellar for Macintosh and Windows volumes.