When a number of commercial photo recovery software are right in front of you, I know it becomes quite hard to figure out which one of them is capable to recover lost photo, audio and video files in a reliable manner, thereby keeping them intact. However, Stellar Data Recovery – a data recovery company based in India, assures for best photo and other media files’ recovery solutions with its Photo Recovery software, which recently has been released in its 6th version, and this time with more powerful scan engine and added support for many more file types of photo and video files.
What is good?
-
The software meets primary requirement of the users, thereby having a user-friendly interface.
-
The software has got its scan engine improved, and now it scans storage media quite quickly.
-
The software meets professional needs for scanning and recovering lost photos from large (up to 2TB) hard drives.
-
The support for HD MOV files is added, which makes it highly usable for photography professionals.
-
A separate list that filters deleted media files (i.e. photo, audio and video) is added to the tree in the recovery pane.
-
The photo, audio and video files recovered with the software do have their original file names.
What is not good?
-
The price of the software is $39, which makes it a bit pricy for laymen.
-
Users might get confused while switching to Audio and/or Video in ‘Advanced Scan’ mode.
Since the photo recovery tasks are not generally in need to be performed, it is obvious for you to take them in a serious way. Besides, the tool you are using to bring these files back to life must be able to fulfill all such needs with no failure.
Simple and User-friendly Interface
A commercial photo recovery software must have a simple and user-friendly interface. Well, Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery v6.0 meets the criteria very well, and I give the software full (5/5) marks for its GUI. Take a look at the software interface in the attached snapshot.
As you can see, the module ‘Recover Photo, Audio & Video’ is given the larger size on the home screen, and why not since it marks itself as the prime module. However, though other two modules are given smaller sizes, you cannot deny their importance in the software features.
Looking for the availability of the software brings me to the developer’s official website, where you can download the Windows version of Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery v6.0 right there. Besides, the software is also available on co-vendors’ websites.
Faster Scan Engine
The second and the most important feature of a recovery software is that how quickly and efficiently it scans the particular storage media, earlier to the recovery phase. As I supposed, Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery v6.0 has got its scan engine fastened and more efficient as compared to that in a few of its earlier versions. When it comes to scan the storage media, the users are given two completely different scan options, viz. ‘Scan Now’ and ‘Advanced Scan’, shown in the snapshot.
Choosing the ‘Scan Now’ module for scanning the media launches the instant scan for all pre-added file formats for all three types of media (Photo, audio and Video) files. Alongside, the tree generated by the software lists all the folders in the media being scanned in a hierarchical order, which is quite good.
In contrast, the ‘Advanced Scan’ option is fairly advanced, and it lets you scan the storage media for selective file types for all media (Photo, audio and Video) files. Well, scanning a drive for selected file types instead of all is not even time saving, but the consumption of the system resources is also a bit lesser.
Another advancement in the ‘Advanced Scan’ scan option is that you can also scan even a selected region of the storage media, which also is as efficient as scanning the media for selected file types. To select the region of the storage media, click the ‘Select Range’ tab at the left, and then hold and drag the pointers.
After selecting the required file types for each media file, the software has nothing more to do before scanning the selected storage media. Well, how can I forget, and you can also see in the snapshot above that a number of camera models are listed under the ‘File Type’ column, helping you recover lost photo, audio and/or video files.
As I mentioned earlier, the software generates a tree that displays the folders in that particular drive in a hierarchical order, which I really like. As you can see in the snapshot, on-the-fly preview of the recovered files is also available, which also is admirable.
The Deleted List
“Is there any software that can segregate deleted files from other files in the scanned drive?” – I have been wondering this before, which indeed is the must have feature in a recovery software. The ‘Deleted List’ feature in Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery v6.0 is the brand new one, which filters the recovered deleted files.
A separate list containing only required items is really an advanced feature, which saves your time searching for the required media files. In fact, having this feature makes this version of Stellar Photo Recovery software even more advanced.
Quick Save
The tree generated while scanning the storage media facilitates saving all or selected recovered files quickly on the same or an external drive attached to your computer. The software also features saving the scan information (*.DAT file), which can be used to resume the recovery process later. In fact, it is quite easy to save the recovered files right from the scan result window.
The most important thing I forgot to mention earlier, but I guess here is the right moment to highlight it is that before saving the recovered files, you can preview them as well.
Image and Resume Recovery
How about you can image a drive and use is later to recover lost media files? Well, the feature is best for recovery from external drives, such as a USB flash drive, SD card, and more. Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery software enables you do it with its one of secondary modules, namely ‘Create Image’.
While putting my hands on the ‘Create Image’ module, I realized that imaging a drive is also very easy. You can also image selected region of the hard drive. For this, simply drag the pointers to select the required region and continue with it.
Later on, you can resume photo and other media files’ recovery with the saved scan information and/or drive image. The respective storage media must be attached to your computer, in order to resume the recovery process with the saved scan information.
Verdict
Based on its performance in each module, I found the software efficient, capable, and reliable for digital media files’ recovery from a range of storage media. Therefore, I suggest this as a must have software.