Hi David, and welcome to TDP forums!


Quote Originally Posted by dsm363
I asked him how he exported them and he said he selected all the photos from within the iPhoto window and dragged them onto the desktop. Did this just copy a JPEG preview of the original RAW file?

Yes. Dragging images from iPhoto to the desktop converts copies the jpg images only. I suspect Apple decided to design it that way on the assumption that when dragging to the desktop you'd be sharing the images with someone else, someone who may not be able to view RAW images.


The _MG_0551 name, whether with a .jpg or a .cr2 extension, means something different - that has to do with color space. Images in sRGB are saved by the camera as IMG_0000 files, whereas images in the Adobe RGB color space are saved as _MG_0000 files. That's one of the settings in Shooting menu 2.


Back to your issue. To properly export the RAW files from iPhoto, he should have selected File menu > Export and chosen Original from the Kind pop-up.


Note that the originals may not be lost. If he just selected all your files and hit Delete, or dragged them to the Trash in iPhoto, they are still there, unless he also secondary-clicked the Trash can and selected Empty Trash. So, have him click on Trash can (one click!), and if he can still see your photos, he can Select All and drag them back to the Library, then export them using the command in the File menu. Sadly, if he emptied the trash, they are gone for good (short of heroic file recovery efforts - if you want to go that route, there are programs for that, e.g. File Salvage, that have free versions which scan for and list recoverable files, but you'd need to buy the $99 license to actually recover files; also, if you're going to go that route, he needs to stop using that HDD immediately!).


Good luck!