System restore/ photo loss question

I have a 2008 iMac with the older OSX 10.5.6. A couple of months ago, my young child was playing a game and managed to delete/move all the pictures in iPhoto to some obscure "data" folder that I found in iPhoto from the Search "All Documents" menu. (Of course, I discovered this when I got on iPhoto to back up the pictures so that I could upgrade to Snow Leopard and Lion.) I called Apple, and they agreed that I should try to re-import the photos I found in the data folder. I was surprisd to see that all the organizational information was restored, but the pictures have lost most of their resolution/quality (4.5MB was reduced to around 50K for each picture) and all the information about when the photo was taken and the camera that was used, etc. was lost. Is there a way to restore the photos somehow (This seems unlikely... Yes, I will back stuff up from now on. )? Or, can I back up what I have and then do a system restore back to about 2 months ago, as I understand may be possible with a PC? If the answer to the latter question is yes, I need instructions if someone knows how to do it.

It sounds like the original images were lost and what you have now is the thumbnails. Perhaps the actual images are still residing somewhere. You could use a tool like Grand Perspective to see if they are around.

As for restoring, you've already said you didn't back up so ... I'm kind of wondering where you think the "restore from two months ago" is going to come from exactly ... even PCs need to have the "restore points" actually stored somewhere ...

If you weren't using Time Machine and the original images don't seem to be on the drive, you've probably lost them permanently at this point.

I'm not sure how your child managed to mess about in the iPhoto Library package, but that certainly sounds like what's happened. This is exactly why Apple obscures this package from users and makes it difficult to muck about in -- the same reason your organization info came back when you re-imported the thumbnails ... iPhoto is a DATABASE and it sounds like the database itself wasn't harmed but the ASSETS of that database got moved around.

I hope those pictures turn up but if it's two months later ....

photo loss question

Thank you for your reply... I was able to reimport some of the photos from the cards (Fortunately, something made me pause before deleting them after importing.)

Also, I started searching a little more assertively for the photos by individual name, which I had done before, but not in a way that allowed me to see enough info. to see if it was the right file. I discovered this time that if I made them i-cons instead of listing, I could see the number of pixels, which helped me know which ones to import (There would be multiple "copies"of a given photo for each one I searched for).

Here's my "new" question... A couple of times, I opened the photo right from the finder window to verify that it was the one I wanted, and when I closed it to click the icon and drag it to the iPhoto window, it disappeared, and I can't seem to get it again if I search for it. The thumbnail versions still remain. though. Has it changed names? What happened to it? Would just closing it delete it?

Also, I'm having to re-import them one at a time, but I don't know why I can't find the folder their in and do them in a batch, especially since they are supposedly still in iPhoto. The list of folders that shows where it is from the search shows the following: Library - Music - Sites - Public - Sites - Pictures - iPhoto Library - Modified - 2011 - (Event name) - (Photo name)

I tried checking "Hidden Photos" under view in iPhoto, but none of them became visible by doing that.

Strange, hmmm?

Okay - I found one of those photos that seemed to disappear. I had to go in finder under recently opened, though, so I don't know what to do about the ones that seemed to disappear a couple of days ago.