Is there any way to retrieve any photos after factory reset?

[AC Question]

So I had a Galaxy s6 Edge running android 6 and thought I had all gallery items backed up. I did a factory reset and then placed my SIM in a galaxy s5 neo - I input my Google account and Samsung account info and when sync started - everything was sync'd except for my Gallery. Looking to retrieve those somehow if possible as I cannot find anything anywhere.

 

[VidJunky]

Photo and video backups are handled by G+, Google Drive, or (I feel like I'm missing one...), if you're not using a 3rd party app. So did you just open the gallery and find nothing there or did you open your G+ or Google Drive app and look in either of them? The pics and things won't reappear in your gallery as though they were always there. The easiest way to check all locations is to open the Pictures app. The icon looks like a pinwheel. Anyway if you open that and sync your Google account the backed up items should be there. If you find that they are not, you may have lost them. In which case you could try directing a pc program like Recuva to your tethered device and see if it will recognize it as an external drive. Two things, first if it works it will recover all photos that were deleted on the device including app jpg items which sometimes number in the thousands. The other thing is if you encrypted the device it's a wrap already. Once that code is lost nothing short of the CIA can retrieve those.