Lost pictures, how do I retrieve them?

Question

I had a file/folder of pictures on my dock. I attempted to move them from the dock to finder by means of drag and and drop. I dropped it before I go to finder and it disappeared with the poof icon. I can not find them in finder. How do I recover them?

Answer 1

Mac OS X is not Windows!   The Dock is not a folder.  It is merely a collection of shortcuts. 
The same with the left Finder Window sidebar.  It is merely a collection of shortcuts.  When you drag an item off the dock or sidebar, it will basically remove its shortcut to the actual item.
Not finding a file is no cause yet to panic.  You need an index free search solution, like FindAnyFile to search for your image files.  If you have an idea of the name of any file, search for it, and it should locate the file in question.
Spotlight will only find files it has indexed.  The Finder's Find File command is based on the Spotlight index.
Only if you dragged the file to the trash, and emptied the trash, is it gone.   In that event, you need a data recovery tool.  If you have the suspicion that may have happened, power down your computer, and get the data recovery tool, and a similarly sized hard drive to your internal, and try a data recovery first.   Do not attempt to use your computer until after the data recovery tool has had its chance to find it.  Every moment the machine is on, is another moment a file could be overwritten that is hiding after having been emptied from the trash.  Data recovery tools can find those hidden files as long as they haven't been overwritten too often.