Missing photos- have tried a number of steps. Help wanted.

Question

Hello, first time here. Would appreciate some help.
Have read 15 or so pages of threads/questions which was useful.
In my iphoto 6.0.6 I have lost some photos since my last backup due to renaming of film roll names in finder, not through iphoto (I now know and wont do it again). The photos of a renewable energy site tour and my bday with all the german relatives, show up as grey thumbnail with question mark that when I click on it, is a grey photo with a question mark (can't find it I assume).
I had also recently trashed my iphoto trash (needed to clear some room), so any photos not knowing where to live, may have been ditched. My automatic syncing with my ipod also means that this 2nd backup has removed the deleted photos from my ipod.
In iphoto, I can get the image info of the missing photos but on searching in finder for the names, it does not find anything. Neither with manually looking in the Data, Modified and Originals folders in my iphoto library.
I have used holding 'apple and option when restarting iphoto' and clicked all the options together (backup up photo library photo first), it doesnt recover the photos and still leaves the grey thumbnails there.
Are the grey thumbnails and availability of missing photo info a function of some organising file of iphoto and/or are their other steps I could take to find them?
Have looked into Data Rescue & File Salvage (trial features have not helped/found them).
Hope someone can provide some tips.
Carl

Answer 1

Thanks for your reply TD.
In copying my iphoto library to the desktop, Creating a new library, and then recreating them the new library by dragging the original rolls- I am not sure this will solve my problem.
I have searched through the original folder for the photos I am after but they are no longer there. Recreating a new library from these folders will give me the photos I have now, get rid of the grey thumbnails & info of the photos I lost (and remove my albums etc as you said).
I am speculating that there was something going funny as both rolls that have 'corrupted'/ photos missing, and a new one I just did as a test (but not deleting the photos from the camera!) did not complete their download in one go, that is it would stop partway through the download, and I would need to click download again (a result of not enough startup diskspace), but they all downloaded. Perhaps there is is a process at the end of the download that it skipped, that makes the photos sit all nice and secure in iphoto.
1) Can it be explained why the thumbnails and information (when I do apple 'i') are still there but the photos are missing?
2) Is there still any advantage in recreating a library if I know the photos I want aren't in the originals folder?
3) Can you comment on any implications on when iphoto doesn't download all the contents in one go. (e.g. stopped partway for not enough diskspace)
My safety net for future:
- More frequent backups
- Backing up the library6.iPhoto file after each download (Automator?)
- Clearing space, using new drive.
- Turning off 'delete from camera' download option until I know they are all in there.
Thanks for your help and clarity.
Carl