Restoring pix on sd card damaged in MBP

Have a late 2010 MBP running 10.6.8
I have had this computer for over a year but have not even tried using the memory card reader slot until a few weeks ago. In those cases, I had to put the SD card in a few times before  the disk image mounted on the desktop.
Tonight I tried putting the card in several times and nothing. Came onto the support communities for advice, blew compressed air into the slot, then inserted the SD card again.
This time, a disk image mounted on my desktop - but then an alert popped up that I had not ejected the card properly  - and this may have caused damage to it.
(of course, the previous times I had put it in, I could not 'properly' eject it because there was no indication the computer had recognized it)
In any case, I opened IPhoto to read the SD card and it turns out a bunch of the later photos on the card had vanished - so clearly the card WAS damaged  during those times I was inserting the card and THOUGHT the computer was not recognizing it.
My question is - is there a way to get the photos back? Some kind of software or something?
Even if not - I think its good to post this here as a warning that even if it SEEMS like a card is not mounting onto your MBP it actually may be.

This sounds to me like some flaky flash memory in your SD card causing all of the issues, including the delay or failure to mount, and the lost files. Putting it in and pulling it out probably exaserbated the issue.
I'm not aware of any easy fix for the missing data.
I will just point out that a lot of flash memory, especially cheap flash memory, can and will fail. It's probably not the fault of your Mac. The only way I know to restore such a thing would be to have taken action before the problem occured (like directory backups to help find the missing files).
In the future, I would recommend using good quality flash memory (in thumb drives/USB keys, SD cards, etc) if you're not already. Also, use those cards for temporary storage. Once you get the files off, don't expect to keep them stored on a flash device like an SD card.
...and make frequent backups!

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