History Main / PhotographicMemory

->''"Photographic is a misnomer. I have an ''eidetic'' memory, as I've told you many times. Most recently last year during lunch on the afternoon of May seventh. You had turkey and complained it was dry."''
-->-- '''Sheldon Cooper''', ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''

* Nico Vorgeil of ''Manga/UndeadUnluck'' has the Negator power of Unforgettable, meaning nothing he has seen since he acquired the power ever leaves his mind. Unfortunately [[spoiler:the power kicked in right as he was watching his wife die, and so he's constantly remembering that in completely perfect detail.]]

* ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'': Takeshi states in conversation that his envoy training has given him perfect recall. However, his internal narration will occasionally reference hazy memories about various topics, like the full plot of a movie he'd once seen. Given that Takeshi is a ConsumateLiar, he was apparently bluffing about his photographic memory.

* ''Film/TempleGrandin'' is a [[{{Biopic}} real-life account of the life of Temple Grandin]], quoted above. As she has said, her mind works like Google Images, and they have a scene in the film that shows just how that works. One of Temple's teachers remarks after Temple's favorite horse has died that we shouldn't remember him this way, but Temple proceeds to name off '''every single horse that looked like hers she has ever seen.''' Surprised, he asks her if she can bring everything she sees into her mind, even if it's something simple like a shoe (and not specific like horses that looked like hers) and she does the same thing again.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/SmallGods'', the main character Brutha's photographic memory is eventually used to smuggle a large portion of the scrolls of an entire library inside his head. Because he's illiterate, he can't ''understand'' what they say, he just knows what the pages look like. It's implied that this is actually a case of a neurological disorder, justifying it somewhat.

** He begins to understand eventually, although he only gets snippets of random information, like remembering that "squids have an internal cartilaginous structure" and that boats are "buoyed upwards by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid", without actually knowing what "cartilaginous" or "buoyed" means.

* ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs: Takeshi states in conversation that his envoy training has given him perfect recall. However, his internal narration will occasionally reference hazy memories about various topics, like the full plot of a movie he'd once seen. Given that Takeshi is a ConsumateLiar, he was apparently bluffing about his photographic memory.

* The titular Index from ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'' has photographic memory. It was used to remember a library worth of magic books. The side effect was the danger of Index's brain overflowing from too much memories, mandating wiping her memories every year. [[spoiler:Said danger was in fact a lie to prevent her from rebelling -- someone with a library worth of magic books is extremely dangerous.]]

** Cerberus, a high-ranking member of Pluto, claims to one of prisoner guards keep watching on his cell he can re-read books without the book itself (he was blindfolded during this scene and he recites a quote from "Count of Monte Cristo" perfectly word by word) like a library, suggesting this ability. While said exchange and him reciting the quote is actually a preparation for his prison break, the fact that [[spoiler:he used to be in National Talent Development Research Institute]], a fact revealed much later, still supports this trope [[spoiler:as Megu was also a student there too]].

* Creator/JRRTolkien wrote in his background materials for Middle-Earth that all elves have this kind of memory.
** In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', Bilbo steals a single gold cup from Smaug's DragonHoard. When Smaug wakes up and inspects his treasure, he instantly realizes the cup is missing. For the record, Smaug's pile of treasure is '''[[{{Fiction 500}} HUGE]]'''.

** Commander Susan Ivanova claimed to have eidetic memory. She recalled a once-heard Minbari phrase perfectly, despite not speaking the language at the time she heard it. In another episode, she memorizes the long list of all [=EarthForce=] personnel perished in a battle in order to make sure they were burying people and not statistics.

* Kyle from ''Series/KyleXY'' combines this with his ability to draw photo-realistic pictures from said memories. Kyle has ''holographic'' memory meaning he can go back and see events as they happened in three dimensional space. This means that he can remember stuff he ''didn't actually see'' because it happened either behind his back or in a blind spot. Yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds.

* Molly from ''Film/Molly1999'' perfectly remembers everything that she reads. Before, she didn't understand most of it, but after recieving her [[ThrowingOffTheDisability brain implant]], it all makes sense to her.

** X-Men founder and former headmaster Professor X has one as well, but an extremely weird one. He can transfer parts of his short-term memory to his long-term memory, getting a similar effect. At times, it's indicated that {{telepath|y}}s have perfect memories because they can ''read their own minds''.

* Ben Tennyson of the ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' franchise has photographic memory as he was able to remember the runes on the Door to Anywhere after seeing them just once. He does not apply his photographic memory to schoolwork though.

* Lex Luthor in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', as revealed in the episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS2E11PanicInTheSky Panic in the Sky]]".

* Pinkie Pie of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' has a truly phenomenal memory for details, ranging from the precise date of everypony in town's birthday, exact time and location for every single party she throws, literary content down to the page number from a book she barely glanced, to being able to literally recognise a duplicate of an image she saw for less than a second. (It doesn't mean she can perfectly recall everything she remembers; in "Party of One" she was so wrapped up planning an "after-birthday" party for her pet alligator she totally forgot ''her own'' birthday.)

* Prince Callum of ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'' has a perfect ''visual'' memory. Not only does this serve him well as an artist -- he's able to accurately sketch a view of a room he hasn't seen in months -- it also comes in handy in his endeavors as a self-taught mage, letting him perfectly recreate magic runes after only seeing them once.

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', the vampires are able to remember everything from the time of their becoming a vampire on.

* Creator/DavidBaldacci's Amos Decker, from ''Memory Man'' and ''The Last Mile'', has uncontrollable eidetic memory as the result of a head injury on the football field. This is helpful for him in his line of work as a detective, but also means that he's never been able to forget every detail of the murder of his wife and child.