ridiculous...can someone help

The thing that stands out to me is the "unknown account" above system. Usually only added permissions are above system in that list. If you click change permissions, and then is that a deletable permission?

mikamika said:

I literally "cut" the folder/pictures and pasted them onto my little mem stick.
?

As you used Mac and PC, this maybe a compatibility issue. Which version of Mac?

Secondly, here is an error made: you use "cut" instead of copy! This is a dangerous task! I don't use it any more.
It is much more cautious to use COPY/PASTE than CUT/PASTE. It is risky as nobody knows if the system will crash or shutdown before the copying finishes. If so, you will lose files you have cut but not copied yet.
Doing this way, once I lost many important files and folders. Since, I never use cut/paste.
Anyway, this is part of the past now. For the future, my advice is to avoid using "cut". You can copy and delete. It is safer.
Back to your pictures, I think they are still here, as we can see picture previews on your folders. This is good sign!
The question now is, are the overall size of your folders reflect the real image sizes contained in? Right click on a folder and check out the size. If it is bulky and propotionnal to the number of images there, that means the pictures are still readable. If sizes are about ~ Ko, this might mean you lose your pictures!
You said that you cut them onto a flash drive of 5 mb ? This size, 5 mb, seems very low capacity drive. You can't put no more than 5 pictures (1Mo/pic) or 10 pic (500 Ko/image), 15 images maximum with a minimum quality (<300 Ko).
Do you still have the drive and the pictures stored on?
Did you try this:
- Rename your images or folders containing images and try to transfer them.
- Plugin your flash drive back and copy whatever folder to see if you still have the same error message.
- Use any sync program and let it to transfer your pictures between two devices (source>target).
- Disconnect you from the admin account and connect with another account with restricted rights (e.g. guest) and try to copy. You will have, of course, the same error message. Now, shut down the guest account and reconnect with your admin account. Retry to open/copy your pictures and tell us what you got.

Hope this helps.
Good luck

The first thing I would do is try to recover the files that you deleted on the Macbook. I have no idea what's available, but would think there are freebies out there that would do that, like is available for Windows. If you've not copied anything to your HD there should be a good chance you can recover them.

This doesn't help with viewing on your laptop, but it could go a long way to easing your wife's mind.

Check around, see if there are utilities available that will do that.

mikamika said:

-sigh-

Honestly I don't know if I did any of that. I really am not that computer savvy, I just know the basics. This is all I know.

My wife wanted me to store our family photos on my laptop, not her macbook. So I stuck my little 2GB flash drive in the usb port, dropped them on the flash drive, put the flash drive in here, then dropped them onto my photos

Now I am here...

That really is all I know I did, and now, if i have lost our family photos, she is going to MAD at me big time.

And yes in my stupidity, I removed them off her mac after I put them on here, so the only copy I have of them are on here, being unable to view them

Now I'm beginning to understand what's happening.

You see, in your screenshot, the filenames are displayed in green (if in blue, it means they are compressed), which means that they are encrypted, and can only be used on the computer that originally performed the encryption. No amount of changing permissions here is going to work, I'm afraid.

You'll have to go to the computer on which the file where originally located, unencrypt them, then copy them back.