I lost photos when I did factory reset, how can i recover those photos?

Did you include the photos (backup (copy) the files to) in question to be stored on the external drive?

If you do not have a backup of these files - well - if you used an OEM factory restore, you likely lost everything.  I know, for example, Dell says this about their process:

"Warning: Restoring your computer to the factory settings will remove all files and programs except those it came with. You will lose all personal files, including photos, emails and programs, if you do not back up your files and data"

You mean a Windows Easy Transfer ("W.E.T.")?

So you used "W.E.T." to export your user information from your system to the external drive and then, after the factory restore, you updated Windows Vista to the same level it was before, installed the applications you had before and restored the user information using "W.E.T."?

Or do you just have the *.MIG file that "W.E.T." creates to archive the user profile information?

If the latter - look here:

https://cwl.cc/2013/02/extract-files-from-windows-easy-transfer-mig-archives.html

i did a windows transfer but it looks like nothing transferred i cant find anything i had before i did the restore

unfortunately the external drive i saved my stuff to doesnt show photos

Connect your backup drive (where you kept the duplicate / backup copies of the stuff important to you that you never want to lose) and copy (keyword: copy - you want to maintain a two+ number of copies of files like this - the important ones) the files back to your system.