Here’s a scary thought…your computer just crashed, and all your photos are gone in the blink of an eye or the strike of lightening. All of them. Gone.
I don’t think any of us are prepared to walk away from all our photos without some emotional attachment. I know I’m not. If you ask many people what they’d grab out of their burning house, many would reply that they’d save their photos (or these days the computer that houses those photos). They’re the physical reminder of the memories we’ve built up over the years. So it makes sense that we’d be attached to them.
It’s just as easy to see how not backing up your photos is a bad idea. I know I have some of my photos saved to CDs, but not even close to all of them, and that scares me. It scares me enough to get me working on a new photo project—saving and backing up all my digital photos so that in the event of a computer crash (heaven forbid), I have the files that are most important to me—my photos.
There are several recommended ways to save your digital photos. All of them start by organizing your files and making sure you know how to access those files once they’re saved in a second place. If it’s hard to find a photo now, it will be just as hard or harder to find it in another format. So get organizing if you haven’t done so already.
Once you’re organized, you’ll want to save your photos to one of three sources: CD, DVD, or an external hard drive. I’ve talked with professional photographers who have recommended the external hard drive as the best storage device as it preserves the quality of the photos the best. But if you don’t have the budget for an external hard drive, CDs and DVDs are a good option as well. You can even have photo printing places put your photos on these mediums if your computer doesn’t have the capability.
Regardless of how you choose to back up your files, it’s a good idea to start on now…not when the next thunderstorm or virus hits.
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