How do you store your digital pictures?

[Tigger&Belle]

I'm not sure how to store our pictures. We have Kodak Easy Share and have many of them on there. My DH put the pictures onto a CD and wants to erase the memory card, but I'm not so sure. Is the quality as good on the CD? I thought that any time a picture was moved to a different source that a little quality was lost, but maybe that's not true with the digital pictures.

What do all of you do?

 

[stinkerbelle]

I'm not sure how to store our pictures. We have Kodak Easy Share and have many of them on there. My DH put the pictures onto a CD and wants to erase the memory card, but I'm not so sure. Is the quality as good on the CD? I thought that any time a picture was moved to a different source that a little quality was lost, but maybe that's not true with the digital pictures.

What do all of you do?

if you don't erase your memory card...what are you gonna do when it fills up? buy a new one?

move the pictures off...no resolution is lost until you start futzing with it (resizing, playing with it in photoshop, etc).

I upload all my pictures to an online service at full resolution, I do buy a few prints occasionial the the quality is fine.

 

[oogieboogie]

I have my pictures on a variety of formats for backup purposes:

1. CDs that I send to the ILs
2. CDs that I keep
3. On the hard drive of my laptop
4. On an external hard drive

That way if one or more media happens to fritz, I'll still have another backup source.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

if you don't erase your memory card...what are you gonna do when it fills up? buy a new one?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Not such a good idea?

Maybe I'll make sure the pictures are all on the Easy Share site and on CD's and then I'll relax, take a deep breathe, and delete off the card. Or I'll have my DH do it and then I can blame him if something goes wrong.

oogieboogie, that's my fear--that something will crash and I won't have the pictures. So I'll do it on several formats I suppose.

 

[christinadei]

I have an easyshare too. I am so paranoid about erasing them, so after I upload them to the computer (in the easyshare software), I burn a cd and I usually always upload them to order prints online. I also usually make a second cd of pictures as well incase one gets lost or something. So I have them several places before I delete them.

 

[Annette_VA]

I never keep pictures on my memory card. I move all the pics to my PC. So, they're stored on my PC, and also in our Archive on another pc, which is backed up to an external hard drive every night.

As long as you're good about backing up your photos, there's no need to worry.

And, FYI - memory cards can go bad, too, so don't just leave them on a memory card & no where else!

 

[oogieboogie]

I'm not one to put stock on online sites as a primary storage. Over the years I've had digital images, I've seen a lot of sites come an go and a lot of people's pics gone into cyber-lala-land.

Putting it on a CD or 2 really makes more sense than keeping it in the memory card. If I kept my pics on memory cards, I would need a new one every time I take the camera out anywhere!

 

[stinkerbelle]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Not such a good idea?

it's an expensive idea.

we do 2 forms of back up..online and CD. we've had our HD crash and lost alot of pictures in the past.

 

[safetymom]

You should have your images back up two times. If you burn them to cd's make 2 copies. Then if something happens you always have another copy. If you save them to your hard drive make sure you have another copy of the images either on cd or another hard drive.

You should also every couple of years burn your files to the latest media. For example if you have them on floppies burn them to CD, then CD to DVD, and then to whatever the new format might be. That way you will always be able to see and print your images.

 

[NCDisneyMom]

I keep them on my hard drive, on CD, and in an online photo place (from which I print the ones I want to scrapbook). I like having the back-ups. But I know how you feel...the first time I had to delete my memory card, I was so nervous!

 

[Bob Slydell]

We download them all to our hard drive and make back-up CD's every couple months (or when there's enough to fill up a CD).

 

[Tigger&Belle]

OK, I've been convinced. I'll talk to my DH and have him make a couple CDs and put them on our hard drive. I guess my main worry was that quality of the pictures would decline when they were transferred. It's not like the quality of my pictures are that good to begin with!

safetymom, good idea about keeping the format up to date. We should do that with our VHS tapes of my older kids when they were little.

And true that the memory cards can go bad. Hadn't thought of that. I'm telling you, sometimes I need to get with the program!

 

[grlpwrd]

I take some of the same precautions, too, especially after 2 crashes. I also give out CD copies to family and friends and I store my stuff in a firesafe box. You just never know theses days.

I don't have much credence in online photo storage photo places either.

 

[ScoJo15]

Yup, we put them onto CDs or DVDs and then store them in a firesafe box.