Okay so my next question is about Memory Cards

[princesdi]

Once you return from your trip what do you do with the pictures on your memory cards? Do you put them on CD For future photo developments, download them to your computer? What do you do? I still have our pictures from last August on Memory Cards and I would reallly like to free up that space. I also downloaded them to our computer and Kodake Photo gallery--but I would like to find a more permanent home for our pictures---is putting them on CD the way to go?? What company do you go through?

 

[LadyZolt]

We put ours on the computer, and on the "photo frame" my DH got me for Christmas (not my request -- he's a techno geek. LOL!) and then on CD's to give to others or to just keep in a safe location. You can email them to family, you can also upload them to a personal web site if you have one. If you're worried about losing them, I recommend putting them on CDs and giving them to your parents, friends, whoever. I also recommend that you back-up your computer regularly. DH backs up all of our computers once a week on removable hard disks and stores the disks in a fire proof safe. This way, the most we would lose is a week's worth of data. So, keep your pics on your memory card until you're sure the data is safe somewhere, then delete the memory cards and re-use them.

There's no reason you can't put them on CD yourself, either. All you need is a writable CD drive. There's lots of software that allows you to crop, edit, and even caption your photos. You can even add background music to them if you want. I love modern technology!

-Dorothy (LadyZolt)

 

[CraftyMouse]

We always make a back-up CD of our photos and put that CD in our safe-deposit box. I usually wait until I have enough photos to fill a CD which sometimes means they sit on my computer until a couple of vacations go by. I do this with vacation photos, special occasion photos and some everyday photos.

 

[Jeanne B]

Another recommendation her for making sure you're backing up your computer, especially if that's the only place you're storing your pictures (although I need to practice what I preach, I have a new external hard drive still sitting in the box unopened).

 

[arbitrage]

I would also upload them to a photo site so you can order prints. It is usually cheaper to order them then to print yourself.

 

[PrincessTeresa]

We basically do the same thing the others posted do. I take them off the memory card and put them on the computer. From the computer, I put them on a CD (disk). The disk I take to WalMart and print out the pictures. Now I have a copy on a disk and hard copies. Which only gives me a great reason to buy another pretty photo album!!

 

[FatCat]

Another good option is to take a DVD-rom which will have 4.7 Gig of space and routinely take a large backup. Then put this DVD rom someplace offsite.

I throw mine in my desk at work.


The other option is to have an external hard drive. They are pretty cheap these days. I back up all my docs and keep the drive off site.

If you do not have access to a burner most of the camera places when you develop your pictures will also make a CD for you . Then you can empty your pictures manually from the memory sticks.

 

[swilphil]

I upload my pictures to www.shutterfly.com. That way if my computer dies, I won't lose them. I also can get to them from any computer with internet access. The site has been around for at least 4 years, so I don't think it's going anywhere.

 

[jann1033]

i back them up to a dvd ...i also have some of them on an external drive but the stinking thing takes forever to retrieve them( probably due to my less than speedy computer which we need to replace and haven't do as yet )

 

[Master Mason]

Another recommendation her for making sure you're backing up your computer, especially if that's the only place you're storing your pictures (although I need to practice what I preach, I have a new external hard drive still sitting in the box unopened).

Hard drives fail, it is a fact of life. You should be backing them up on CD's and or preferably DVD's as they store a lot more information. If you really want to be safe, there should be a second set stored offsite, and every couple of years the cd/dvds should be coppied and replaced.

I don't have the back up set of disks off site, but I do use smugmug and keep all of my photos there, so I have an offsite solution.

 

[Groucho]

Ditto what M.M. says - hard drives are only good for backups if you are storing the data in redundant places, and are checking them occasionally.

CDs are, quite frankly, pretty much obsolete at this point. You can pick up a DVD burner for all of thirty dollars nowadays, and DVDs cost much less on a "per meg" basis than CDs. The only reason I ever burn CDs any more is for MP3 CDs that I listen to in the car. (And I'm going to make sure that my next car radio can play MP3 DVDs!)

They're cheap enough (usually 20c each or just slightly higher when bought in a 50 or 100-pack) that I usually burn doubles of my photos, one as part of my normal backup DVDs and another as a photo-only DVD. The latter series go in my fire safe.

Also, make sure that whatever you're using to burn CDs/DVDs has "verify" turned on. On Nero, this is a checkbox available during the burn. On the Roxio/Sonic stuff, I believe you set it in the Project Properties. This will tell you immediately that your burnt disc is 100% error-free from the start.

 

[GrumpyOne]

Just realize that CDs & DVDs aren't a permanent archive solution. The ones that people create at home aren't of the same quality as ones pressed professionally and will often deteriorate in a shorter amount of time. It's not unusual for CDs burned a couple of years ago to be unreadable.

If you want to use CDs, your best bet for longevity is to be sure to put them in a protective sleeve or case and store them in a location out of the light in a room that doesn't have wide temperature variations. Don't store them in the attic, basement or garage, for instance.

 

[bostran1]

i back them up to a dvd ...i also have some of them on an external drive but the stinking thing takes forever to retrieve them( probably due to my less than speedy computer which we need to replace and haven't do as yet )

If your computer is really old (really old being probably 5-6 years old for a computer!) you probably still have USB 1 ports. The data rate through those USB ports is terrible. The computer I bought in 2000 had them and when I got my first iPod back in 2003, it took forever to put music on it!

When you get a new computer, it will have USB (or firewire) and you will notice a huge difference in the transfer speed (unless you're moving massive amounts of data like 5 gigs or more).

 

[Jeanne B]

Hard drives fail, it is a fact of life. You should be backing them up on CD's and or preferably DVD's as they store a lot more information.

I have a lot of my pics on DVD's but I'm almost as bad about getting that done as getting my external hard drive hooked up. About twice a year I get around to burning my pics to DVD's, not nearly often enough and one of these days I'm going to get caught which is why I'd feel better if I at least had my hard drive hooked up.

 

[webshark3]

My cards are:

1) Copied to External Hard Drive.
2) Copied to Mirror RAID on internal enclousure.
3) Compared and verified before erasing the memory cards.
4) Copied to DVD. The DVD is dated, and re-verified once a year for readability.
5) Older DVD 2-3 years are copied to newer media or DVD DLs, even if they are still readable.

Hey, you asked.

I can probably eliminate the last step buy buying archival dvds (100+ years).

DO NOT rely on CDs/DVDs as your only means of backup. The dye used in them can fade over time, making them unreadable.

 

[handicap18]

I always download my pictures to my external hard drive. From there I can download to an internet site or email or what ever.

Before I reformat any of my media cards, the pictures on those cards must always have been burned to a DVD. A few years ago I lost about 8 months worth of pictures because I deleted them off the memory card and the only place I had them was on my hard drive. The hard drive then failed and I lost everything that wasn't backed up.

I don't keep 2 copies of DVD's as some people do. However, it is a good idea going forward to reburn on newer DVD's to get the pics to last longer. Eventually there will be a better way for long term storage. Right now, reburn everything every 4-6 years just to be safe. You could also just keep buying new media cards. They are a more safe option than hard drives and DVD/CD's. However, just like with the other storage options, they too could fail, but their failure rate is lower if I'm not mistaken.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

1) Capture - I usually just capture to a CF or SD card. If it's something important, I have the camera mirror the images onto both cards or extra redundancy.

2) Import - I have Lightroom import the files and, when RAW, convert them to DNG. Lightroom imports to my local machine and to a RAID 5 NAS.

3) Once I've confirmed import into Lightroom and done a quick pass through the pictures, I format the card(s) in the camera.

4) I make a pass through Lightroom and tag the photos as keepers, rejects, or maybes. I delete the rejects. I keep the maybes but don't do anything with them. I do all of my work on the keepers. I occasionally promote a maybe, particularly when I decide I prefer it to a similar keeper.

5) When I'm done with my deletes and edits, I sync my local folder with the folder on the RAID 5 NAS.

5) At night, a backup job syncs the NAS with another similar NAS so that I have two online copies of each photo.

6) Each month, I run ArchiveCreator and build backup DVDs for the month. I make two copies of each disk and verify them all. One copy stays home and the other goes to my office.

I don't currently do any old disc checks. When I switched to DVDs, I rebuilt all of my CDs as DVDs. I plan to switch to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray next year, at which time I'll reburn all of my DVDs.

I also upload most of my finished JPGs to Smugmug.

Every few months, I sacrifice a fatted hummingbird to the gods of photo preservation and ask their blessing on my storage systems. I've lost two drives in my NAS boxes in the last 6 months, so I may need to change my offerings.

 

[photo_chick]

dump everything to the hard drive and throw it on a dvd as well. then I go through and share the keepers and burn a disc for family that wants it (namely Grandma). When all is said and done I make a master copy with my edits, originals, etc. and archive that on gold disc and put it away in my handy dandy firebox. I generally leave all my images on my second hard drive (got 4 internal drives currently with plans for a 5th.)to work with. Never know when I might want to use one of those and I hate digging out the disc.

 

[photo_chick]

Every few months, I sacrifice a fatted hummingbird to the gods of photo preservation and ask their blessing on my storage systems. I've lost two drives in my NAS boxes in the last 6 months, so I may need to change my offerings.

 

[tvguy]

I can probably eliminate the last step buy buying archival dvds (100+ years).

DO NOT rely on CDs/DVDs as your only means of backup. The dye used in them can fade over time, making them unreadable.

We bought some of those archival DVD's...but now we're hearing that they start deterioating after only 10 years. Of course, I wonder if DVD's players will even been around in 100 years ( I doubt I will be) , so the key is to make new backups on the latest technology for stuff you really want to keep.
We burn ours to CD, and print the ones we really want to keep.