i take lot's of photos. i really do. and i get asked often, usually after someones computer has crashed, how to backup files etc.
luckly backing up files is really easy, and with a little proactive behavior you can avoid most of the dreadful side effects that come when your computer dives head first into the grave.
First and foremost, don't get lulled into a sense of security. Just because your computer normally works does not mean it always will. And when computers crash it usually happens in a ball of fire that leaves you crying and spending days trying to restore files.
Once your have this happen to you, you will swear up and down that you'll never let it happen again. But you will, unless you have a WORKFLOW for backing up your files.
The FIRST law of back up is redundancy. Put everything in two places. Trust me on this, technology is not always safe or stable. That hard drive will crack, and that cd will get scratched, eaten, or thrown away. Double back things up.
The SECOND law is to not get lazy. If you are pulling your photos off, follow your workflow. You'll get fast at it, I promise.
The THIRD law is organize. If you don't organize your files right away, you'll spend ooddles of time trying to find stuff - which is a major pain.
Okay here goes.
1st.
Copy your CF Card, memory card or whatever to your computer. These files will be saves on the internal hard drive of your computer. You can leave them here for your first copy. But I suggest moving them to an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE.
Why? Because your internal computers hard drive gets a workout all the time. You are constantly reading data from it and writing data to it. If any of your hard drives are going to fail, it'll probably be this one, and then you'll cry. I'm currently a fan of the SEGATE hard drives. I've purchased about 25 of these and only one has totally crashed. The one that crashed was a 1.5tb, so i've been shying away from those. Stay in the 1tb family of hard drives. And I even suggest the 500gb. Don't keep all of your eggs in one basket, it's just not safe.
Here's a picture of the current hard drive's I like. I'm also a fan of their mini hard drives and the toshiba mini hard drives - which are cheaper. but don't be a cheapskate on your hard drives. go with a good brand. just trust me on that one.
2nd
Now that your files are on your external hard drive. Put them in the proper folder. I prefer this system. The titles are the titles of the folders. This is just an example.
YEAR
MONTH
ACTIVITY
DATE
an example of this would be.
2009/March/JonasBabyBlessing/15March2009/Negatives(in this folder would be all of the pictures)
I use a mac and I also rename all of my files. I use a program called "A Better Finder Rename" I suggest finding a program for your system.
So all of my files in that negatives folder would look like this
2009_15March_SimonJonas_Babyblessing.jpg
Then i know EXACTLY what those photos are of.
This step takes about 1 minute.
3rd
BACK UP YOUR PICTURES.
Burn them on a cd, stick the cd in a cd wallet and bam. I like TOAST to burn files on my mac. PC's are pretty easy too. Just find something easy for you to use.
4th
Touch up your photos however you like. when you are done touching up, burn those touched up files to a cd. Easy peasy, no more tears.
1 very worthwile comments:
Hey Darby, this is the a barkley st haunt,lol. I enjoy your blog and the backup info is just want I need to hear right now. Thanks for the recommendation of brands for external hard drives. I'm going to go to it all right now.
Jonas is one cute kid but all the those Schnepf grand kids are good looking from what I can tell from my blog lurking. I have tried several times to pull up J's "with in means" and it comes through all jumbled. Just an FYI, it looks like an interesting site. Sorry for the book. :)
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