How to Best Store Your Digital Photographic Memories and Organize Them
Stock Image by Andrea Piacquadio
There are a lot of things I like about digital vs. film, but a lot of things I also hate. In a digital world, it may be easier and more cost effective to capture your memories, but storing and organizing them can be a challenge! I can’t tell you how many times I get the message, “I wanted to get a couple more images from our session printed and I can’t find them, do you still have them?” Or “I put our USB in the computer and I get an error message….don’t suppose you still have them do you?” Getting these messages is a weekly thing for me. And don’t say I didn’t warn you! I always tell my clients to BACK UP THEIR IMAGES, but few rarely do!
What is Image Backup?
Let’s be clear about what image backup means. ALWAYS KEEP TWO COPIES OF YOUR IMAGES, minimum, on two different forms of technology. Store one copy in one location, and one in another, and I don’t mean in a drawer in your office and another in a drawer in your kitchen. I mean two SEPARATE locations, should something truly terrible happen. And by two forms of technology, I mean one physical form (computer, external hard drive, USB) and the other being a cloud based storage platform.
I shoot 500 sessions a year, and when you come back to me and ask for images because you lost them, it isn’t an easy task to always locate them….especially when it is images from a decade ago. Think about it this way….you lost one file….I shoot 500+ a year for almost 20 years, that’s a lot of files to keep organized and readily available to just bring back up when someone can’t find theirs. While I do maintain hard drives with all the old images (and by the way, most photographers don’t keep images beyond xx days/months, I’m a rarity), I don’t guarantee I will have them for a lot of reasons, but we won’t get into those. I’ll be honest - I hate getting these messages. My organization wasn’t always as stellar as it is currently, plus technology has changed greatly over the years, so locating old images can be a painstaking task for any photographer. I love when I can find the photos and give my clients their memories back, but it is very time consuming for me when a client could easily prevented this by saving multiple copies themselves.
So, that leads to the important question…….
What is the best way to store your images?
Technology is constantly changing. Floppy Discs, CDs, DVDs, USB, CF cards, SD cards, computers, hard drives……I’ve used them all over the many years I’ve been in business. And guess what? You can’t even access some of that technology anymore! So as far as storing on a physical form of technology, go with what is currently available and easiest for you to access within a relatively short period of time (say a year or two). This is the “everyday” copy you have should you need it for easy recall. This kind of technology is not fail safe, but it is convenient, and portable versions are usually best if you feel like you may print a few down the road. The bad thing: all of this technology can corrupt or just stop working. It can also get misplaced.
There is only one thing I don’t foresee becoming obsolete anytime soon, and that is Cloud Based Storage, the second form of backup I suggest.
Not only can you access it from multiple devices, should one of your devices become unusable (like if your computer dies), but it is newer technology so don’t say ‘never’, plus I can’t 100% say with certainty that in the future, it may not be subject to cyber attacks or loss of some kind. It is still technology. If your photographs mean something to you, you should be saving them to a cloud based storage as a long term storage solution, but your physical copy will still be a failsafe in the very rare case something happens to your online storage (p.s. write down your username and password!)
There are some companies that allow free storage for so many GB, then upgradable for a lifetime or yearly fee to add more space. Here are a few of the best.
DROPBOX: 2gb free and paid storage options for larger plans starting at $9.99 month
SYNC: 5 gb free, larger plans starting at $8 month
ICEDRIVE: 10 gb free, lifetime or monthly plans available
MEGA: 20 gb free, monthly and yearly plans available
Cloud based storage just requires you to upload the images online. You can usually sort them by name and year, so select a descriptive name for your session that you can easily search by and keep all the images in a single file folder. Some even allow for subfolders, so you could say, name the main folder, “Professional Portraits” and have subfolders inside for each session, making them easily searchable in the future should you want to find them.
Other File Storage Tips
Apply these tips to your own personal home photos as well.
Don’t let photos sit on your SD card or phone for too long - these are fairly unstable forms of storage…easily deletable and corruptable. Plus I don’t know about you, but those SD cards are so tiny and easy to lose!!!!
Commit to organization. Keep a dedicated photo folder along with subfolders that have descriptive titles that are easily searchable on both your hard drive and cloud based storage platform.
Along the lines of organization….if you don’t want to drown in a sea of images, delete. Get rid of duplicates or unflattering images you don’t see yourself ever wanting.
Print your photos! One of the better ways to ensure you don’t lose them is to print them in a timely manner!!!!! I personally love photo books. It is a great way to print them all, and a book is a lot easier to keep track of and takes up a lot less space than stacks of prints. Even if you print them out as a “yearly album” that tells the story of your life, be sure to print them. I promise you’ll enjoy looking back at them ten years down the road anyways.
BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS. Don’t rely on photos staying safe in just one place. I actually maintain three copies of photos until they’ve been archived for two years, then go down to two copies. Better safe than sorry!
Stock Photo by Vlada Karpovich