When you first started taking digital photos the whole world was at your fingertips. You took pictures of everything and then it happened. You find out that you needed a place to store those images and probably a new computer, extra memory chips, CD’s DVD’s and storage devices to keep the whole world that you have just photographed backed up on.

Getting this workflow in place is pretty easy. Yet doing it is something at eludes even some professionals. For the life of me I can't figure out why some pros find it OK to simply burn a CD or DVD for their customers and send them on their merry way never hearing from them again and likely deleting them as quickly as they met them. I have to believe that YOUR images are more important to you than that. If they are, read on. 

Workflow issues aren’t that hard to maintain. If you think of your image maintenance like backing up the history of your life it makes it quite easy. Let’s begin at the beginning.

1) Taking Your Photos – It’s a quality thing
Your best quality image on most cameras is the RAW setting.  This is a great way to shoot however, it requires you to use a post shooting method of converting the images into files that can be printed. If you wish to avoid doing this, you should be shooting at the highest JPEG setting with the finest quality available on your camera.

Nikon = JPEG – Fine,  Canon =  a reverse quarter moon, and an L Olympus is SHQ. Check your manual for your camera’s best JPEG setting.

2) Importing your images to your computer is the next step
This will vary depending on your computer, programs, connection methods etc. We will cover one way of downloading your images here and that will be the basic software that comes with your camera. When you get your camera, install that software, connect your camera with the cable that was supplied to your computer and follow the prompts to organize your images.

Western Digital Passport External Drive

3) Organizing your images in files
This too is a very “personalized sort of thing but there is one aspect that everyone should adhere to. Do not store your images on your computer’s main hard drive or the C: drive. Purchase a separate external drive to put your images onto. These drives have become quite inexpensive and can literally fit in your pants pocket. We recommend the Western Digital Passport drives. These little drives come in massive storage capacities up to 1 TB in size and the cost is manageable at around $100.  When your software asks you where to save your images, choose your new external drive as the location. This will keep your computer running quickly and efficiently. 

4) Backing up your backups
Ok, you have one backup of your photos, this is a good thing. Don’t erase that media card in your camera quite yet though. If your computer has a CD or a DVD burner on it, you will want to burn a disk of the files you just backed up. This now gives you 2 backups of your images and you can erase that camera card and use it again.  Why the second backup on disk you ask?  Well the long and short answer is that hard drives fail, if they do you will have a CD or DVD that you can use to restore your files. Plus having a CD or DVD of your images allows you to easily transport them to your local lab for printing. You will want to get some 3 ring binders, add a few CD DVD page holders to it and store them in a cool dry place for easy access. 

Lifepics Offsite Storage

5) Offsite storage
This is a neat way to really, REALLY protect your images.  There are several online solutions for backing up your images on your computer. You will want to make sure that you are using one that is 1) reliable and easy to access and 2) doesn’t cost you a great deal of money. We of course recommend the Lifepics system of backing up your images.
This system has two storage options; one is free but only stores your images in a 4x6 size. The other is actually very inexpensive at $69 for a 2 year subscription that stores your images in their original size. You can have the system look for your photos in your computer, no matter where you have stored them or choose to have specific drives, like your external drive backed up. Currently this solution is only available for PC users.

For a Mac solution our recommendation is Carbonite while the system isn’t as robust, it does work on a Mac and just like any online solution, will protect your data from catastrophic failures such as fire or natural disasters.

Pixurelab Online Digital Photo Printing

6) The very best backup of all – Double Prints
In our last couple of articles we talked about backing up your systems and some of the benefits. Unfortunately even the best backups can fail. The very VERY best way to back up your images is to print duplicate copies of your pictures. Put one in a photo album and send the other one to a close relative or family member that was in the shot with you or just for safe keeping. In this way you will always have a backup and your friend or family member will love you because you have sent them a number of great photos from your life.
 
This is a very basic workflow for anyone. Professionals will add things like post production i.e. Photoshop, Lightroom, iPhoto or Aperture corrections to their imagery prior to storage. Their input, output and storage methods though are just like yours. In short start oganizing your images on your computer, print those very special ones at a high quality print house and then use a good solid off site storage facility to insure that your precious memories are safe even from the forces of nature.  – Aloha