backing up your digital image files

Happy New Year! I hope your 2023 is off to a great start. Mine sure is.

Each new year finds me filing paperwork, organizing my office, and finishing up my end-of-the-year image archiving.

Because all my portrait sessions include digital image files I wanted to share some “behind the scenes” of what I do to keep your image files safe, as well as things you can do to protect the digital image files you receive as part of your session.

How I ensure the safety of your digital portrait files

There’s a saying in the computer world: it’s not IF a hard drive will fail, it’s WHEN.

I happened to be at the Apple Store at the same time as a dear friend when she learned her laptop hard drive had crashed and there was nothing that could be done to retrieve what was on it. Every photo she’d taken of her son–infancy through toddler years, and every photo of her daughter’s first year were gone. Her heartbreak was awful to witness and I knew then that a consistent backup plan was necessary for my work.

After each portrait session I make two copies of the image files on separate hard drives. Each media card is kept out of rotation until the images are retouched and delivered to the client; I do this in case something happens and I need to get back to the source files. Once client files have been delivered, the media card is formatted and put back into rotation to be used again at another session.

It doesn’t happen often but through the years clients have contacted me saying they’ve had a computer fail and do I possibly still have their images? I’m happy to say I have an archive of every portrait session I’ve done going back to 2006.

Best practices for backing up your digital images

When you download your digital image files from my online server, Shootproof, they automatically go to your computer’s download folder. It’s fine to keep your photos on your computer but be sure to back them up to a second location…an external hard drive, a thumb drive, or even an online storage location like Dropbox, Google Drive or Amazon Photos. Having a backup is a great way to ensure you have access to your images if one storage solution goes belly-up.

Ordering prints of your portraits is a great way to ensure you’ll not lose your favorites even if you do experience a hard drive crash.

I’ve experienced drive fails…yes, even client drive fails…but they’ve never been catastrophic because I have a solid backup system in place.

If you’re not sure about backing up or how best to do it let’s discuss it at your portrait session. Your digital portraits should bring you joy, not heartache.