Long term photo storage.

Ok, I haven't been avoiding the "how do you color correct your photos?" question...it's just not an easy answer - so I'm planning on getting to it when I have a little more time (promise).

I do want to take a bit of time to talk about long term storage of your photos though.

It's a topic that we discuss during my "Picture This" class and it's a topic that I feel like I still have a lot to learn on.

Sooooooooo...

My goal here is to share what info. I do have (taking into account that I am NOT an expert in this field), but to also get information from all of you (just leave a comment in the comment section if you have anything to add to the discussion so that everyone else can read it too).

And here we go...

I have two external hard drives (an external hard drive is just a little box that connects to your computer and stores information).  I decided on using external hard drives 1. because I felt (and I may be wrong) that they would be less susceptible to viruses than my computer and 2. because in the event of a fire, it would be easier to grab those boxes than it would be to grab my entire computer.

I use one of the external hard drives to store my photos and the other to store my artwork for Creative Imaginations and other companies I work with.

One of those hard drives crashed recently though.  Thankfully, it was the one with all of my Creative Imaginations artwork, which was a HUGE deal (I lost 6 weeks worth of work that I hadn't backed up), but in comparison to losing all of my photos, (I had about 3 months worth that weren't backed up at the time), which would have devastated me...I was lucky.

Took it to a specialist to see if they could salvage any of the files - no luck.

Lesson learned.

In discussing this during some recent classes - I've met plenty of people who have lost all or several years worth of photos.

The thought of which, makes my stomach flip and my heart race.

And that's exactly why I wanted to share this with you.

The bottom line is that you have to back this stuff up to more than one location.  And that no single storage method is full-proof.  Here's some options:

1.  A computer.  Keeping in mind that computers crash and are susceptible to viruses.

2. An external hard drive.  They crash too though and can be affected by things like viruses, power outages, being dropped, etc. (just like a computer) and will eventually need to be replaced (a computer guy told me that the average life of an external hard drive is about 3 years - but it could be more and it of course, could be less)

3. A photo hosting site or photo lab.  There's a ton of them out there.  And I'm not familiar with all of them.  I use www.scrapbookpictures.com.  They offer free, permanent storage of any photo that you upload considering you purchase one print a year from them (so I guess that means that it actually costs you about 18 cents per year - the cost of a 4x6 print - to store your photos).  If you shoot digital, you just send them a disk, or upload via a high-speed Internet connection.  If you're shooting film - you just send them your film (3 bucks to develop and upload to your account) and they automatically save it.  I think I've got about 28,000 photos currently saved on their site.

4. CD's or DVD's.  I used to think that this was a great source of back up until I read this article, which basically says that when you are recording on a CD or DVD that you don't know whether or not you are getting a good quality initial recording (just because your computer tells you that it was a successful recording, doesn't mean that the "quality" of the recording was good)  and that if the quality of your recording was not good, that you can begin to loose information on that CD in as little as 6 months.  Even with a good recording, consumer grade material (like the kind of CD's or DVD's that you pick up from the office supply store), a CD is only expected to last between 1-5 years.  Archival grade material (which is also discussed in the article) can last much longer (up to 200 years), but again, that is assuming a "good initial recording" (and I don't think there is any way to know whether or not you got a "good initial recording").

Here's a link to some archival grade DVD's.

I don't think that I would use CD's or DVD's for a first or second back-up of my photos though (maybe a 3rd) because of the concerns with getting a good initial recording and with the fact that as technology changes, CD's and DVD's will become obsolete (gone the way of the dinosaur just like VHS tapes).

Another important note is that CD's and DVD's should only be stored in jewel cases (because jewel cases prevent the recorded side of the CD from coming into contact with anything other than air) - which means no envelopes or plastic sleeves.

Given all that, here's what I am currently doing:

I store all of my photos on an external hard drive (which I am planning to replace every 2 years) and I also store them all at www.scrapbookpictures.com.  If my external hard drive ever crashes, I would pay for ScrapbookPictures.com to copy all of my photos to DVD's and then I would immediately, copy those DVD's back to a new external hard drive. 

Scrapbookpictures.com has their own methods of back-up, and have been in business since 1949 - so I have no concerns with them losing my photos or going out of business - but I still want two forms of back-up and that's why I store my pictures on my external hard-drive also.

It's a lot of work to stay on top of it all.  It's easy for me to get lazy and not upload my photos to both my external hard drive and Scrapbookpicture.com the same day my photos were taken - but I'm working hard on it.

And if you've got years worth of photos to back-up - that's a daunting process too.  To organize them, to upload them all , etc.

But my recommendation if you only have a single source of back-up for your photos right now, or if you have any photos on CD or DVD (and if all of this is more than you can tackle right now), is to go out  TODAY and purchase an external hard-drive.  Don't worry about having all of your photos perfectly organized into specific folders, don't worry about photos you want to delete or edit, just take every single photo you have saved on your computer or CD and copy them to that external hard-drive.

THEN, after they're all backed up - you can slowly take on the task of organizing your photos into specific folders, editing & deleting photos and getting all of your photos saved to another back-up system like a photo hosting site or photo lab.

But at least for now, you can feel a little more rest assured, knowing that you have a back-up of all of your photos.

Here's how I organize my folders:

I have a folder for each year, 2006, 2007, etc. and then inside each of those yearly folders, I have a folder for each month, 01 for Jan., 02 for Feb., etc. and then inside each of those monthly folders, I have specific "event" folders, for example, in the 2007 file folder, I have a folder for the month of October, and inside that "October" folder, I have additional folders for events, such as "Halloween", "Pumpkin Patch", "Cole's Birthday", etc. - all of which makes finding a specific photo very easy.  I have these same files set up on both my external hard-drive and on www.scrapbookpictures.com.

Another important note is that anytime you work on a photo (crop, color-edit, etc.), you need to save it under a NEW file name.  If you work on a photo and then save it under the SAME file name, your computer saves the new, edited file and deletes the old, original file.  Unfortunately, every time you work on an image, save it and then open it again (a JPEG image - which is how the vast majority of us save or photos), you begin to loose quality in that image, which therefore, makes it very important that you always save any photos that you work on under a new name (I usually just keep the file name the same, but add the letter E or an E1 or an E2 to the end of the file name to tell myself that this is an "edited" version of this photo), so that your original file is never replaced or deleted.

If I think of anything else to add - I'll add it in red text, so you won't have to read through everything again and I'll store this in the "photography tips" section of my blog (which you can find in the left hand column), so that you can refer to it again if you need to. 

I'd love to hear your comments though.  Anything you want to add that you've read or done that works for you. 

Dang...that took a lot longer than I had anticipated.

Josh says that I shouldn't recommend grabbing your external hard drives if your house is on fire. 

Soooooo...if your house is on fire and you've safely escaped- don't run back in your house to get your external hard-drive (but if it happens to be located somewhere on your way out of the house and you can grab it quickly...).

Comments

[Misti]

And we thank you for investing your time in our Photos! We love you!

[laura vegas]

this is awesome info! i totally appreciate you sharing all your photo tips, editing info, and storage ideas. i think i'm doing everything pretty much like you have down. i havn't been using the cd's because i hear they're not going to last. although i hadn't ever heard about the external harddrives needing to be replaced after a few years ... good to know. all this photo stuff is so time consuming ... but totally worth it if ever something were to happen. thanks karen!

[laura vegas]

you added that last part as i was leaving my comment ... that is good to remember though. so true that it's much easier to grab a little box than to grab the entire computer. sadly i know i could never get all my albums out of the house ... they're all upstairs (i may be rethinking that).
and just a note ... i also save pictures of all my layouts on my computer and external too. i take the pics to submit them ... so why not save those too.

[Gina]

Thanks for the great info. After taking your class a couple weeks ago, I have started uploading all our photos to Scrapbook Pictures. That process takes some time.........

[Becky (beckywed)]

Hey Karen --

Great info. I am incredibly paranoid about my photos and my solution is as follows: I put my photos on 1) my computer; 2) my external hard drive 3) a CD/ DVD AND 4) www.ofoto.com (photo website). Then I make a photo chart saying if I have the photos in all locations and if they are printed. Can you tell I am a little type A? :) It sounds crazy but I feel like I really have everything covered and I am protected in multiple ways! Good luck to everyone in their storage proces and please remember to BACK UP! I didn't for years and lost 3 hard drives worth of work (but never photos) so please, BACK UP your files and your photos!

Becky (aka: beckywed)

[Davean]

Thanks so much for all your tips!!! I am still using film but am about to make the switch to digital (and I haven't so far because of the work it is going to take to keep them backed up). I have thought about using a flash drive for backup, but not sure how long they will be around either. So, on scrapbookpictures.com, are you able to download them back to your hard drive yourself or do they have to be the ones to do it? (Like when you right click on a pic from the internet and it lets you "save pic as..."

[Maria Yarasavich]

Karen, I am taking your classes on April 29th at the Scrapbook Clubhouse in Westbrook, CT (WOO HOO!!!)
I am definitely looking forward to learning more about photo storage (and the importance of grabbing things like the DOG before the external hard drive...)
BTW - I love the Pottery Barn card holder you bought - I totally understand buying things and then storing them - My boyfriend keeps putting all my stuff up in the attic - Should I grab the external hard drive in the event that the roof falls????

See you on the 29th!!!
I cant wait

Maria Yarasavich

[Carolyn Hall]

Hey Maria,
I will be there too. See you then.
Carolyn

[Melissa S-E]

May I add that it would not be unwise to have TWO external hard drives (they're becoming less expensive daily)... put ONE in a safe deposit box and then have the other one attached to your computer. Swap them out (updating each time) so there is always a FAIRLY current version @ the bank... the most that you could lose is whatever wasn't backed up yet; maybe a month's worth of photos? Sounds like a good deal to me! THANKS SO MUCH for the tips, Karen! :) - - A Chat Groupie. :->

[Laura]

thank you...thank you...thank you.... thank you for taking the time to share your insights and lessons learned with us. it is a good reminder for me. I have been haphazard about my backups (mostly everything is on shutterfly...) but finally, i have an external drive on the way. :) You really are the best!!!!!!

[Tanya Webster]

i agree with laura...you really are the best...not many people would take so much time to type out so much helpful information! YOU ROCK!!! :)

If anyone else needs a little help moving in the right direction...I will tell a short story about a years' worth of pictures that I lost off of my computer (virus ate them)....birthdays for that year, our house being built, etc. etc. i was sick to my stomach and LUCKY me i had uploaded them to scrapbookpictures.com but did not remember it until a few weeks after i realized my photos were gone (and after I spent almost 200 dollars on software to try and recover anything off of my computer)....lesson learned...now I am just getting them uploaded as i can (and yup, have an external hard drive now too!) thought i'd add my 2 cents :)

[Marcy]

Thanks a lot Karen! I'm currently keep the current month of photos on my laptop. After the month is over I copy it to a disc, leave the discs at my store and copy the file to my external harddrive. I'm looking into an online photo site as well.

[maryjo]

thnx karen! this is awesome information. i just bought a stack of cds to back-up my photos & i'm glad i read this before i started this HUGE task. i used snapfish & recently started using scrapbookpictures ('cuz of u & ali). my storing system is similar, w/ year folder then by months & events. i love this as well, fairly easy to locate most stuff. so now i think i need an external drive, huh! thnx so much for the tips. maryjo

[Libbi]

Another great online site for storing photos is www.costco.com I use them all the time. I can also order prints online and I can swing by the photo lab and pick them up at my convenience. They are so great. Libbi :-)

[LawrenBC]

Great information! I am going to put a link to this on my blog so that all my scrapbook buddies can see this comprehensive article. Thanks!

[Kim Branson]

Thanks for this great article and for affirming my desire for an external hard drive! I have thousands of photos on my laptop and only a small portion of them have been copied to disk. Lately, I've been having to "clean up" my "temporary files" as I get a "your hard drive is full" message several times a day.

After finishing your storage article, I turned to my DH and said I would really appreciate receiving "a good external hard drive" for Mother's Day this year (last year I got a photo printer, the year before I got wooden cabinets for my scrap/stamp supplies...Mother's Day is the only time my family gifts me with anything craft-related!!), so hopefully he will seriously consider it :).

Thanks again for your enlightening article!

-- kimB

[Kelly]

Thank you for all of the info. Last year I lost a lot of pics (including Thanksgiving AND Christmas from 2005) and since then have been backing mine up on CDs. Well, now I know that probably isn't the best plan. Thanks for the insights. One thing I wanted to add was that I uploaded my pics to another online site before and ordered a ton of prints and when I went back later to order more they were all gone- yikes! So it is good to know there are other sites that do store them long-term.

[Lisa D.]

Our computer crashed during our move to another state last year. I had backed-up photos onto CD's. When we finally purchased a new computer, I got out the CD's, I was only going to add 2005 & the early 2006. Well, a couple of those 2005 discs, didn't take, like I thought they did. I lost some of the baby's first year. So bummed. We put a new hard drive on the crashed comp. & I keep pic's on both now. However, I was still backing up, now to DVD. From your research, sounds like that's not much better. Thanks for your info. I'll now start trying to be better about uploading to the internet site.

[Lisa D.]

Our computer crashed during our move to another state last year. I had backed-up photos onto CD's. When we finally purchased a new computer, I got out the CD's, I was only going to add 2005 & the early 2006. Well, a couple of those 2005 discs, didn't take, like I thought they did. I lost some of the baby's first year. So bummed. We put a new hard drive on the crashed comp. & I keep pic's on both now. However, I was still backing up, now to DVD. From your research, sounds like that's not much better. Thanks for your info. I'll now start trying to be better about uploading to the internet site.

[Stacey]

one other thought -- rather than a safety deposit box @ the bank, i put my backups (1) in a fire and waterproof safe and (2) routinely burn CDs and pass them along to my mom for her to keep at her house. i'm definitely going for an external hard drive though, after reading this! i knew CDs weren't GREAT, but they seem to be even MORE unreliable than i had originally thought...

[falwyn]

There's also Winkflash.com -- I get my photos there, they have a new uploading utility that makes it easier to get it all on there, and they don't even have a minimum order -- they'll just keep it on there forever.

[Laura]

To make backing up your files easier, you can use a back up program. Windows has one that comes with your operating system. You mark what folders you want backed up and it will automatically back everything up daily at the same time, and I think you may be able to back up weekly or monthly also.

[Ivonne]

I was reading your page about storing pictures and now i dont feel so alone :) I am also a victim of an external hard drive crash. Still no clue as to what caused it but I was so sure it wouldnt happen and I did not place the pictures in any other place...wrong move...I lost 4 years of family pictures . I could not believe that they were forever gone, but same thing happened to me...we took it to experts and there was no fixing.

I bought now another external drive with 500G (I had 80G before). They say maybe it was almost full and that made it crash. Now I back up in DVD's and at different places where you can buy prints later on...not only one place but several. I also send out pics to my friends when we have get togethers or when we go out places, that way they benefit from having them and I do too in case my computer decides to take all my pictures again. That is how I was able to recuperate 30% of my family pictures, trough friends whom I had sent pictures too.

Thanks for all the tips :)

xoxo

Ivonne

[Sherry]

WOW! I just happened upon your blog and now i know why! I have been trying diligently to find an effective way to store my photos and wondered WHAT??? to do!
Thank you so much for taking the time to save ALL our photos!
Blessings!
Sherry

[{sara}]

my family has a smugmug site. it's so great. it does cost some money, but we LOVE it. http://smugmug.com we've been totally happy with it.

oh i just found your blog and love it. after i start and finish dancing professionally i want to dive into the photography world. which i've already started to do.