How to back up and store digital photos

Knowing how to back up and store digital photos is one of the most important skills and one of the first things that any photographer, from budding amateur to professional, needs to know.

So you love to take pictures.You have photos of all of your family events, all of your vacations, and numerous other things that were simply beautiful.Where do you store all of these great digital photos?On your computer, of course.And then one day you turn your computer on, you're typing a report or organizing your photos, and boom-your computer crashes.Your hard drive is melted.All of your photos-thousands of your photos-are gone.Years of family and personal history have disappeared.

Think that this won't happen to you?Think about how often your computer freezes.Do you really trust it completely?No matter how fantastic you think your computer is, you need to back up and store all of your digital photos.

Backing up your digital photos is incredibly easy and convenient, thanks to recent advances in computer technology.The easiest way to back up and to store your digital photos is with an external hard drive.For example, if you purchase a 750 GB external hard drive, such as the Seagate 750 GB external hard drive, you will be able to store over 38,000 digital photos.This is true even for photos of a very large size, such as a 20MB photos.

In fact, purchase two or more external hard drives.It would be wise to have your photos on your computer.Then copy your digital photos onto an external hard drive that you will constantly keep at your house.Also store an external hard drive full of your backup photos at another location, such as a trusted friend's house or a family member's house.Then, every time you visit their house, you can back up your files.If something happens to your computer and/or one of your external hard drives, then you will still have back up.This is not paranoia-it's simple common sense.

Some people prefer to back up and to store their digital photos on DVDs.Every time you upload your photos onto your computer, you can burn them onto DVDs.It is recommended that you burn them onto more than one DVD, according to the same technique applied above to external hard drives, in case something happens.

However, burning photos onto DVDs is much more time consuming than simply copying them onto your external hard drive.So think carefully about your dedication when it comes to backing up and storing your digital photos.If you are pressed for time, then an external hard drive would probably be a better way to go.

There are a number of different ways that you can archive your digital photos.A number of programs commonly come with computers, so that you don't have to purchase other, more expensive programs.There are also a number of free photos organization, storage, and archiving options available.An example is Picassa, which is associated with Mozilla Firefox.Adobe also offers a free photo storing service, which will let you upgrade to a more advanced version for a fee.Windows XP also includes a photo organizational and storage and improvement program.
All of these programs will also enable you to easily burn all of your digital photos to a CD or to a DVD.
There are also a number of sites online where you can store and organize you digital photos.Shutterfly at www.shutterfly.com is free to use.Kodak EasyShare Gallery at www.kodakgallery.com is another convenient way to store your photos.However, you will be required to purchase something within one year.Also look into using Flickr to organize your photos and to use them on your blog or website.