Backing up your photos

Category
Consumer IT
Submitted by Andy on

Introduction

Many people take photos on their camera and don't print them off or back them up to their computer. This is a terrible waste and they could potentially loose all their pictures. Backing up you pictures is essential to keep them and your memories save.

There are a few principals I like to work on.

  1. If you're file isn't on 3 separate drives in different locations it doesn't exist.
  2. Never store more on a memory card (without backing it up) than you can afford to loose.

The first principal is well known amongst IT people. It was from a time when storage media was less reliable. However it is still true today. Ideally you want any important files stored on more than 1 drive in more than physical location.

The second is well known (but often forgotten) by photographers. Imagine the following situations.

  • You loose the camera or card after a photoshoot or once in a life time holiday. The camera contained all your pictures. You've now lost every photo you took and can't easily replace them.
  • You're memory card stops working with all you photos on. Again you've lost everything.

Using many different cards and safely storing them you reduce the chance of loosing everything.

The best thing you can do is backup your photos regularly (to multiple places). To do this you will need to copy your photos off of your camera.

There are 2 main ways most people take photos.

  1. Smartphone or tablet
  2. Dedicated digital camera

There are different recommended ways of getting you photos off the different devices.

From a Phone

For lots of people their smartphone is their primary camera. Instructions for Android and iPhones differ. I have written a tutorial explaining the options for Android phone. For iPhone please look at the following external resources.

https://www.wikihow.com/Transfer-Photos-from-iPhone-to-PC

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201302

From a digital camera

Most decent digital cameras use removable memory cards (usually SD or Micro SD style cards). I have written a short tutorial on the options for copying photos from a digital camera.

Level
Beginner
Tags
Backup