Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Chapter 7. Backing Up Your Photo Library

If you ever see a photographer running from a burning building, chances are her arms are full of photos. After all, most photos are literally irreplaceable; it’s impossible to go back to that place and time and capture that image. One of the dangers of digital photography is that your shots are vulnerable to accidental deletion, hard drive crashes, and other electronic snafus. But every cloud has a silver lining and in this case it’s that digital pictures are very easy to copy. You can make unlimited copies, in fact, and each one’s a picture-perfect, exact duplicate of the original. There’s no excuse for not having a foolproof backup plan and following it faithfully. That’s what this chapter is all about.

Although you can manually copy photo files using Windows XP, it’s generally much, much easier to recruit some help from a program like Picasa or EasyShare and use its built-in backup feature. This chapter also has advice on when to back up and an overview of backup media options like CDs, DVDs, and hard drives.

Tip

If you own Photoshop Elements, you’ve got a superior backup tool right in the program’s Organizer. Peruse the first part of this chapter for general backup strategies and then skip to Section 8.7 to learn the simple procedure for backing up your photos from within Elements.

Strategies to Protect Your Photos

Photos from your digital camera may not fade, crumble, or turn yellow like your grandfather’s old prints, but they’re vulnerable ...