Photo Tips

Chris d'Aquin is a WeSay.com contributing writer.

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Whether you shoot digital or film, your photos are precious.  But they are also vulnerable.  There's not much worse than the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize a great shot — or a whole set of special shots — is gone forever.

This photo tip will concentrate on simple steps you can take to protect your digital photos.

Here are two main things you need to remember:

1. Create backups.

2. Establish a routine for storing your photos. 

(Creating backup files may make the most sense, but the establishing your routine is more important.)

You may not have thought of it this way, but as soon as you remove your memory card from the camera, you are storing your photos on it.  So your routine needs to start at that moment.

Here's what I do.  I keep all of my memory cards in a card wallet.  When I am taking photos — whether of a vacation, my kids’ sports tournament, or a birthday party — I put my empty memory cards in the wallet with the brand name facing out.  After a card is full, I put the card back into the wallet with the brand name facing in.  This way, whenever I reach for a new card I instantly know which ones are empty.

When I sit down at the computer, it also tells me what card(s) to download.  I have a special folder that all of my photos go into.  When the download is complete, I copy that folder to a separate hard drive for backup.  I found a great little utility from Microsoft called SyncToy that does the trick for me.  Apple's Time Machine is great too for you Mac users. Obviously, I'm most comfortably using SyncToy though, which is free, easy to understand and can be set up to copy only your new files to the backup location.

Once I know the backup process is finished, I stick the memory cards back in the camera and format each one.  Then I put them back into my memory card wallet with the brand name facing out so I'll know they're empty the next time I reach into the wallet.