How do you back up your photos?

[johngiam]

Hi guys, I am definitely new to photography.

Took a pause due to sch work and now wanted to get back in.

Previously, i don usually photoshop coz i not sure how and I just keep all the photos, so now i dig all of them out to see if i can beautify a bit through post processing.

Currently, I installed Photoshop cs3 and lightroom 2.2

so while editing I realised I not too sure what is the most space & time saving method to back up and store your photos without compromising the quality.

thought of a few and hope anyone out there can help me:

Method 1:
Zip up all the unprocessed photos and keep them in a hard disc or consolidate till 4gb then burn on to a dvd.
Those processed already just keep in an external hdd

However, this method I not too sure if zipping will spoil the file (eg, corrupt it) or compromises the quality when u unzip in future.


Method 2
Light Room 2.2 has a back up function but it only backup its catalog if i didnt remember wrongly. If I back up the catalog and lost all the photos, can I still burn them to almost the same quality as before i import them into LR2.

In other words, after i import the photos into light room two, can i move away the folders with the original jpegs in it? Can the LR2 still function if the directory of the source of photo changes?


Otherwise, I really don mind if you share your method of backup so I can pick a thing or two.

Seen my friend's friend who travels overseas to take photos, the way he stores photos gosh, he got tons of 3.5 hdd on his shelves.

 

[ziploc]

Zipping and unzipping will not cause any lost in picture quality. However, I doubt you would be able to save much space by zipping, if your pics are already in tif, png, or jpeg formats. I normally don't zip them up for storage.

For backup solution, method 1 is better. Here is what my friend (a professional photographer) does: 1 copy in the computer, 1 backup copy in DVDs, plus an additional backup in portable hard disk.

 

[iron symphony]

My brother and i use this

http://www.drobo.com/products/drobopro/

its only available in the states if i'm not wrong. But if you max it out with 2TB in each slot, that will give you 16TB in total. Enough to store photos for quite a bit of time.

 

[Snoweagle]

I just back up in my external HDD, simple as that.

 

[zac08]

As long as you keep the original pics and do not over-write them, you should be safe.

Best is to keep the RAW originals in archaive (DVD, back up HDD, etc...)

 

[johngiam]

thanks everyone for answering my questions, I think if it comes a day i maxed out my hdd then i burn those i hardly used into dvds haha, or maybe till then can burn into some bigger capacity discs haha

does anyone knows about method 2?

Method 2
Light Room 2.2 has a back up function but it only backup its catalog if i didnt remember wrongly. If I back up the catalog and lost all the photos, can I still burn them to almost the same quality as before i import them into LR2.

In other words, after i import the photos into light room two, can i move away the folders with the original jpegs in it? Can the LR2 still function if the directory of the source of photo changes?

Cause i realised my thread topic never mentioned about lr2 lol, no wonder no one answers.

 

[ziploc]

Do remember to back up your pics, especially the important ones. Hard disks will crash on you when you least expected. I've experienced 2 hard disks crash before and lost some pics, and one of them was less then a year old. Luckily I did back up those important ones...

 

[Octarine]

Method 2
Light Room 2.2 has a back up function but it only backup its catalog if i didnt remember wrongly. If I back up the catalog and lost all the photos, can I still burn them to almost the same quality as before i import them into LR2.

In other words, after i import the photos into light room two, can i move away the folders with the original jpegs in it? Can the LR2 still function if the directory of the source of photo changes?

Answer: No. Please make yourself familiar with LR2 before you screw your work.
LR2 contains of two main components:
- LR2 Catalogue - a database
- the imported pictures
Both works together, the database storing all your image information, development steps, cropping etc. The imported images are always kept in original status, they are never changed. After finishing your development work you need to export the picture. Then LR2 will ues the original file, apply all changes made and write a new output file. If you delete or move the original file then LR2 cannot work anymore.

You can find more details about this in "Digital Darkroom", including several threads dealing with similar questions. Also, there is another forum entire focused on Lightroom: http://www.lightroomforums.net/

 

[johngiam]

thanks ziploc, thanks octarine!

useful forum

 

[whizzard]

I store the back-ups in an external HDD. Lazy mah ......

 

[johngiam]

thanks everyone for sharing how u back up photos. I find my best suited way/workflow alr.