I don't usually participate in these, but Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer does this thingy called Works for Me Wednesday. Today is backwards edition, so instead of me giving you my oh-so-brilliant advice, I'm begging for yours.
Here is the problem...over the past 5 1/2 years I have taken thousands of pictures of my kiddos. Thousands. And our desktop has reached it's limits. Actually it reached it's limits a couple of months ago, but I thought that it would change it's mind. It hasn't. So I have a couple of hundred pictures on my camera that I need to download, with no place to do so.
I have gone through and deleted some pictures off the hard drive and that freed up some space, but not enough to even download what is on my camera. Almost all of my pictures have been uploaded to Snapfish, some have been copied to an external hard drive and some have been copied to CD. But I am still not feeling confident about the organization or storage of my most precious possessions (after my kids, family, friends, bible...you get the drift). And the BIG question is after I have them backed up somewhere else, do I delete them off my hard drive?!? The thought makes me SO nervous!
Puleeze help a girl out and give me some ideas of how you store and organize all the photo's on your computer. I would be ever so grateful. Then after you have helped this not-so-tech-savy girl. Go on over here to see if there are any other questions you can help a sista' out with!
Thanks (super big air kiss!)...
6 comments:
As a pro photog, please take my advice and get those precious pictures off your computer! Hard drives crash all the time and you could lose them all.
Best way to deal with it is to organize pictures by month into different folders on your desktop. Rename all the pics in each folder: like Jan.2008, Feb. 2008, etc.
Then burn 2 disks for each month (or year depending on how many pics you have) Why 2 disks? Those fail too. I actually have one whole disk I'll never be able to get back. huge bummer!
If you really wanna go nuts - keep that extra copy at someone elses house in case you have a fire, etc.
Try to get into the habit of burning a disk every month or so. Not only does it free up lots of space on your computer, but then you aren't risking losing your memories to the digital monster that can live inside you machine.
I upload mine to several websites so they are in different places, the only problem with most sites is that you can’t download them as the same size you uploaded them, so if you ever wanted to send/print/save them somewhere else you would be stuck with small pictures. So, I also save them on a couple of discs, but winkflash.com is one of the cheaper sites, always having deals and also lets you download your photos as hi-res images.
I save my to CDs as well as external hard drives. When I save my pictures to CDs, I always make additional copies...usually 2. I keep two copies at the house and the third copy (may not be all the pictures from the original CDs) goes to my mother's house. If I would break down and buy a fire proof box, I'd just make the two copies and keep one of them in the fire proof box. I don't know what I would do without my pictures.
As far as deleting them from your hard drive, definitely! It's not going to fix your space problem, if you leave them there. Just make sure your files are accessible on the CDs or external drive before deleting them.
I really like photobucket.com I have a paid version of the program and you can save giant photos. I'm sure that flickr, snapfish and those other photo sites are good, its just that I haven't used them.
I would check into online back up sites - the one I am currently using for my PC is carbonite. I think it backs up photos but I'm not sure.
I would get everything off your hard drive - I would back up onto CDs - I would make copies - I would use online storage and physical storage. If it is that important to you, then you should write it on the calendar to invest time in your memories. It is worth it to you, it sounds, so don't delay.
Check out my WFMW edition!
Have A Great Day!
Kristin
Once you've saved the pictures into your external hard disk, DELETE them off your computer. If you're afraid of the external hard disk breaking down, get a 2nd back up hard disk that is STRICTLY for backup. Meaning, u load the files in and don't touch it. don't carry it around, don't use it as a holder for temp files. The lesser you move your ext harddisk around, the less likely it will break down.
Also on organizing your files. I would divide them up into topical folders first, like Children, Church, Vacations, etc. and then within these main folders, have sub-folders with the month and year like Jan 08. This way, it makes it easier to find EXACTLY what you want. :)
I had this problem awhile back. I copied all my data (documents, spreadsheets, photos, etc.) to an external hard drive. I use that for all my data. I deleted the data off the desktop and it really sped up my PC. Also, I got an additional external hard drive and I back up the data drive one time a month. My CD/DVD burner is toast so I cannot make copies to those but the professional photographers suggestions are good. Before my cd burner went bad, I made 2 copies of all my photos per month. I gave one set to my sister and one to my mom. I am super paranoid about losing my data so I do my best to double and triple protect myself.
While snapfish and the like is good, I get frustrated that I cannot download my photos back in the same format as I originally uploaded them. That is why (for backups) I prefer to back them up myself.
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