DON'T LOSE YOUR PICTURES

There are so many ways to lose your pictures. Although the professional finds that it is one of the most worrying aspects of digital photography, surprisingly the amateur rarely seems to think about it. That is until it happens and he hasn’t a clue what to do about it.

There are so many ways to lose your pictures. Although the professional finds that it is one of the most worrying aspects of digital photography, surprisingly the amateur rarely seems to think about it. That is until it happens and he hasn’t a clue what to do about it.

Memory cards can develop faults, but this is rare, and to be honest I don’t think that there is much that you can do about it, other than handling with cars in the first place. My advice is to use a number of small capacity memory cards rather than a large one. A massive 4GB card may be more convenient, but there are a lot of pictures to lose if something goes wrong with it. Another tip is not to delete from your card until you are in the comfort of your own home. It is so easy in the excitement of a shoot to accidentally use the “delete all” button instead of the “delete” button, or as I have done, chose the wrong picture to delete. Much safer to put another memory card in than to delete pictures that you think that you don’t need or like in order to make room for more. The price of memory cards is coming down all of the time, so try to have a spare one with you when you go on a shoot.

When you eventually arrive home from your assignment transfer to the computer as soon as possible, but once again, do not delete until later. Once on the computer resist the natural urge to start editing straight away. It is natural to want to see the enhanced masterpiece straight away, but this can lead to problems. Never, ever edit the original photo. I think that I will say that again. “NEVER EDIT THE ORIGINAL PHOTO”

ALWAYS USE A COPY

Remember that after making changes in your photo editor clicking “Save” destroys the original. Always use a copy, and “Save As”

It is important tpback up your digital photographs to an external device as soon as possible. You can use a CD, DVD, or external hard disc. I always back up to to both CD and an external disc. When I have enough pictures from the one source, or that relate to each other I then back up to DVD. Call me paranoid if you like, but better safe than sorry. CD’s cost next to nothing and depending on the resolution of your pictures can store over 500 images.

You can go even further and back up and save to the internet, by either creating a web site to store and display, or you could use one of the many online photo album services that are available. If you type “online photo services” into Google search you will get plenty of ideas. These albums work best if you have a broadband connection.

One last little known tip that I picked up that can help protect your work is to set the “read only” attribute of your photo.

There are software programmes that can help you recover lost photographs, but I don’t know much about them.

So remember:-

: Always transfer to your computer as soon as possible.

: Make backups on external storage.

: Make any important photo files “read only.”

: Edit copies, not original work.