Protect Your Photos
Let’s walk through three simple methods for backing up your image libary and help you find the one that’s right for you.
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Bruce
August 18, 2011 at 11:30 am
One thing that I seem to never find in articles like this – is to PRINT or get PRINTED those photos on good paper w/ good printers. And then to annotate who/where/when taken. I look back on photos my parents took of me growing up that were printed over 50 years ago…..and yet I can still look at them even though the early ones are black and white and some the older colored ones need to be upgraded via Elements. I wonder how many would have made it to today if they had had digital back then. So many photos stored on media that may be lost forever – either by degradation of the disks or the outdating of the programs that created them. Sorry but as an “old fogey” its hard to beat a photo in hand vs on a hard drive.
~bruce.
James
August 31, 2011 at 9:26 am
Here’s a different point of view from another “fogey.”
My mother left a multitude of photos to us in a box that was in partial deterioration, as were many of the photos. After scanning all the photos to my digital library I used Photoshop (could’ve used Elements just as easily) to restore some of the worst ones. The best part was the ability to identify the persons in the photos as well as the approximate dates and places, right on the faces of the photos. It was quite a project but oh, so worth it. They are organized into digital folders so that I know where to look for specific images. I now have 127 gigs of photos which continues to grow. I can’t imagine having to store that many prints.
Looking at the photos is now much easier and quicker than reviewing a box full of prints. Granted, you can’t pass a monitor around but you can share the photos easier electronically and by email. As for the durability of the images, it’s probably too early in time to know just how long the digital images will last. My guess is that with the continuing rapid improvements in digital imaging, they will be viewable for many generations to come.
Yep, I’m hooked on digital!