Get Rid Of Photo CD's And Photo Albums? (printers, recommended, pictures)

[LoveBoating]

Well, with the way so many people today put most everything, if not everything, on usb's, if something was to happen to usb drives........we'd have an extremely pi**ed society! Just think what would happen if both usb and cd drives went haywire..........naw, we don't even want to go there! One thing for sure, don't hear of many (or any) modern day families who make/use photo albums. Seems to me that most all photo saving is done electronically, not with albums. I know that I do all of our photo processing at home, unless we use a "water camera" for a vacation, than that has to go to a lab.

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by 1badgmc

Shoot...I WISH mine could fit on 2 8gb USB drives. I have 175gb of pictures that I've taken since 2003.

I know that feeling. My photo folder is up well over 200 Gb right now from Oct 2008 to today. It would be 8 times that if I kept everything I shot, thank goodness for deleting images I know I will never use.

Personally I would NEVER get rid of another backup copy of the images you want and trust only 2 copies. I keep copies in 3 different hard drives in 2 separate locations... and even then back-up onto DVD's quarterly (replacing DVD's every 2 years so they stay good.) When I upgrade a computer to a Blu-ray writer, I will swap over to blu-ray disks as I replace the DVD's.

Some are family, some are business; but the keepers all get treated the same. Some get printed and archived, some are printed and sold.

[locolobo13]

Originally Posted by LoveBoating

Well, with the way so many people today put most everything, if not everything, on usb's, if something was to happen to usb drives........we'd have an extremely pi**ed society! Just think what would happen if both usb and cd drives went haywire..........naw, we don't even want to go there! One thing for sure, don't hear of many (or any) modern day families who make/use photo albums. Seems to me that most all photo saving is done electronically, not with albums. I know that I do all of our photo processing at home, unless we use a "water camera" for a vacation, than that has to go to a lab.

The problem is all forms of media age and wear out. Hard drives, whether external, internal, usb, etc do die. So it is prudent to have a plan for long term storage. At least for those photos you don't want to lose.

All About Digital Photos - Storing and Archiving Digital Photos

Archiving Photographs

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by LoveBoating

What I didn't tell was that I have two 8gb usb's! We have one in the Safe Deposit Box at the bank and the other here at home. When I take new photos, I put them on the home usb first, then get the other usb at the bank, bring it home and do a "copy" of the new ones from the home USB to the bank usb. We have two usb ports on the front of our computer. I decided to have two usb's in case something happened to one of them. All the photos we have are on both usb's!
Only thing about having Kodak Photo CD's, of which we have a number of them, when you put the first one into a computer, you have to download the program that is on the CD in order to look at the photos. Of course, after downloading the program the first time, a person can look at all the Kodak ones. We also have a few Walgreens Photo CD's as well and they also come with their own program to view the photos.
I think my wife would let give away the prints in the albums, but seriously don't think she would want them torn up/tossed.
I just don't see where we need all three......usb's, CD's and photo albums. The usb's will stay, but the other two.

You can also pay for Kodak to send you a CD of your photos if that's where you display them. I did that when my computer crashed and burned in 2008. Unfortunately, they were the size of the photos I loaded to the Kodak website and not the original size.

[1badgmc]

Originally Posted by Bydand

I know that feeling. My photo folder is up well over 200 Gb right now from Oct 2008 to today. It would be 8 times that if I kept everything I shot, thank goodness for deleting images I know I will never use.

Personally I would NEVER get rid of another backup copy of the images you want and trust only 2 copies. I keep copies in 3 different hard drives in 2 separate locations... and even then back-up onto DVD's quarterly (replacing DVD's every 2 years so they stay good.) When I upgrade a computer to a Blu-ray writer, I will swap over to blu-ray disks as I replace the DVD's.

Some are family, some are business; but the keepers all get treated the same. Some get printed and archived, some are printed and sold.

Mine are purely for my own use. I don't sell or anything. My problem is that I hardly ever get rid of any. A shot has to be completely awful for me to delete it. I'm just weird like that. I really do need to get a Blu-ray burner. Backing up that much onto DVDs gets tedious.

[LoveBoating]

My wife and I sometimes have a small arguement over photos to keep and ones to delete. If I only have one photo of something and it's blurry in any way, she will still want to keep it......I totally disagree with her. I end up winning the battle because she will ultimately agree that we shouldn't keep it. I know what a good photo should look like and I don't want to show anyone a bad photo. There are times now that I don't even ask her opinion about some photos, because I know how she is. I sometimes see blurry (camera movement) or out-of-focus photos on Facebook and it can really irritate me......but there is already a thread on this forum about that.

Originally Posted by 1badgmc

Mine are purely for my own use. I don't sell or anything. My problem is that I hardly ever get rid of any. A shot has to be completely awful for me to delete it. I'm just weird like that. I really do need to get a Blu-ray burner. Backing up that much onto DVDs gets tedious.

[oldmandolan]

I have my pictures on External hard drives, cds,and three seperate computers.
I was in the Navy during WWII. I would love to have the pictures I took bzck then.
I started photography when I was 14 years old.
Old Pictures can be very valuable historical records. Locations, fashions, auto boats etc.etc.etc. Keep all thr recording media. to see what the life expectancy is.I also have thousands of photos. My wife is also an avid photographer.

[Sweden]

Well over 7 TERRA GB in photos here. Backup is a pain, but for safety reasons the backup external harddrives are spread over two countries and four houses/portrait studios.


I'd say just keep the CD's as a backup for the USBs. If you "only" have 2x 8 GB, that does not mount up to many CD's (if they were/are DVD's it would be even less), so why not just keep them as another safety net? (Like already posted here, giving them to a relative for safe keeping is a great idea.)

And USB's are extremely sensitive things. So are external hard drives, as well as computers. If you care about the photos, you can never have too many different backups. Trust me - I had a computer die on me in June, and my main external harddrive just died last week. It is a costly story having them brought back to life, and you're not always guaranteed success.

Make copies of the CD's as well, keep the originals either at home or at the bank, and give the copies to relatives. That's what I would do.

[TN Tin Man]

What is the deal with the Archival Blue Ray Disc.. I see they come in 25gb & 50gb.. price is very high per disc. Is this a option ?

[Asheville Native]

If you really want to be sure you have a copy, you want a minimum of 2 different copies on different media formats, and one copy stored in a different location.