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What are you images worth? External hard drives are cheap.
Yes, houses burn down. If you fear that, keep another copy somewhere else. There are online back-up services. As mentioned before, I use Flickr.com to distribute my pictures to family and friend. 25 bucks a year unlimited usage, unlimited storage...
I have had CD's and DVD's fail. I'm not going into the long discussion.
All this talk about converting images etc. I keep all my original, negatives, slides, film, video tapes and still image files.
Kelly,
If you are concerned about the backups, which you shouldn't be because when you backup new data, the system picks up on new files to add not replace unless you make a change to an original file name.
It's always best to make a copy, alter and then change the file name like in sequences XMAS01, XMAS02 and so forth.
I wouldn't depend or just use an online photo sharing/storage because they tend to change their software and you lose control; have to relearn everything just to get to your own pictures. It's great to show off online but not for long term solution.
I have 2-3 copies of each DVD of my pictures. I learned this from a friend who would copy original music CD's and kept the original like new. He also made additional copies for each of his cars. Real cool idea. The original music CD was touched just once when he opened it, slipped it in the DVD drive and back in the package. Do you follow what I mean?
Yes, houses do catch fire which is why I used the bank box and now I distribute hard copies out. You have plenty of answers here to choose from. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
At least for now if I burn each full memory card
onto a DVD we will have something if our external system
is flawed.
The part I don't understand (well that is all of it ) is that when we
save the picture file from the computer are we saving over the
old saved file or making a new one.
At least for now if I burn each full memory card
onto a DVD we will have something if our external system
is flawed.
The part I don't understand (well that is all of it ) is that when we
save the picture file from the computer are we saving over the
old saved file or making a new one.
If you just choose "Save" from the menu, you are saving over the same photo. However, if you choose "Save As" and then change the name slightly, it won't be saved over the same old photo, because it has a different name. Look at 2goldens examples when he says the following:
Quote:
It's always best to make a copy, alter and then change the file name like in sequences XMAS01, XMAS02 and so forth.
What 2goldens has done is to change the name of the first photo from "XMAS01" to "XMAS02," and then saved the second one. The first photo with a different name won't be saved over itself, because the names don't match. But the photos are still identical.
Remember these steps:
1. Choose "Save As" from the menu
2. Change the photo's name or sequence slightly
3. And then save the newly named photo
This leaves the first one untouched, and saves a copy of it with a slightly different name.
I may have not been clear before, so here is goes again: Open the file that you want to save, and then choose Save As, change the name slightly, and then save it. That will leave the first one untouched, and a copy of it will be save saved next to the first one, but with the new name.
I have 2-3 copies of each DVD of my pictures. I learned this from a friend who would copy original music CD's and kept the original like new. He also made additional copies for each of his cars. Real cool idea. The original music CD was touched just once when he opened it, slipped it in the DVD drive and back in the package. Do you follow what I mean?
Where that breaks down with your own images is you don't have an original professionally pressed disc for backup. Store bought discs differ quite a bit from burnable media. Burnable discs is a technology that was invented after CD's came on the market. On a store bought disc the data is pressed with a metal die into a very thin piece of metal which is then encased in plastic. It's actually very close to how records are created on vinyl. Even this isn't a full poof process, you can do search for disc rot. I've seen some articles mention some very early CD's already suffering from this.
You're upping the ante for failure with burnable material because instead of being pressed you're literally burning the data into a chemical which is going to be more susceptible to breakdown.
Again, burnable media is fine for use as additional backup but do not rely on it as the only backup. I'll give you simple example where you could set yourself up for failure. Discs are more likely to fail t the end of burn, so lets say you copy you home video to disc. You put it in the player and it works but you never check the whole disc. The end of the video may very well be corrupted and you'll never know it until you go to play it all the way through.
While on the topic when backing up to disc anything important be sure to use quality media, there's a reason the store brand media is so cheap. Don't fall into the "Brand" trap either because those can just as bad. There's only a few manufacturers in the world that produce burnable media, most of what you see in the store is simply rebranded...
Some other things you can do to avoid failures is don't fill the disc. Keep your data below 4GB ( assuming single layered disc) or even less. Burn the whole disc at once, don't use the option that allows you to incrementally add files to a disc as this is more prone to failure. Lower the burning speed if you don't need it fast.
the coalman: he can also set the burning application or program to verify the disk once it has been burned. It does take time, because the program has to check every single photo or data that has been burned to the new CD or DVD. That waiting time kills me sometimes
And thank you for posting the link to the best media. I was not aware of such, and found the information very useful.
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