Backup those Digital Files
ByI just had a scare. Remember a few weeks ago I was discussing selling my old negatives and digital files? Well I sold four files from 2006 and I did not have my retouched CD from that shoot to sell. Not to panic, my paranoid multiple backup systems paid off! Here is what I do.
Immediately upon downloading a session to my computer I burn a CD or DVD. Nothing has been done to the files at all, I just burn a copy. I label this my “Unedited Raws” disc. This is filed in a separate file cabinet and not with the order. In the event I loose my client’s order envelope, I have a copy stored somewhere else. Periodically, I take these CDs home to store, so they are off location.
My compact flash card from that session goes into a little tray on my desk. I do not reuse it right away in case there might be a problem.
Then I go ahead and edit my session, renumber the images and burn my second CD, the “Edited Raws” CD. This CD goes into the client’s order envelope.
Once the images are selected that will be ordered from are retouched, a “Retouched” CD is burned and it filed in the client’s order envelope. And of course by now my camera cards are rotated back in for reuse.
My hard drive is backed up to an external drive but before deleting anything off of my hard drive, I copy a bunch of sessions to a DVD. I copy the Retouched and the Edited Raws from as many sessions that will fit. This DVD gets filed off site as well. I probably do this every couple of months. So there are four copies of files in the end.
To make this process faster, I have three sets of pre-printed labels, a set for the “unedited Raws”, the “edited Raws”, and the “Retouched”. I color code each with a highlighter for even faster identification. There are also lines for the client’s name, type of session, and date.
So what happened to my 2006 files? Well, even though I have a checklist of what needs done for every order, it appears that I forgot to make a copy of the retouched images. But I was able to go home and go through the 2006 DVDs and found them in less than 5 minutes! Logically, I could have pulled the original Raws and had them retouched again, if I was desperate, but that would have cost a lot more. What a relief to have organized backups.
