How to back up your Digital Images

You recently had your family’s portraits taken, received your images, changed your Facebook profile and cover photos, and sent out your personally designed holiday cards to your friends and family… now what?

You’ve got to back up your images! It’s one of the most important things I stress to all of my clients. 

I learned in college that technology isn’t as reliable as we think it is… I had a friend whose computer completely crashed with her nearly-completed final paper written up on it. This happened during finals week and just a few days before the paper was due! She took it to the university’s IT department to see if they could salvage her computer or at least recover the finished paper.

No luck.

She had to rewrite her paper and was up all night long.

So this is me, yelling from the top of my soapbox. Telling all of my clients, non-clients, family, friends, and anyone who will listen: back up your images!!

Now, you might be thinking, “but Taylor, I uploaded all of my images to Facebook, so I have them there forever! I don’t need to worry about backing up my images anymore!”

Let me tell you a quick not-so-fun fact: when you upload your high-resolution image to Facebook, Facebook will compress the image, reducing the number of pixels; therefore, making the image quality low. You wouldn’t want to make any prints or enlargements of your images from Facebook, because they will likely be grainy, blurry, and not sharp. 

I’ve always followed it, but recently learned about the “3-2-1 backup method”: Backup your images 3 different times, keep them in 2 different locations, and make sure 1 of those locations is offsite!

Here are a few of my suggestions on how to back up your images. While following the 3-2-1 backup method, select three of the following:

1. Your computer: Save your images onto your computer’s hard drive! This can be your go-to place to grab your images from to post on social media or email to family.
2. An external hard drive: I’ve got one of these and they’re so handy! Just plug the hard drive into your computer, upload your images, unplug, and store in a safe spot. Storage isn’t very expensive, so it’s really worth it! 
3. Online cloud backup: Check out these online sources to back up your images. 
   1. Apple iCloud – 5GB included, but $0.99/mo for 50GB
   2. Amazon Prime Photos – free unlimited high-resolution photo storage and 5GB for video for Amazon Prime users
   3. Google Photos – free storage up to 15 GB
4. Print them out: This is my FAVORITE way of keeping images! Print out your images, hang them on your walls, and gift to friends and family! Your images weren’t meant to hang out on your computer or on a USB drive thrown in the back of your junk drawer!

One place I highly recommend for personal printing is mpix! They’re affordable, great quality, and have a quick turn-around! Click here to receive $5 off of your first order from mpix.com!

Now, go back up your images! 

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