How do you back up your photos?

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Im Bald Ok

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Jason
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Apologies if this has been asked before, I couldn't find my answers using the search function. I've also never backed anything up before and could use a few pointers :)

The number of photo's I have in Lightroom 4 is starting to grow. So now I want to create a back up so that if I wanted to, I could delete my entire Lightroom library and still be able to access all the photo's elsewhere, while still keeping the photo's in all the correct folders.
Is it as simple as exporting the 'Catalogue' to an external hard drive? Or is there a better way of going about it? Do they store as RAW's or Jpeg's?
I would like to start backing up my photos every month while wiping my Mac clean of most of my images.

How, how often and where do you back up/store your images? Hard drive? icloud? Dropbox? Flickr?
 
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Export Raw and jpeg/tif to external hard drive. For realy importent files second copy to be kept at another location incase of fire or other disaster.
 
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I have all mine regularly backed up on 2 external hard drives and BluRay discs. One of the drives is kept in a fire proof box file though and the other goes with me in my laptop bag.
 
Search for backup, there's tonnes on this :)

Just have at least 2 copies of all of your raw files (don't export from Lightroom, just do a copy in windows otherwise you'll lose the originals) on something like a usb hard drive and have a copy of your Lightroom catalogue (use the Lightroom built in backup) so that all of your edits are retained.
 
I also use two external hard drives to back up all my photos, using windows copy and paste.
 
First thing I do is to back up to DVD/CD irrespective of the quality of the pictures/videos but they are all as originally taken. At least then if I mess up saving on computer I have "hard" copies.
Next they go onto the computer then to second hard drive. Also they go onto external hard drive as I have a program that automatically does it. Suppose its going a bit OTT but I also have 2 other computers with some,not all of the photos, on them.

However considering some pictures just cannot capture that moment again so saving in several places to me makes sense.

I also print out those " special " photos that have a personal meaning, such as pets no longer with us and members of the family etc

Why go that far? well I had a hard drive fail on me due to manufactures fault I found out later. My local computer shop chap manage to rescue and save 4000 clients records and their pets. I would have been in the very very deep you know what otherwise. That was about 15 years of records down the drain, it was a worrying time so now everything is backed up to the hilt. 3 computers, two which have second hard, then 3 external hard drives on top of that.


Realspeed
 
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Your back-up routine should start as part of the process that gets the pictures off the camera and into the computer. For example my routine is:
a) copy images from the camera/memory card onto my working hard drive
b) at the same time, make a back-up to a separate hard drive
c) once the images are on the computer, run SyncToy and make further copies onto two USB hard drives
d) weekly, upload all new images from b) to my CrashPlan account

a) and b) are done simultaneously by the Nikon software I use to get the images files off the camera/memory card.
c) is done manually. One of the USB drives is permanently connected to the computer but the other is a more partable one and is removed every evening and placed in the fire safe.
d) is done automatically every Sunday night provided the computer is powered up.

Only the files at a) are ever worked on. This gives me 3 back-up copies of the original files as they came off the camera as well as the working copy at a).

If using LR you need to be aware that backing up the catalogue DOES NOT back up your images ... only the database that contains all the changes you've made to them.

I use SyncToy rather than Windows cut-and-paste because it ensures that I don't miss any files and it can resume after an interuption.

Bear in mind, these image files are my livelihood so I am paranoid about keeping them safe. I've had too many CD/DVD failures to trust them for archival use.
 
Wow, interesting to see different people's methods. Thanks for posting.
I think I'll start by uploading to LR, saving a RAW file to 2 external hard drives, then exporting the Jpeg created from LR to the same external hard drives. So I'll have a RAW and Jpeg on each. Then there's no need for LR's catalogue.

A thousand thank you's :thumbs:
 
Im Bald Ok said:
Wow, interesting to see different people's methods. Thanks for posting.
I think I'll start by uploading to LR, saving a RAW file to 2 external hard drives, then exporting the Jpeg created from LR to the same external hard drives. So I'll have a RAW and Jpeg on each. Then there's no need for LR's catalogue.

A thousand thank you's :thumbs:
Click to expand...

You should still backup your LR catalog, that is where all your hard work is!
 
I don't understand :thinking: If you've used LR to process the RAW file, created a Jpeg from it, why do you still need the catalog if you've got the final image?
 
Im Bald Ok said:
I don't understand :thinking: If you've used LR to process the RAW file, created a Jpeg from it, why do you still need the catalog if you've got the final image?
Click to expand...

You have the way you created it!
 
Im Bald Ok said:
I don't understand :thinking: If you've used LR to process the RAW file, created a Jpeg from it, why do you still need the catalog if you've got the final image?
Click to expand...

Imagine getting through most of a wedding's shots and then let's say you've had enough and have a break or go to bed perhaps, you exit LR or close down computer without backing up your catalog. You go to computer next day and the catalog has been corrupted or indeed LR cannot find it (which has happened to me more than once). You're well and truly screwed you have to do it all again. Therefore you back up your catalog to play it safe. It's sensible management.
 
neil_g said:
Search for backup, there's tonnes on this :)

Just have at least 2 copies of all of your raw files (don't export from Lightroom, just do a copy in windows otherwise you'll lose the originals) on something like a usb hard drive and have a copy of your Lightroom catalogue (use the Lightroom built in backup) so that all of your edits are retained.
Click to expand...

Neil, backing up the edits of photos, for that do you just need to backup the Lightroom.icrat file?
 
I use a dedicated hard drive in my PC for all my photography/videos, which is automatically backed up to a hard drive elsewhere in my house every day.
 
Hi Jason,

If your problem is the size of your LR catalogue - simply create a new one (although you will always need to back up your photos to protect against damaged hardware). You simply select 'New Catalogue' from the file menu and you can switch between the two (or more) - you could do one for each year perhaps??

Cheers,
 
As a non-professional....

My Lightroom Catalogues are stored in X:\Users\Me\My Pictures\Lightroom which is just another folder within My Pictures. I backup X:\Users\Me (monthly) using Allway Sync (free) to an external hard drive and a USB hard drive. Three copies of everything. A monthly backup is all I need as I don't take that many photos, but it would be easy to set up overnight backups with a little Googling.

I also create a new catalogue for every 3 years to keep catalogue sizes reasonable.

Someone more concerned about data loss (a pro photographer for example) would be looking for more stringent backup methods (off-site/cloud storage solutions)

Ian.
 
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