Listen. Stuff happens. Computer hard drives die. Digital media might get damaged. Computer viruses and spyware attack. The wrong pictures get deleted. Any of these things can occur, causing you to lose your precious photographs.  When you are done taking photographs with your digital camera, immediately save those photographs to external media!

Don’t let it happen to you.

As soon as you are done backing up your digital camera images to ZIP, CD, or DVD, make sure to label the media! At a minimum, you should write down the date(s) the photos were taken and the main subjects of the photographs. You may also want to label the backups with the name of the camera used to take the photos, and possibly the resolution of the photos. Start a good labeling system now and you’ll make it easier on yourself when you want to go back and use or print a photograph taken several years ago.