Source:www.jimippolito.com

Most people treasure the digital photos they take and want to insure that they will last indefinitely, and in the case of family photos, or photos of momentous events in one's life, forever, so they can be enjoyed by others long after the photographer or subject has gone to that big darkroom in the sky.

I still have some of my father's carefully processed B&W negatives and they show no sign of deterioration even though many of them are more than 70 years old.

But now, in this age of digital photography, there are no negatives, which are delicate anyway, and we have to rely on digital media to preserve our memories.

Obviously the smart photographer backs up his or her photo files on something other than a computer hard drive.

My own system for backup is as follow: First I download the image files from the memory card to a folder. Then I bring them up on an image viewing program so I can discard the obviously glaring flubs, and other assorted hopelessly bad images, which usually consist of about 50% of the total.

What's left are the pictures that show promise and the few that are actually worth keeping and perhaps printing.

If you fall into this category don't let that discourage you. Most pictures that are taken aren't award winners and the object of photography is quality not quantity.

Sure, the average snapshots of a day at an event with the family are mostly worth keeping, regardless of a lack of perfection on some because their special in a different way. But when you're trying to capture a sunset or get a great shot of a landmark you'll take many with the hope of getting one that's worth framing.

Pro photographers rarely keep more than 5-10% of what they shoot, and out of that they only sell or use one or a few photos in most cases.

At least with digital photography there is no expense for the hundreds, if not thousands of duds we view on our computer monitors.

Anyway, my next step is to back up these files on a DVD-RW so I know I have a copy of all the files, in their original state that may be worth keeping.

At this point I feel confident enough to delete the files from the memory card.

When I take a really close look at the originals that are on my hard drive and start editing them, cropping, adjusting contrast, and so forth I put the altered files into a new folder so I still have an unaltered original available if I later decide to redo an image from scratch.

When I'm finished with my editing I make a backup of these files in another folder on the same DVD-RW as the unaltered originals.

Eventually the files on this DVD-RW are transferred to a DVD-R and I erase the DVD-RW for future use.

You can delete the duplicate files from your hard drive at any time after everything is safely archived on DVD-R. If the files are really important you can always make a duplicate of the DVD and store it in a different place so both won't be lost or destroyed if something bad happens.

This might seem a bit overly cautious and overdone, but the low cost of blank storage media, and the few extra minutes of time are worth it for the peace of mind you'll have.

So just how long will these relatively new, CD and DVD, storage media last?

That's a question to which I've seen answers that range from, "hundreds of years," to a scary, "a few years." The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.

Check out this interesting take I found about backing up one's digital images.

My attitude is that digital photo files should be backed up on the best available media system you can afford, meaning DVD, or CD, if you don't shoot a lot.

When something better comes along, and becomes affordable, you, or your successors, can transfer the files.

I took the above photo at the "Old World Village" in Long Beach California this past June.