All are available in various R read-only and RW rewriteable formats:. Here are a few capacities to keep in mind:. Most disc-burning programs come with a verification option that is essential to follow, although it lengthens the process of burning a disc.
During verification, the program checks that the information burned on the CD or DVD is the same as that data found on the computer's hard drive. Uploading computer files to the cloud is a convenient and increasingly popular way to create backups. You can set these services to upload your photos to the internet automatically.
Many include a certain amount of free storage space, and you can pay for more storage if needed. Amazon Photos offers unlimited free photo storage with a Prime membership. Google Photos used to allow unlimited free storage of photos, but the service is now limited to 15 GB, shared among Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. You can buy additional storage for a monthly or yearly fee. Paid online backup services such as Carbonite continually back up your computer files to online storage.
These services charge a monthly or annual fee, but they're convenient in the long term. They also update the files that you change, and most store files even after you delete accidentally or on purpose them from your computer. Keep your cloud subscriptions current, and keep track of the company that stores your files. Use a reputable, established company so you don't entrust your valuable photographs to a business that goes under in a year or two.
One factor most people forget to consider regarding cloud storage and other online accounts is what happens should you die or become incapacitated.
Share the details of all your cloud accounts—URLs, usernames, and passwords—with trusted family members, or record these details in some way that they can access if necessary. Flash drives are extremely convenient, and they hold more files than ever before. Their small size makes them attractive for storing and sharing many images at once.
As a long-term storage solution, however, they're not the best option because they can be damaged or lost easily, and the information they hold is too easy to erase. For the newest devices and services, storage capacities are typically measured in terabytes TB , surpassing the gigabytes GB and megabytes MB of older technologies.
The number of photos you can store depends on their resolution and format. If that sounds drastic then don't worry, as for ordinary photos you're really not going to notice the different. You can organize photos into albums, and a neat timeline feature means you can scroll through them by date. Facebook is another online service where you can upload your photos for free, without any apparent limited. As with other services, you can set them up into albums, which is handy as otherwise Facebook will simply display the most recently uploaded in your photo tab.
As with your Facebook posts, you can set sharing permissions, so that your photos are visible only to you, only to named friends and family, or else public for anyone to see. Unless your hobby is scrapbooking or you grew up in the Fotomat generation kids, ask your parents , printing out thousands of digital photos might seem like a waste of money, time, and trees. Thankfully, prints are reasonably inexpensive these days. Services like Shutterfly offer unlimited photo storage from desktop or mobile devices and that counts as another backup, score!
A fire, flood, or other natural disaster could wipe out everything you own in a heartbeat, which is where offline storage comes into play. Services like CrashPlan , Carbonite , or LiveDrive can securely back up entire desktop systems including the digital photos stored there for pennies per day without user interaction. In the end, paying a bit of a premium might be worth it to keep things simple. If you need help with routinely backing up your work, consider a service that does that for you.
Amazon Photos Pros: Unlimited storage, automatic photo uploading, photo printing service. And unlike most free options, Amazon Photos has no size restrictions for images. For files larger than 2GB, though, you have to use the free Amazon Drive Desktop app instead of the Drive website to upload images. That last feature uses artificial intelligence to recognize objects in your photos, which can help locate items in your collection.
Apple iCloud Pros: Free but limited storage, automatic photo uploading. Cons: The free storage limit is only 5GB. Dropbox Pros: Free but limited storage. Cons: Only 2GB of free storage to start, automatic photo uploading requires paid subscription, no in-app photo editing. Quick take: Two free GB of storage is pretty meager. However, you can stretch your free storage a bit. Each time you refer a friend who joins the service, you get megabytes more, maxing out at 16GB. Google Photos Pros: Free but limited storage, automatic photo uploading, photo printing service.
Cons: Downsizes photos archived in the unlimited storage. Quick take: The unlimited storage space option ends June 1, When you reach the limit, you have to subscribe to a Google One account to back up photos. At high-quality resolution, photos are compressed to 16 megapixels. At express quality, images are compressed to 3 megapixels. This is true to some extent -- you can easily buy furniture, curtains and kitchen appliances again.
But losing photographs? Even more so if all you had were prints of your family's old pictures. Scanning your prints and saving them on a computer isn't enough. If your computer crashes, or you fall victim to a virus or a nasty data breach, you can still lose them.
I learned this lesson the hard way when our old family Dell took a turn for the worse in the early s, and took countless pictures with it.
Portable hard drives can store your memories and they fit nicely in a bug-out bag. You also can make a photo book as a backup of your all-time favorites and store it somewhere like a fireproof safe deposit box.
But a digital backup is the best way to safeguard your memories. Even if your computer is lost, you can still access a cloud-based account with your photos attached. Choosing the right option is critical. Though Facebook and other social media platforms can hold your photos, not everyone may be comfortable making them the keepers of your memories. Plus, your photos will be compressed to a lower resolution -- they won't look as good if you want to print them out.
Better yet, there are dedicated services to preserve shots, whether they're from your phone, a digital camera or that film camera you used years ago. Think of those black and white snaps of your grandparents as kids, the silly photos you took on a disposable camera and more. But before you entrust precious memories into any service, make sure to read through the terms of service.
Research how the company handles photo retention and what rights you have to the photos once they're on that site. For example, Photobucket has a Bill of Rights for its users.
Here are a few different apps and services you can use to safeguard your memories for little to no cost. Google Photos is a great resource for both organizing and editing photos that requires little to no work on your part. I have photos backed up all the way from , when I first made the transition to Android.
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