Digital Photography Help

Digital Photography's
Perplexing Problems & Solutions

Let's face it... in any arena where you are not an expert, the right tips can be the difference between frustration and success, giving up and complete enjoyment.

There's enough things happening in the world of digital photography that it is very difficult to keep up with just the basics, let alone the fine points and tips. You don't need to know everything... at least not if you have access to the internet! Digital photography help will address key situations where years of experience can help when you're just getting started.

Digital Photography Help
To The Rescue

You have been merrily taking wonderful digital images for months and have downloaded and catalogued all of them on your computer. As computers are known to do, yours crashed; leaving you unable to access any of your once-in-a-lifetime photographs. What do you do?


Digital Photography Help

The first thing to do is to remain calm, although that's easier said than done. Throwing the computer out the window or kicking the cat is probably not the best course of action!

Digital photography help!? It probably feels more like someone punched you in the gut and all you want to do is disappear or go back in time before computers.

You have just experienced the digital photographer's equivalent of sky diving without a reserve parachute. You placed all your confidence in one piece of equipment, your computer's main hard drive in this case.

Let's address how to possibly salvage this emergency situation; then, we'll discuss what kind of digital photography help can be used to AVOID THIS EVER HAPPENING AGAIN.

First consider what digital photography help or computer resources you have. Do you know anybody who is a "computer person?" If so, ask for their help. If this doesn't work, contact the manufacturer of the computer. Note, if your equipment is still under warranty, contact them before calling your "computer person."

Make it crystal clear that your top priority is to recover the images. If they suggest wiping your hard drive and doing a reinstall, or replacing the hard drive, this will result in losing all your photographs.

There is a chance that this will need to be done anyway, but let's leave that as a last resort until other options have been explored. If the manufacturer can't help, consider contacting a local computer support business. They often have the technology to recover "unrecoverable" files.

If you feel particularly brave, you can check out a search engine for different software products that claim to be able to recover corrupted files, files from damaged hard drives, or files stolen by space aliens.

Never Again!

Therefore, for just pennies, you can establish a double (or triple) redundant back-up system, so your precious photographs are safe forever.

This is what many professionals, including myself, do:

1. Establish a file structure for your image files which are all under one main heading ("My Pictures" for example). Then create subfolders that logically address your picture-taking life.

2. The primary point of doing this is to make backing up all your images very simple. Under this scenario, all you have to do is backup the "My Pictures" directory, and all the subfolders and files under it come along in one fell swoop.

3. Use re-writeable CDs or DVDs to back up your image files. As a broad rule of thumb, if all your image files (currently, and anticipated for the next 3 months) total between 800 MB and 2.5 GB, go with using CDs. If more than 2.5 GB, go with DVDs. (For a detailed discussion, look here.)

4. The best source, (quality, price, & service) for CDs and DVDs that I have found is Super Media Store.
   
   
5. What I do for photo backups is to keep a complete DVD set at home, and another set at a secure outside location (safety deposit box, for example). In this way, even if you have a fire that destroys both your computer AND backup images, you still have a set safely tucked away off site.

You are planning to go on a vacation where you will take lots and lots of photographs. However, you only have a total of 512MB of digital storage media and it's too expensive to purchase another 5 - 10 GB, which is what you may need. What do you do?


Digital Photography Help

Why? Mainly because of the cost factor.

However, if convenience is your only concern, just stock up on a few GBs of SD or CF media cards.

Because the cost of memory continues to drop, there will be a point where price will not be the main issue.

At that point, You can check the prices of memory verses portable digital storage devices here...

You are off to attend a special event which could result in more photographs than your current memory cards can hold. What do you do?


Digital Photography Help

• Depending on what you intend to use the final images for, consider changing the image quality (file size) that is captured. For example, if your intention is to email the captured images, the smallest file size should be acceptable.

• Whenever there is a lull in the action, review the captured images and delete obvious choices to make more room. Note that this will require more battery use, so keep plenty of spares. A reminder list of what else to take with can be found on beach vacations.