When you get a disc of images from your photographer, you immediately download the files onto your harddrive, right? And then you make sure they’re being backed up by a service like Mozy, Backblaze or Carbonite? Shortly after that you probably burn a second copy for safe keeping and keep it in a different location?

If you do all of those things, you can stop reading now and move onto something more interesting. Thanks for stopping by!

If you don’t do all of (or any of) those things, please read on. This post is going to outline the simple steps you should be taking to protect your wedding photos.

I touched on some of these ideas in a past 9th with Nathan post, but it could always use repeating. Your computer harddrive will crash. It’s not a matter of if, but when. It happens in our server once a year or so, but isn’t a big deal thanks to redundancies we have built in. But you probably don’t keep your images on a 10TB server. (If you do, let’s geek out sometime!) :)

Step 1 : Download the photos
Hooray, you got your shiny Root Photography disc in the mail! Do us a favor, though, and take a few minutes to download those photos to a folder (somewhere memorable) on your computer. This serves two purposes; reading images off your computer is a lot faster than a DVD. Oh, and you’ve created your first backup! So if that disc gets smashed, lost, or thrown in a microwave, you’ll still have access to them.

Step 2 : Create a duplicate
Let’s say your disc gets lost and your computer crashes. If you don’t have a third backup, you’d be screwed! So let’s do that… create a second copy of the initial DVD and send it to a friend’s for safekeeping. (Preferably not next door in case of natural disaster.) Make sure you put it in a case and have it labeled properly. Rummaging through boxes of unlabeled discs isn’t a fun way to find your backup.

Step 3 : Setup online backup
At this point, you should have your wedding photos on the original DVD, your computer harddrive, and a backup DVD stored off-site. Good for you! Let’s throw one more layer of security into the mix; sign up for an online backup service. The three services that come to mind are Mozy, Carbonite, and Backblaze. While Backblaze isn’t free, it’s only $5 a month and allows for unlimited backups. In addition to your wedding photos being safe online, the rest of your computer is too! Both Mozy and Carbonite have free options, but if you want to back up more than a few gigabytes, you’ll need to shell out a few bucks a month. (Do it!)

Jensey and I plan to be doing this for a long time and hope to have your images available if you lose them years down the road. However, in a fit of lunacy on my 75th birthday, I might go delete everything. We want you to be prepared for that day. ;)

If you’re bored and curious, here are a handful of my past articles…

• The Beginnings
• Managing Your Data
• Favorite Lenses