19. Photo Backup Solutions

Learn about the importance of backing up your photos.

Using iPhoto ’11 has covered a lot of ground in terms of how to shoot better-quality images and then use iPhoto ’11 to view, organize, edit, enhance, and share them.

One final lesson that is essential for you to learn from this book is that it’s absolutely necessary for you maintain at least one reliable backup for your digital images, preferably in a remote location.

Although Macs are incredible machines, from time to time their hard drives do crash or data stored on them becomes corrupted. When this occurs, it’s sometimes possible to retrieve lost or corrupted data but not always—unless you have a reliable backup from which you can restore your computer.

Chances are, as you begin taking more and more pictures, especially of people who are close to you and of important events in your life, the photos you take will become cherished keepsakes and represent fond memories that you won’t want to forget.

Vacation photos, birthday party photos, wedding and honeymoon photos, graduation photos, snapshots of your kids growing up, and pictures of your pets are just some of the valuable images you won’t ever want to lose.

If you don’t have a reliable backup of your images, and your computer crashes, gets stolen, or somehow becomes damaged (if it gets dropped or caught in a flood or fire, for example), all your photos could be lost forever.

This chapter offers a description of the various photo backup and archiving solutions available and discusses the pros and cons of each. Whatever backup option you ultimately go with, make sure it’s reliable and continuously maintained so that you always have copies of even your most recent images, as well as your most cherished digital photos from years gone by.

Apple’s Time Machine

The Mac OS X operating system on every Mac desktop and laptop computer comes with a built-in data backup solution called Time Machine. If you’re not already using this backup and data archiving tool, you should be using it to protect all your most important programs, data, and files, including your digital photos.

When you use Time Machine, your Mac automatically maintains a backup of your entire computer’s hard drive contents (all programs, folders, data, and files), using an external hard drive that’s connected to your computer wirelessly or via a USB or FireWire cable.

These days, a portable, external hard drive that offers at least 1TB of storage costs under $100. This is a worthwhile investment for all Mac users. Purchase an external hard drive (from any Apple Store, computer store, office supply superstore, or consumer electronics superstore) and connect it to your Mac. Next, be sure to set up and activate the Time Machine software.

When Time Machine is running, as you import and store new photos on your Mac’s hard drive, a backup copy of each image is automatically created on the external hard drive.

Time Machine is designed to work in the background, with any external hard drive. However, Apple also offers a wireless external hard drive solution called the Time Capsule ($299 and up, www.apple.com/timecapsule), which is ideal for maintaining backups on one or more Mac desktop and/or laptop computers connected to a wireless network.

Should something happen to your Mac’s primary hard drive, with a few clicks of the mouse (and maybe the help of an Apple Genius from an Apple Store or through a call to the Apple Care hotline), you can retrieve and restore lost or corrupted files with relative ease.

This backup solution is a good first step to protecting your most valuable data and files, including all your digital images. But it’s not infallible. For example, a power surge could potentially destroy your computer, as well as the external hard drive. Likewise, if you keep the hard drive next to your Mac, if the computer gets stolen or caught in a flood or fire, for example, the hard drive will be lost along with the computer.

Backing Up Images to CDs or DVDs

To maintain a backup of your iPhoto ’11 images on CD or DVD, you can use the Burn command under the Share pull-down menu. This requires you to manually create backups of your images and then label, protect, and store the discs in a safe place.

Although perfectly viable, this backup method requires that you remain diligent when it comes to actively creating your backup files, which can be a time-consuming process, depending on how many images, Events, Albums, and folders you need to maintain backups of. Plus, if you later edit or modify images, you need to manually create an all-new backup by burning the updated versions of your photos to CD or DVD.

To learn more about backing up your images to CD or DVD, see “Copying Photos to CD or DVD Using the Burn Command” (Chapter 18).

Using Online Photo Services

When you want to maintain a backup of all your images remotely, using an online photo service is an excellent strategy. The backups of your images are stored on a remote server located far away from your actual computer; plus, you can access the backup files from any computer via the Web.

Many of the online photo services described in Chapter 12, “Creating Prints Using a Professional Photo Lab,” and Appendix A, “Digital Photography Websites,” allow you to upload photos and archive them online. However, these services are designed to maintain backups and enable you to archive only your digital images—not the contents of your computer’s entire hard drive.

When you’re choosing which online-based photo service to use for backup and archival purposes, there are a few very important issues to consider, including the following:

• Annual fee—If you want to store an unlimited number of digital photos online, some services charge a monthly or annual fee. When you commit to using a service, you need to pay this fee on an ongoing basis (year after year) to maintain your backup files. If you stop paying for the service, after a grace period, your images are deleted from the service.

• Online storage limits—Some online photo services limit the total amount of online storage space available to users. When you reach this limit, you need to purchase additional space, set up a secondary account, or find a new service for backing up your images. Look for a service that offers unlimited online storage.

• Whether or not your images will be compressed—To save storage space, some online photo services and most of the online social networking sites (including Facebook) automatically compress your images as they’re being uploaded. If you’re trying to maintain a backup of your images, it’s essential that they be preserved in their original resolution and file size. It’s okay to have your images compressed and their resolution reduced if you’re publishing photos online so they can be viewed and shared with others, but for archival purposes, it is important that images retain their original file size and resolution.

• Reliability of the service—You should choose a service that is well established and most likely won’t go out of business anytime soon. When you upload all your images to the service for backup and archival purposes, you don’t want to have to do it again if you discover the online service you used shut down.

Many of the online photo services allow you to maintain backups of your images. However, you must manually and continually create these backup files. The process is not automatic. Each time you create a new Event or Album in iPhoto ’11 or edit older images, for example, you need to export them out of iPhoto ’11 and upload them to one of these online-based photo services.

Using Remote Data Backup Services

A remote data backup service offers the functionality of Time Machine (in that backups of all files on your computer are automatically created and saved), with the benefit of storing your files and images on a remote server that’s accessible via the Web.

You pay a monthly or annual fee to use one of these remote backup services, but like any type of insurance policy, what you’re investing in is peace of mind. You know that should something happen to your computer or its data, a complete backup of your files is securely stored offsite and is accessible from any computer connected to the Internet.

Several companies offer remote backup services for the Mac that work completely in the background after they’re set up. However, before signing up with one of these services, read all the fine print.

For example, one of the most popular online remote backup services offers unlimited online storage for a flat annual fee, but when your backup reaches a certain size, the upload speed for backing up your computer is throttled down, so backups take a lot longer to create.

Another potential problem is that although you might think you have a current and complete backup of your Mac’s entire hard drive, when you attempt to recover lost, accidently deleted, or damaged files, you could discover that the service was many gigabytes behind on its backup (meaning you could wind up losing important data and images).

With these caveats in mind, if you find yourself looking for a solid online backup solution that’s compatible with the Mac, perform a search using Google and the search phrase “Remote data backup for Mac.” Plan on spending at least $50 per year for a remote backup service with unlimited storage capacity.

Choosing the Perfect Backup Solution

Unfortunately, there is no perfect, failsafe, and 100% reliable backup solution for any Mac. However, by implementing one or two of the backup strategies outlined in this chapter, you’ll know that your digital images are relatively secure, backed up, and easily accessible to you if anything happens to your primary computer.

In addition to utilizing Apple’s Time Machine in conjunction with an external hard drive, seriously consider also backing up and archiving your photos using some type of remote online backup solution.

What to Do When Disaster Strikes

If your computer suddenly crashes, don’t panic. However, unless you understand the technical complexities of your Mac’s operation, don’t start trying to fix the problem yourself. You could make the situation worse.

When you first purchase your new Mac, seriously consider investing in the Apple Care program so that your hardware will be protected against most technical problems. Plus, you get access to Apple’s top-notch technical support network either by phone or at any Apple Store for at least three full years.

Have a professional computer technician (or Apple Genius) diagnose your computer’s problem and perform whatever repairs are necessary before restoring any files using your backup. If you determine your hard drive’s data is corrupted, it may still be salvageable (assuming you don’t have a backup). However, you might need to hire a data recovery service, and this can get expensive (which is why maintaining a reliable backup is so important).

What to Do If Your Camera’s Memory Card Malfunctions

In addition to your computer’s hard drive having technical problems, on occasion, a camera’s memory card could also fail. If this happens before you are able to transfer your images from the memory card to your Mac, you might need to use a specialized memory card data recovery program yourself or hire a data recovery service to salvage the image data.

To help prevent problems occurring with your camera’s memory cards (which are typically extremely reliable), follow these basic guidelines:

• When it’s not in use, store the memory card in a cool, dry place within the plastic case that it came in.

• Do not expose the memory card to dirt, dust, water, or extreme temperatures. Be particularly careful to avoid touching the area of the memory card that contains its exposed connectors.

• In between uses, after you’ve safely transferred your images to your computer, erase and reformat the memory card.

• Avoid deleting photos from your camera while you’re taking pictures.