Practical Photography

When editing images you can spend hours getting the picture right but always keep copies of the originals in RAW aswell as JPEG or TIFF formats.

I always keep an archive of my work on a cd or DVD and then duplicate the discs for insurance. DVD or CD Duplication is a good way to ensure your back ups are backed up, especially for commissioned work as multiple orders could be made at a later date. Some clients pay top dollar for a copy of the CDs aswell so it can be good to go to the professionals and get your corporate id or logo printed on the disc aswell, or even one of the images from the shoot.

It is very important to back up your work with hard copies as if anything were to happen to your computer then your whole portfolio of work could be lost. It is important to back your work up on discs but as an extra safeety measure I duplicate these discs and keep them in a different place, ie one copy in the studio/office one copy at home as discs can get scratches, go missing or even be stolen.

You might think this is a bit of a paranoid thing to do but if you have any particularly good images or any photos of celebrities you’d be suprised how they may ‘go missing’. If you think of it in the same way as you would keep accounts most businesses have multiple copies of contracts and accounts records on a database, paper copies and duplicates filed at another location in case of fire or theft. The same should be applied for your photography work.