How to Prevent Image Loss

WRITE ON MULTIPLE CARDS AT THE SAME TIME

When it comes to backing up your wedding you need to ensure that you safeguard against the unthinkable. The very first step is to utilize professional equipment that saves the information to multiple cards. This is crucial. If you safeguard with this important step you will mitigate the greatest risk, which is camera, or card failure. Some cameras will allow you to safeguard against failure by saving a RAW file on the main card, and a jpeg on the secondary card. The best is to have two RAW images on both cards, however this is not always the best choice, as the secondary card will usually not write as rapidly as the first card, and therefore in some instances jpeg as the backup may be the best choice.

Another thing to consider while photographing, is that while a lot can be recovered with RAW images, not much at all can be restored from jpegs. Therefore it’s important to photograph a balanced image in camera, rather than relying on restoring 2 stops of light in lightroom or photoshop. Another reccomendation is that if you have to choose between an image that is over exposed or under exposed, it is better to have an underexposed image than overexposed image. This is because when the images are burned, they can rarely be restored even with extensive post processing, however darker images can look great in black and white, and sometimes a little grain is acceptable.

POST EVENT BACKUPS

After the event is completed the most important thing is ensuring that the cards are not lost through theft of a camera, or by loss out of a bag or pocket. It is better not to use multiple cards, as that is more points of failure or loss, however that means that the cards should be replaced routinely to ensure they do not fail. That also means that the cards need to be protected more vigilantly since you may have an entire wedding or event on the card, and that cards should only be used in that camera body if you use multiple makes or brands of cameras. Switching between manufacturers can cause errors on cards, as well as static electricity from cheap card carriers, or from touching the metal portion of SD cards. Every time a card is placed into a camera, you need to ensure both cards are inserted before turning the camera on as it may default in saving RAW and Jpegs only on one card instead of both, and you need to reformat both cards in camera every time. If you see any indication of errors on any card you need to replace the card. It is also important to have spare cards in the event that a card is exhibiting errors during a wedding or event. Continued use of a card that has errors is not only reckless but it will likely result in a complete loss.

HOW TO COPY FILES SAFELY

After returning home it is important to backup the images from the cards to at least 3 different places as a minimum, and it is important that the drives are not all connected to power, the internet, or are in the same physical place. If lighting strikes, or a virus or ransomware attack takes place, then it is possible to lose all files even though they are on multiple drives. It is also important not to use editing PCs on other daily tasks such as opening up emails or browsing the web. They should be specialized for work to mitigate risk. And finally another and important source of protection is to backup files on a cloud solution in addition to drives being in different physical places or locations. Safeguarding client data is your top priority after photographing an important event.

While images are being transferred from the drives it is also paramount that the computer has a backup source of power if it is a desktop (it likely will be) so that if the power goes out the drives don’t incorporate errors. You can also maintain all images on the cards until the wedding or event is delivered ensuring an additional point of backup. This backup should not be part of the original 3, but in addition to.

Another important note is know that drives are rated to fail within 5 years, and some will fail within a few months or days because of internal issues. For this reason it is paramount not to trust drives. Solid state drives such as SSD’s are safter than traditional drives, but all drives have failed and will fail at some point including camera cards, even when they cost hundreds of dollars and are name brand. Although rare, you are mitigating against rare events as you will statistically encounter issues since you photograph regularly. In addition data on drives can corrupt, so even though drives may not fail physically, they can become corrupted over time. When copying files it is important to copy from the cards to the drives each time rather than copying from one drive to another to another. The steps you take allow you to have peace of mind that the customer data is safe and secure and that you eliminate the unthinkable from ever becoming a possibility.