Best Practices for preserving and backing up your precious family memories | Fernvale Family Photographer

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image storage and preservation L.M.Broderick Photography

I don’t know about you, but I have lost countless memories of my family (my eldest boy as a baby especially) because I didn’t correctly back up my digital files. Just ONE hard drive with important photos on it will cost me around $2500 to recover. Needless to say, I still have that hard drive sitting in my draw…waiting…!

What if there was a natural disaster? Are you confident that you will be able to replace those images on your walls and albums if you lost it all?

I am going to briefly touch on ways that you can back up your digital files and preserve your printed photos.


Digital Images:

The most common thing I personally hear and live by is backing up your data with the 3-2-1 strategy:

  • 3: Have three copies of your data.

  • 2: Keep them in two separate places.

  • 1: At least one must be offsite.

Perhaps it seems like a lot of hassle, but once you get over the initial setup of utilizing a backup strategy it becomes a habit or if you set up an online system, something that just happens in the background. It is well worth your time to back up your data. It will save you the heart break of losing precious memories…trust me, I’ve been there and I would rather not go there again!!

I found this great in depth article on all of the best options to back up your digital images from external hard drives to the Cloud….

Printed Images:

Ultimately, the best way to back up your images is to have them printed! Granted, we can not have every single image we have taken, printed. There just wouldn’t be any room on our walls. So we have our most treasured printed. When we do, we need to take good care of them so they can be handed down to the next generation…that is who we are really taking photos for. Yes they are for us to enjoy now but when we are gone, we want our children and grand children and their children to enjoy them too.

So how do we preserve them? We need to take into consideration, humidity, temperature, light, what containers we store them in and where we store them.

Another factor to consider is what we have them printed on. Archival Paper is best. It is guaranteed for at least 100 years if looked after as recommended. The important thing to look for are items that are archival quality, and that are photo safe, acid, lignin and PVC free.

Below is another great article I found online on how to preserve your printed images….


I am so passionate about creating and preserving family memories that I have chosen a Professional Printing Lab who feels exactly the same, who provides such an amazing product & service that they offer 30 and 75 year UNCONDITIONAL GUARANTEES on their product. Because of this, I am able to pass this on to my family’s who purchase Wall Art and Albums through L.M.Broderick Photography.

That is what I call peace of mind.

So IF a fire, flood, cyclone, crazy kids with crayons destroyed your printed images, you would have them reprinted for FREE!!! WOW!

I hope that you have gained some motivation and ideas on how to preserve your precious memories. Don’t leave it a minute longer!! Back up your images, organise your printed photos and store them in a safe place AND book in a professional photographer who can offer you archival product that you can have replaced stress free if ever a disaster happened.


I am always here if you have any questions regarding this blog. Please feel free to contact me!