Given all these factors you need to concern yourself with several main issues. First you need to know the basic principles of saving and organizing your images. Second, you need to purchase quality storage media if you are interested in long term storage. Third, you need to consider your storage environment. Fourth you need a management plan to back-up data files that will provide for disaster recovery if the media fails or a computer crashes. Fifth, you'll need to develop a plan for storage of back-up files off-site, to periodically check the integrity of the original and back-up files, and to plan for migration to new media as technology changes. There is one thing that I have come to know as fact in the digital world — the only thing constant is change. We'll discuss these items in detail in the near future.

Recently the media and traditional photographers have chosen to attack digital photography as a unreliable media compared to traditional film photography. This is absolutely not true. Even though you have your photo negative and have a print made, your images are no less vulnerable to decay, fire, mother nature, the environment, and human error. The good thing about digital images is that they can be easily duplicated many times and stored off site. Imagine doing that with 20 years of traditional photographic work. It would not only be time consuming but it would be very expensive and the project would require much more physical space to accomplish. Traditional photographers seem to forget that even though their negatives might technically be much more stable than digital bits and bytes they are still threatened by fire, a devastating act of nature or a malicious ex-wife. You will be as they say... up the river without a paddle. In fact you'll more likely be at the bottom of the ocean without a boat!

The thing to remember at this point is that preserving your digital images really comes down to one simple statement — "Don't rely on technology and always plan for the worst." If you keep this in the back of your head, study, stay up on technology and continue to work toward properly maintaining your beloved images you will be much better off in the end. Actually in the end, your photographic legacy will be extremely well off and preserved well beyond your lifetime.

Up Next: (Part 4) Saving your images and file formats

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