Don’t Lose Your Photos: Photography Backup Workflow

Hey everyone! If you're not sure where to start when it comes to keeping your thousands of photos safe and organised, today I am sharing my beginning to end photography backup workflow. These are all the steps I take from the minute I finish a photoshoot up until I deliver the photos to my clients and I've been using this system for 10+ years, so it works! I share how I keep my files organised, how to name your photo folders, how to download your images, where to download your photo from hard drives to solid state drives to NAS systems. We dive into backups, editing workflows and how to best deliver photos to your clients. Let me know what you think in the comments and if there is anything in particular you do to keep your photos organised and safely backed up!

PHOTO + VIDEO SETUP

STORAGE + NETWORK SETUP

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Thank you for watching!

[jaimeduncan]

This workflow, in terms of backup, is the best I have seen in any photography channel (I work on IT). One detail, and I say detail because *she mentioned it in passing*: having an offline copy is super important. In an ideal work, it will be tape, but a simple HDD will do. If you have all your copies online a single ransomware attack could bring the full backup house to the ashes.

[Spaghengtti]

This is the best back up workflow I've watched so far. Thanks for this!

[lisataitphotography]

Have been looking to refresh my backup system and found your video really helpful! A couple of follow up q's for you:

1. How do you transfer your files from your SSD to your NAS? Do you use something like Goodsync or Carbon Copy Cloner? I used to use Chronosync but it got away from me :)
2. When you first sit down to dump your cards onto your SSD, do you backup your RAW images onto your NAS right then as well? Or do you set up your folder system on the SSD and then transfer that to your NAS? And then once you are done editing and delivering to clients, you replace the old files on your NAS with the newly updated ones?
3. Curious about why you use Bridge at the end? I usually just export renamed low and high res files right from Lightroom - wondering what the benefit is here?
4. Laasssst one! Do you keep all of your edited finals in Pixieset/Dropbox and just pay for that storage? I've started to do this with Shootproof but it adds up quickly!

Excited to try Imagen AI - appreciate that tip! I never ended up getting into Photo Mechanic but that speed is hard to beat. I'm going to take another look at it haha! Thanks so much for all of this!

[Lionontheloosee]

I am not into photography but I love watching your videos.

[downlink_x]

This is almost exactly how I do it. I lost all my data 17 years ago and it was terrible. Today I also use the 3-2-1 method with a 4TB cloud. So thumbs up for this video!👍🏼

[kriistyyanne]

I’m more of a hobby photographer and I have SD cards coming out of my ears because I never know where to store all the photos without losing them.

[jailenebaez]

As a beginner freelancer this is extremely helpful thank you SO much!

[petermcginty]

Thanks Julia. Being a pro photographer is just too much work!! OMG what a detailed saving/filling process. I would stuff that up, every time!!
I keep all my RAW images on an SSD drive. I keep my final images (Hi-res and Low-res, filed separately) on OneDrive. I have a NAS backup at home. I keep a rotation of 50 of my favourite hi-res shots on my iPad, to show family/friends.

[swapnilpawar]

Awesome and Beautiful Work Julia ❤ Thanks for Sharing Such Beautiful Tips and Valuable Knowledge 😍🥰👶😊😇🧿❤

[nellyleijon]

it is so cute when you said backwards hehe most of europ 2023-01-01 (yyyy-mm-dd) always :) but i do have it backwards FASHION -> YEAR -> dates and type of fashion same for PORTRAITS and so on. Your organizasion is GOOD was satisfiying to watch

[RamkrishnaRudra]

I love photography, great passion ❤️❤️

[sebastianheuwagen]

wow, great work. i can imagine its hard keeping track of everything

[Danielle_Visuals]

Your one of the best Aussie photographer 😂❤

[traviscoley]

After shooting to 2 SD cards, I usually import straight to Lightroom afterwards so I have a cloud back up. Then I backup the files to multiple hard drives. I do all my culling in Lightroom so I can separate the de-selects from the selects with the rating tool. And then export the edited photos to their own folder. Once I'm completely done and backed up everywhere, I delete the photos from Lightroom and SD cards. The end result of backups are: 4 hard drives, currently my computer, and currently my laptop. I will need to get a good online backup service soon as well as a NAS so that I can eliminate my computer and laptop from this process.

[andpenn]

I use a PC with Synology drive which allows a large storage hard drive on my PC to be continually synced with the NAS.

[DJphotoandtech]

I name files and folders with YYYYMMDD, so today would be 20240203. Saves having to do dots/hyphens while keeping files and folders chronological. If I want to have separate folders with the same date I add a letter to the end to keep them chronological (simpler and shorter than timestamp), eg. 20240203a 20240203b 20240203c; and then I add name/description after that.

[jellederaedt]

You are one of the reasons why it's such a pity that Australia so far away from Europe. Wish i had you as a neighbour. :-)

[lbbdgoo]

Brilliant workflow Julia, thank you. Which SSD back up external drives do you use? Those in the video marked MacBook 2022 / 23 looked really compact and USB c operated. I also use a MacBook Pro. Thanks Again. (PS: also enjoyed your Sony a6700 Review, so cool:). Seb.

[abhijitbossotto]

I love your style and your videos. A little question: do you have a template for your lightroom catalog? (i think otherwise you have to set up collections, etc again for every new catalog)

[ElijahPark]

this is invaluable. thank you so much for this