Library and Archives Canada archivist Yvette Hackett looks at a Long Play record at the National Archives in Ottawa in this file photo. Many people have cardboard boxes hiding somewhere in their homes that are filled with family heirlooms like baby photos, old newspapers and high school yearbooks. But now that we've all come to love our digital cameras, memory cards and CD-DVD burners, chances are future generations won't have the same type of boxes to sift through for easy glimpses into mom's and dad's youth. (Dave Chan/Canadian Press)

The author is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

Every family has a shoebox stashed somewhere containing a treasure trove of precious photos from bygone eras. Holidays in the old country, Grandpa in his army days, Mom as a schoolgirl: These images will live on for future generations to enjoy if the photos are stored properly.

But digital technology is rapidly replacing analogue film cameras — and creating an unexpected problem. Vast, chaotic repositories of photos are being created by people who dump their digital pics on hard drives, memory cards and websites.

Thanks to cheap and easy-to-use digital cameras, today's kids are becoming the most documented generation ever as parents, relatives and friends capture the first, second and hundredth smile. But the question is whether those photos will be stored in a way that will allow future generations to view them. (Jeff Roberson/AP)

About six billion images are snapped annually with digital cameras and camera phones, according to the New York-based International Imaging Industry Association (IA3). Yet many people haven't developed habits for organizing and safely managing digital family photos for the future.

Image files themselves aren't searchable, for example, and few amateur photographers add simple text tags that would help people find specific photos and identify what's in the pictures later on.

"Compare that with regular photos, where you could just flip them over and Grandma had written it was Uncle Ernie at the 1946 family picnic, in that lovely old handwriting that none of us can do anymore," says Darin Stahl, senior research analyst at the London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group.

Future proofing

File storage is also a headache. Properly preserved, paper photos can last more than 100 years. But future-proofed storage for digital pics is virtually impossible, as types of storage media — memory cards, rewritable discs, and so on — are usurped by new formats every few years. Floppy disks and VHS tapes are well on their way into the dustbin of history, several storage card formats have fallen out of favour even though they only became popular a few years ago, and many people have already switched from recordable CDs to rewritable DVDs.

Technology obsolescence is a big problem, and archivists bemoan the loss of recent history due to changing storage formats. The software used today to open and view image files — hardware, software and the file formats themselves — is unlikely to be around in a few decades. For example, WordStar-based word processors and Atari gaming systems with cartridges were popular in the 1980s, but these days finding a way to read content designed to be read by those systems is getting difficult.

Most organizations have strategies to periodically move their data from older technology to new, as this is the only reliable archival method, says Stahl.

Consumers who have embraced digital photography must adopt similar approaches if they want to ensure those precious pictures are preserved for their grandchildren.

"You need to forward-schedule a process every few years to move your pics onto whatever technology is mainstream then, to ensure they aren't marooned on obsolete media," says Carmi Levy, vice-president of Toronto-based technology consultancy AR Communications and a semi-professional photographer.

Proper habits

People need to develop the right habits now if they want to make that eventual move from one technology to another easier, Levy adds. One of these is to add detailed descriptions to digital pictures, just like Grandma did when cameras used film.

There are a number of free software tools offered by online sites, such as Flickr and Picasa, to help people add tags and other identifiers to images so that the files can be searched and identified later, says Levy. Some software packages allow pictures to be put into a searchable gallery or the digital equivalent of a photo album, complete with descriptions as detailed as you want to make them.

"The trick is to find a tool you're comfortable with and to use it religiously," he says. "Don't just dump the pics [from your camera onto a storage system] without making an initial effort to tag the files or label the DVD.

"What I do is put the files in appropriate folders, tag them based on major event, label the DVDs in chronological order, and store them in binders so I can always go back and easily find the disc I need," Levy adds.

Storage media

Settling on a storage media with a reasonable life expectancy is another issue.

Some manufacturers say their premium gold-plated CDs and DVDs can last up to 300 years. But these claims are theoretical, and long-lived storage doesn't solve the broader problem of technology obsolescence, says Stahl. He points out the technology to read the discs would also need to be preserved 300 years, which is a questionable proposition.

"Some parents pull out the old Super 8 camera out of the garage every Christmas, and that's an example of preserving the hardware. But equipment breaks down over time," says Stahl. Levy agrees: "Don't waste your money on high-end media, because no matter what your pics are stored on, you'll have to move them [to the newest format] every few years."

Removable discs such as CDs and DVDs of reasonably good quality are the best bet, he says. However, the market is already shifting away from CDs, which only offer 650 megabytes of storage each, to DVDs that offer over 4.7 gigabytes, he adds.

Hard drives

An external hard drive is one way to back up photos so that the hard disk in your computer doesn't contain the only copy of your photo archive. For about $100 you can buy an external drive with hundreds of gigabytes of storage that connects to a computer via a USB or Firewire port. It can be used to do fast backups of the PC's main hard drive, and the external drive can then be stored in a safety deposit box or a fireproof storage box in case of disaster.

External memory-based storage — called flash drives, USB keys or thumb drives — are more stable and long-lived than the typical PC's hard drive since they don't have platters that spin continuously or other moving parts, explains Levy. But they are nevertheless electronic devices that can fail, and they tend to be pricey compared to the per-gigabyte price of a recordable CD or DVD disc.

Memory cards are a handy and affordable replacement for old-style film in cameras, but they aren't necessarily the most economical and secure way to store pictures over the long haul, experts say. (Paul Sakuma/AP)

"The biggest mistake a photographer can make is assuming that an external hard drive can be the only backup solution. For longer-term backup, it is a safer bet to gradually burn DVDs and properly store them," he says. "Flash drives are good as a quick way to save pics and as secondary backup, but it's harder to manage and archive flash drives."

For large-scale, more permanent backups that will be stored offsite or in a fireproof box or a bank's safety deposit box, DVDs and to a lesser extent CDs remain Levy's media of choice because they're less expensive to use than external drives.

File formats

For the files themselves, people should use universal, non-proprietary image file formats such as TIFF or JPEG for long-term archiving, says Levy. While proprietary formats such as Adobe Photoshop's PSD may be popular today, these are riskier, as they can't be read by other software and are controlled by a vendor who may change the format or may not even be around in the future.

"Virtually every camera and photo device today recognizes JPEG, so you can read and manipulate the file in anything," Levy says.

But he warns that a trade-off is that JPEG files lose pixels when they're edited due the way files are compressed to reduce their size. "Quality degrades somewhat every time a JPEG file is manipulated, but that won't happen if the file is left alone. Consumers need to be aware of that and adjust their behaviour accordingly."

Many people use free photo management websites such as Flickr to store and share their pics. There's a real risk people will lose all their pics if these online companies go bankrupt, warns Levy.

Companies such as Kodak that offer similar paid services argue they're more stable than recently established web firms, and have a track record for longevity — but Levy is unimpressed. "There are no guarantees any company will still be around in 100 years," he says. "Online backup should never be the only form of backup for anything."

Stick with the shoebox?

Low-tech paper is still a viable option for archiving, too, thanks to advances in inks and photo paper.

"Believe it or not, a shoe box in a closet with the right environmental conditions is all right," says Craig McGowan, worldwide product marketing manager for Kodak Gallery.

Levy agrees, noting Kodak, HP and other manufacturers have made significant improvements to boost the longevity of papers and inks, and now claim printed photos can last hundreds of years if they're properly stored.

"But it's not realistic to expect we're going to be printing and storing thousands of digital pics every year," he adds. "Paper is fine for limited prints with special value. You don't do everything on paper or digital — they complement each other."