Being careful not to lose data, redux
In my opinion [and that of others] the best way to deal with photographs on those CF and SD and other cards which you take from your camera is to: 1. attach the camera to the computer or use a Card reader and put the card in the reader, 2. transfer the pictures from the card to the computer [do not erase!!!!], 3. remove the card and save it for another day [labelling is a good idea] but keep the pictures on the card, 4. back up your newly-transferred pictures to another device [burn a CD or DVD, save a copy to a harddrive, online storage, etc.]. Now you can import and work with those transferred images in whatever software you have. You have those images, the ones [still] on the card and the ones backed up.
This cautionary tale is occasioned by my daughter’s “loss” of 80 out of 130 pictures when she thought she had imported them but they were missing. She had imported then selected ‘erase’ [don’t ever do that = you may need those images later] and then realized that 80 of the images were not imported. It has taken her days to get this handled [using photo recovery software helped, but can’t be guaranteed].
I wrote about this issue back in April in the Technology category, here: No more Excuses: Backing Up!
