The Tampa Tribune

11-25-2004

Protecting Photos Isn't A Snap In World Gone Digital
Byline: BRAD SMITH
Edition: FINAL
Section: NATION/WORLD

Thursday November 25, 2004

Section NATION/WORLD
Page 1

Protecting Photos Isn't A Snap In World Gone Digital

By BRAD SMITH

bsmith@tampatrib.com

TAMPA -- Raymond Wilson's old shoe boxes are full of curling family snapshots, glossy party pictures and other priceless photographic memories.

Even so, Wilson traded his outmoded film camera for a sleek, new digital model two years ago and never looked back.

Now, he worries about losing track of irreplaceable moments, with dozens of his digital snapshots stored on a fragile computer hard drive that could fry, be infected with viruses or become obsolete.

"I've already lost a lot," Wilson, 18, said Tuesday. "My computer crashed. There's a definite risk."

On Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve, millions of people will snap photos of family gatherings and parties. But most may never be viewed more than once.

Wilson's example illustrates why. As digital memory replaces yesterday's roll of film, the need for reliable storage of digital photos is becoming more acute.

More and more photographic records have the potential to be lost or buried in finicky personal computers. Some simply get erased or replaced with newer pictures on the memory systems of digital cameras.

Some may end up on compact discs, if the owners are tech-savvy enough. Some will be printed out. But many will never be shared because the hassles of do-it-yourself photography may seem too bothersome.

Despite ever-fancier photographic gadgets aimed at consumers, today's events may seem more illusory years from now when scrapbooks with those captured memories may not exist.

"Now, you've got people with memories of the events of their lives, and there's nothing tangible to put in their hands," said Paul Pelak, department chair of digital photography at International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa.

Even so, the big switch to digital is on.

Consumer digital camera sales in the United States are forecast to reach 22.8 million units in 2004. That's up 42 percent over 2003, which showed 58 percent growth over 2002.

With prices dropping, first-time buyers account for much of the trend. More than 40 percent of U.S. households are expected to own a digital camera by year-end.

"We pretty much sell, like, 10 times more than regular film cameras," said Mary Khoshnood, manager of Ritz Camera at WestShore Plaza in Tampa.

At the same time, the storing of digital photos is becoming big business. Options are numerous, including downloading, burning images to compact discs or making prints on new units now coming to market to simply print photos.

"We tell them they don't have to have a computer," said Khoshnood, whose store makes prints and CDs. "We take care of that here because some people just panic when they sit at the computer."

Cameras or memory cards can be brought in.

One of the biggest trends is storing photos online at Web sites, such as Ofoto, a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak.

This year, 26 percent of Internet users posted pictures to an online photo service, up from 19 percent in 2003, according to InfoTrends, a market research firm in Weymouth, Mass.

More than 825 million photos are stored online, but some worry what may happen to those pictures if a Web site suddenly shuts down or goes out of business.

"There's a certain amount of risk with everything," said analyst Jill Aldort of InfoTrends.

Some online photo storage sites shut down during the dot-com bust after the 2000 stock market swoon.

"The majority [of consumers] are storing digital photos on their hard drives right now," Aldort said. "You never know when your hard drive is going to crash."

Likewise, CDs are popular, but technology is always evolving and could render CDs obsolete. Already, deterioration is seen on older CDs once thought impervious.

"It's still early enough that consumers really aren't realizing the impact of not backing up their photos or not having a long-term solution," Aldort said. "It's still so new, it hasn't really dawned on them the potential problems they could have."

Emily Gries, a graphic designer in Tampa, alternates between her digital camera and a 35 mm camera that uses film.

She prefers the latter for its artistic control over the exposure, but the digital is smaller and easier to carry on vacations. Still, its perils are obvious to Gries.

"I've lost pictures before when my computer went down," she said. "I like digital, but the problem is I almost don't have a lot of picture albums anymore. I have all these computer files and CDs. I don't have any albums because it takes forever to print at home."

Reporter Brad Smith can be reached at (813) 259-7365.

Copyright (c) 2004, The Tampa Tribune and may not be republished without permission. E-mail library@tampatrib.com

Illustrations/Photos:
Caption: Tribune photo by JAY NOLAN ; Raymond Wilson, a photography
student, worries that a computer problem could cause him to lose
digital photos.;
Photo: PHOTO

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