Photo How To

If you've ever unwittingly deleted photos from a memory card, the pain of losing hard-earned images is about as bad as can be. In the next four minutes you'll learn how to void this disaster forever more by safeguarding the memory cards you use.

Instructor Anthony Crothers is British pro and a popular instructor with two decades of experience sharing practical knowledge on the latest gear, photographic techniques and technologies, and other real-world tips for elevating your shooting and post-processing skills.

Here's how Crothers describes the goal of today's episode: "In this short video I share with you a very simple and effective system to keep your SD cards safe and ensure that you never accidently erase precious images. I've been there and done that and it's definitely not fun.'

Crothers walks you through the "foolproof" procedure he recommends for using, storing, and organizing your memory cards. He also discusses a common mistake you may have made yourself when taking the wrong approach to free up space on a card. Bottom line: This may be the most valuable four minutes you spend today.

Whenever he's on a shoot Crothers keeps his photos on the memory card until they’ve been backed up in two separate locations, and he provides a link in the description beneath the video to an in-depth article on this topic from another like-minded pro.

After he's completed his shoot and the images are safely backed up, Crothers formats his memory card. As he says, "this not only clears the files, but makes sure that it's clean and ready to go for the next time." He also illustrates a simple trick for storing cards in a case, face up or face down, so that's it's immediately apparent which ones still contain images that are waiting to be backed up.

Crothers also explains how to deal with cameras that feature two card slots. Another important consideration is the big difference between erasing images or reformatting the card. As he says, "if you're only erasing them on the card, you might be making a big mistake." That’s because data may still remain on a card even after images are deleted.

There are several additional important details to learn before the video concludes. And once it does, be sure to visit Crothers' instructional YouTube channel where there are more helpful tips and techniques on a wide variety of imaging topics.

We also recommend watching a tutorial we featured recently with another experienced shooter who demonstrates seven "essential" in-camera techniques for avoiding an "invisible threat" that can compromise the quality of your wildlife, nature, and landscape photographs.