When you download your photos from the camera's memory, or memory card, and then re-use that memory, you are putting your photos at risk, believe it or not!

"Downloading" moves your photos from the camera, or memory card, to the hard drive in your computer. There they can be deleted, overwritten, or corrupted. The drive itself can fail, making it difficult or impossible to recover the contents. If any of those events occur, you could lose irreplaceable photos. However, there are ways to prevent that happening.

Firstly, you could buy more memory cards and so not need to wipe them. That's expensive and still leaves the photos at some risk, as the memory card can be wiped, overwritten or corrupted.

You could backup your hard drive regularly, but most people forget to. In any case, you still need somewhere to back the data up. Which brings me to CD and DVD burners: If you don't have one, fit one and transfer your photos to a CD as soon as you download them from the camera. That way you will always have your original photos in a form that cannot be overwritten. The CD-ROM disc can, of course, be damaged, so store it carefully and always return it to its jewel box after use.