Before the advent of digital photography, storing images was relatively simple.
You kept the images on film negatives in a file system of some sort and prayed that a natural disaster did not come along and destroy those images.
Doing so will help a photographer compete effectively.
In the age of digital, the task has become somewhat more complicated.
To be competitive you need to be able to access those files at least as quickly as other photographers in the area.
At the same time you need to protect the images from technical risks such as viruses, hard drive crashes and exposure from the mistakes of hosting companies.
The following is a list of ideas to help photographers deal with and adjust to these issues.
First, don't create duplicate images unless it is absolutely necessary.
Duplicate images increase the amount of storage space you must have.
In addition the extra space will need to be backed up.
It also can slow down the performance of your computer.
In the age of terabytes drives it may seem that there is no need to limit the number of pictures you retain; however retaining those images will cost you in terms for time.
One effective way for not creating extra images is by making your changes and storing the changes, not a new image in Lightroom's catalog.
In this way you are not storing the information associated with a new image.
Only the extra data needed to be stored in Lightroom's catalog.
Second, setup an automatic online backup storage system.
There are a number of companies that allow a business to store their data on a remote server by transferring the data over the Internet.
The time required to transfer the data across the Internet for the first time will likely be substantial, however daily backups will likely not take much time.
The daily backups only backup whatever has changed.
Photographers work in a competitive industry.
In order to compete effectively, they need to have an efficient backend workflow in place.
Following the above two suggestions for managing digital images will help aid in creating these needed efficient processes.