Protect Your Photos With the Cloud

At Brock Restoration, we are prepared to restore and repair any emergency-related damage. We are happy to get your home and life back to working condition after a storm or natural disaster. The only thing that we aren’t equipped to restore is any photographs you might have lost during that disaster. Losing cherished family memories is not something we want any of our customers to go through, which is why we have created this quick and helpful how-to to instruct you on scanning and saving your images into the cloud. So, first of all…

What Is The Cloud?

The cloud is a virtual storage space for your pictures, videos, and any other data that you deem important. In the event of a fire or a flood, which could ruin any and all of your personal information, you would have a backup space where all of it would be safe and sound. There are a few different platforms which enable you to do this such as Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, or DropBox. Explore these options yourself to see which one works best for you!

We feel like this is a great idea for saving personal memories because it is safer and easier to access. For a more detailed explanation of what the cloud is and how you can use it, watch the below video.

So now that you know what the cloud is and where you will store your information, how do you actually get that information online?

How Do I Convert My Pictures?

There are a few options when it comes to converting your images to digital format. Though your first instinct might be to just take pictures with your smartphone, we do not recommend doing that. Unfortunately, your smartphone isn’t able to get rid of red eye, dust, or crease/tape marks. However, if you don’t want to spend the money on a scanner, there is a very adept Google app which does a pretty decent job of turning physical photos into digital ones.

Since we’re assuming you’ll be digitizing your old scrapbooks and family photos, we suggest using a scanner. There are a lot of different options, and we suggest doing some research about which one to purchase. But once you’ve got it in hand, the process is pretty simple:

  1. Use small batches at a time – maybe between 4-7 photos per session as this process can take a while.
  2. Dust off both the scanner and your images – the scanner will capture any dust so make sure you use a cloth to wipe them off.
  3. Scan your images in color – this will make for richer resolution as well as easier editing.
  4. Use the scanner to upload them onto your computer – there will be instructions on how to do this in whichever model you purchase.
  5. Edit your photos – check for things like red eye, scratches, crooked photos, or images that need to be cropped.
  6. Create your cloud account – you can either purchase an account or use a free service, but either way you will need an account.
  7. Move your newly digital images onto your account – check to see if you need more space, but most cloud platforms offer about 9GB of free space.
  8. Enjoy your photos!

Any natural disaster is going to be just that–a disaster. We want to make this unfortunate event as painless as possible. We hope that by converting your photos you will have one less thing to worry about. Once you’ve backed up all your personal data, the rest of disaster cleanup is easy! Just give us a call at 513-214-3879. We’ll handle the heavy lifting!