The liability is that the photographs are stored on a hard drive and, upuntil the time that they might be printed, are subject to corruption andeven loss. One serious enemy to digital photographs -- and one to guardconstantly against -- is file fragmentation.

File fragmentation is the splitting of files into pieces (fragments) on ahard drive to better utilize space. While it has always been a problem, itis even more so today with higher-capacity disks and larger files --including, of course, digital photographs. If fragmentation is mild, it isonly annoying; accessing and viewing photographs on a monitor takes longer,and slide shows can be slow and jerky. But if fragmentation is serious --and it is not uncommon to see a file the size of a digital photograph inhundreds or even thousands of fragments -- performance not only slows to acrawl but hard drive reliability is threatened. That threat is also leveledon the photography into which you may have put considerable work andcreativity.

For today's fragmentation problems, the best solution is one which is fullyautomatic, one that consistently works in the background to keep all yourfiles, including your photographs, defragmented. There is never a negativeperformance hit during defragmentation, and performance is invisibly andautomatically maximized leaving you free to upload, admire, and displayyour artistic creations, or utilize them in documents or reports.

But a defragmenter isn't designed to solve one other common problem: whatif that photo is accidentally deleted? It's a very common problem and canvery suddenly do away with considerable work. In fact, a common help-deskcall in companies is, "Help! I've accidentally deleted my file and I can'tget it back!"

If a file was deleted from a local drive, it can be retrieved from theWindows Recycle Bin. But if it was saved and then accidentally deletedacross a network, that photo is lost. The only way it can be saved is frombackup, requiring an extensive search -- if the photo was on the driveprior to the last backup. If not, it is truly gone.

So in addition to an automatic defragmentation solution, an advanced dataprotection solution is also a must for digital photography. Such a solutionreplaces the Windows Recycle Bin with one of its own so that any deletedfile can be instantly recovered with the simple click of a mouse.

Today's digital photography kicks wide open the door of creativity. Makesure the work is protected through defragmentation and advanced dataprotection.