Becky’s Digital Art
Hi all I just posted a new blog post on Pixel Paint Creations. It is very relevant for any digital artists out there or anyone in general that keeps valuable data on their computer. Lets just say I almost lost 20 hours worth of artwork. Luckily I had a working backup but it was pretty scary.
Well I had a little minor catastrophe yesterday. Since I’ve had issues with computers in the past and losing valuable data, I’ve learned one thing. Backup and do often and in several places. Don’t rely on one back up either. This I found to be true yesterday.
It all started with me actually wanting to do my weekly backup. Relying heavily on my iPad and computer, I back up regularly. I do a weekly backup of my iPad on iTunes as well as have the iCloud backup feature turned on. Since iOS 9 though, iCloud backup isn’t reliable so I don’t hold too much comfort in it. Yesterday at the time of catastrophe, the last iCloud backup I had was 4/19/16. So my main back up method of my iPad, where my art is contained, is iTunes. Imagine my horror when I plug in to do my backup and I get several errors, a trigger on my antivirus and a message saying that my iPad couldn’t be backed up because of incompatible data. What?! I try again, same error. I try to restore from a previous backup from a week ago and here is the clincher. That backup was corrupted as were the last three before that.
Well after a little freak out session, I took my computer and iPad to my brother who does computer work for a living. He took a look. Apparently my iPad had a windows virus on it and was trying to infect my computer. Considering I have a Mac and not a PC it didn’t infect my computer but it did corrupt backups and prevented any new backups from being made. Because Apple loves keeping things a secret, it is very difficult accessing certain parts of the iPad, at least with out jailbreaking it. We tried restoring from the iCloud backup I did have. It restored, but with the stinking virus on it.
Now I was irritated but not too worried as I had backups of most important stuff, except one thing I neglected. This is where my heart dropped in my stomach. I hadn’t backed up the actual art work that I was working on in my art app, ProCreate. I had the png files but not the open layers files. My snow leopard painting that I’m almost finished with wast there. I had to save it! So with the restored but virus ladened iPad I exported the .procreate files for the 4 pieces I was working on. The .procreate files are like .psd aka photoshop files that keep layers intact. In fact you can export .psd files instead from ProCreate if you wanted to. I uploaded them to my iCloud Drive which is one of my many cloud backups. They were safe. The next thing my brother recommended was to wipe the iPad and start new. That means no restore from a previous back up. The thing I dreaded came to be. Reluctantly I made sure everything I wanted to keep was safe and we hit the nuke button.
I set up the iPad as new, and got my settings back in order. I then downloaded my most used apps aka ProCreate and a few others. I imported some of my photos and imported my brush settings and .procreate files back to ProCreate. YAY! They opened up and work. I didn’t lose any artwork!. I actually really didn’t lose anything this time around. I probably will find something gone eventually, but the stuff I need now is safe.
What’s the lesson here. Don’t rely on one back up method and have several different backups of valuable documents. More info on Pixel Paint Creations!
Thanks,
--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com
