TRANSFERRING PHOTOS TO THE COMPUTER Tethered camera A camera connected to the computer via the USB port appears in My Computer or Windows Explorer as an additional drive, from which the user can copy the image files onto his own hard disk or some other data carrier in order to edit or print them. Card readers There are combination devices that take many different cards, thus making them ideal for use with different types of cameras. USB card readers sell for $10 - $20 for single and $35 up for multiple readers. Advantages of a card reader over tethering the camera: 1. If your batteries expire while transferring photos, it can damage the memory card possibly losing all the photos and causing the card to be unusable. Always make sure the batteries are charged before transferring photos! 2. Does not require tethering the camera to the computer, small size and can be hooked up all the time. 3. With cameras that require special clunky software to transfer photos, this software is no longer necessary, just drag and drop photos into a folder. 4. Much cheaper than buying an AC adapter for the camera which is only used while transferring photos and probably cost from $60 to 80. Places to buy card readers: buy.com, amazon.com, newegg.com USING WINDOWS XP TO TRANSFER PHOTOS To watch a movie on this and see screen shots, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/videos/getphotos.asp Getting your pictures from here to there is simple - with an assist from the Windows XP Scanner and Camera Wizard. It goes like this: Connect your camera to your computer. Windows XP detects the camera automatically, then asks what you'd like to do. Select "Copy pictures to a folder on my computer." Check the box at the bottom to start the wizard each time you hook up your camera. The Scanner and Camera Wizard appears. Clicking Next shows you "thumbnails" (small versions) of all the pictures in your camera. Choose the pictures you want copied to your computer. Use the Clear All or Select All buttons as shortcuts. Name the group of pictures and decide where to store them. Windows XP by default makes a new folder within My Pictures, but you can place them anywhere you want - even save them to a network. Once you've chosen your pictures, placed and named them, the wizard does the rest. They're transferred in a matter of seconds. TRANSFER PHOTOS FROM YOUR CAMERA Windows XP makes transferring photos from a tethered camera or connected card reader easy. It automatically recognizes the memory card and launches the Scanner and Camera Wizard. In a series of simple steps, your images will live on your computer and be ready for organizing, editing, printing, or sharing by e-mail or with an online photo album. Find out more about how Windows XP works with tethering and with memory card readers. To transfer images to your computer from a tethered camera Plug your camera into your computer. If your camera is Plug and Play, the Scanner and Camera Wizard starts. If your camera is not Plug and Play, click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Scanners and Cameras. Right-click the camera from which you want to get pictures and click the appropriate option for that device. Follow the instructions on your screen. TO TRANSFER IMAGES TO YOUR COMPUTER USING A CARD READER Make sure your camera has finished writing all your photos to the memory card, then turn off your camera. Remove the memory card from the camera. Insert the memory card into the card reader. If the card doesn’t slide in smoothly, make sure it’s oriented correctly. Regardless of the type of memory card, card readers are designed for the card to be inserted only one way. If the Scanner and Camera Wizard appears, your computer is already properly configured and you can continue on to step 5. If you are asked which action you would like to perform, select Always do the selected action, highlight Copy pictures to a folder, and then click OK. When the Scanner and Camera Wizard appears, click Next. Next you will be asked which photos you want to transfer. All the photos on the memory card are automatically selected. To change the selection, click Clear All and select the photos you want to transfer. Click Next. Choose a location to save the pictures. Enter a name that describes the photos to be transferred (find out more about Naming Files and Organizing Folders). By default, the wizard places images in the My Pictures folder unless you choose another location. Click Next. When the transfer is complete, select what you want to do next and click Next. If you chose Nothing in the previous step, click Finish. The folder with your newly transferred photos opens. Your photos are now safely copied to the computer. Before you do anything else to the photos, including rotating, cropping, or removing red-eye with photo editing software, it’s important that you preserve the original image files you’ve just transferred. To learn more about that, see Preserving Digital Negatives. How to install a card reader: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/getstarted/organize/filesintopc.asp ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/learnmore/organize/folders.asp You’ve shot the pictures. You’ve transferred them to the computer. Now you want to look at them. That’s where My Pictures in Windows XP comes in. Of all the features the My Pictures folder offers, the ability to view (or browse) digital photographs is one of the best. From within My Pictures, you can view photos at different sizes, rotate them, and even start a slide show. This process begins with a thumbnail. A thumbnail is a small rendition of the photo, no more than about one inch wide. Viewing a large collection of photos as a series of thumbnails is a good way to begin the task of finding your favorite ones. Though a thumbnail view doesn’t offer much detail, you get a sense of which photos are likely to be keepers. Those that you like at thumbnail size can then be seen as a preview. A preview is considerably larger than a thumbnail, so that you can easily determine which photos you like best from your initial selection. For example, when looking at a photo in the thumbnail view, you didn’t notice that Aunt Martha’s eyes were closed. When gazing at a preview, however, you spot this right away. The photo is then dismissed from your selection in favor of a similar photo of an open-eyed Aunt Martha. VIEWING THUMBNAILS AND PREVIEWS My Pictures offers two thumbnail views, Thumbnails and Filmstrip. In the Thumbnails view, a folder of photos is presented as a collection of thumbnails arranged in rows and columns. In the Filmstrip view, several thumbnails are presented beneath a preview. Switching between Thumbnail and Filmstrip view, as well as choosing from several other viewing modes, is simple. To change the viewing mode in My Pictures Click Start, and then click My Pictures. Click View, and then the viewing mode you would like, Thumbnails, Filmstrip, Tiles, and so on. If you have only a few photos to browse, the Filmstrip view is a good choice. You can quickly scan a small folder, looking at everything in the preview size. Maximize the window and Filmstrip’s preview is as large as your monitor permits. When tackling larger folders of photos, try the Thumbnails view, where you can see more pictures at once. The only limit is how large you make the folder of photos on your monitor. For more information on viewing, rearranging photos and running a slide show: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/videos/managepics.asp TO RENAME YOUR PHOTOS OR FOLDERS Click Start, and then click My Pictures. Click the photo or folder you want to rename. Do one of the following: To rename a file, under File and Folder Tasks, click Rename this file. To rename a folder, under File and Folder Tasks, click Rename this folder. Type a new name for the photo or folder, and then press ENTER. Ready for Take Off In addition to image browsing and renaming files and folders, My Pictures lets you set a photo as the desktop background, open your photo into image editing software, arrange icons by type or group, move photos to new locations, copy a single picture or a folder full of them, e-mail pictures, delete them, and more. PRINTING YOUR PHOTOS Windows XP provides a wizard to help you quickly and easily print photos on your printer. To print your photos Click Start, and then click My Pictures. Click the photos you want to print. To select more than one photo, press and hold down the CTRL key while clicking each photo. Release the CTRL key before clicking on the task you wish to perform. Under Picture Tasks, click Print this picture (of, if you selected more than one, Print the selected pictures), and then follow the instructions on your screen. For the best results in color quality, try printing with the glossy photo paper used by professionals. Check your printer handbook for instructions. Several independent software vendors offer programs for working with digital photos. EMAILING PHOTOS FROM WIN XP http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/digitalphotography/getstarted/shareit/email.asp To e-mail photos using the Send Pictures via E-mail wizard: 1. Click Start, and then click My Pictures. 2. Open the folder that contains the photo or photos you want to e-mail. 3. Select the photos to be sent. To select more than one photo or folder, hold down the Ctrl key while making your selection. 4. Under File and Folder Tasks, select E-mail this file or E-mail the selected files. 5. In the Send Picture via E-mail wizard, you have two options: If the pictures are to be viewed on screen only or printed up to about 5x7 inches, choose Make all my pictures smaller, and then click Show more options and choose an appropriate resolution. This converts copies of the selected photos to fit within the pixel dimensions you chose. Your original photos are not affected. If you want to send the full resolution version of the selected photos, and you know they won’t be rejected by the recipient’s e-mail service, choose Keep the original sizes. 6. When the outgoing e-mail message opens with the resized photos attached (some programs, including Microsoft Outlook 2002, may ask to you select a profile first before opening a message), confirm that the correct photos have been attached, then prepare and send the message normally. EXPLORE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY WITH WINDOWS XP HOME http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/default.asp |