Handling Digital Photos

Handling Digital Photos:

Digital cameras work very much like the older film cameras. The major differences are they use Flash Cards instead of Film and there is no moving shutter to control the exposure.

Flash Cards:

An electronic memory device that stores data. They are used in music players (Ipods, Zune), Video Movie cameras, and in computers for transferring data. There are at least 9 different types of flash cards. Each camera manufacturer uses a flash card that fits into his camera design. It seems that every week they are getting smaller and getting more memory storage. The most common types today are XD, SD and Compact Media. Original cards had 16 meg of memory, they are now selling 32 gig cards that store 2000 times more data. Some computers come with slots to attach several types of cards directly to your computer. If your computer doesn't have a card reader you can buy one for a few dollars that plugs into a USB port.

Most cameras also include software and cables to connect the camera to the computer using a USB port. The software usually also includes a program to edit and modify the photos. It allows you to Crop, Lighten, Change Contrast and fix Red Eye. Most also allow you to create albums of your photos to keep track of them.

Getting Photos into your Computer:

There are several ways of getting the photos into your computer.

1. Use the cable and software that came with the camera.

Install the software on your computer following the screen prompts. When you're done, use the cable to plug the camera into a USB port on your computer and turn it on. The computer will open the program and ask if you want to copy the photos to your hard drive and where you want to store them. Usually they are saved into a folder My Documents/My Pictures/Date. For example, My Documents/My Pictures/2009_0815images. I usually change the date to something I'll remember about the pictures like where they were taken, such as "Las Vegas 2009". It will take a few minutes for the pictures to load. Once they are loaded a screen will offer you a choice to look at the photos (large screen), edit photos or just save and close.

2. Plug the Flash Card into a memory card reader on the computer.

Remove the card from the camera and plug it into the reader slot. The computer will "bing" and say new hardware and install it automatically. A small icon will appear in the bottom right corner of the computer screen. With Windows XP or Vista, a pop-up will appear asking you what you want to do with the images. One of the choices is to save to your hard drive and like above you can select where you want to save them. My Documents/My Pictures/Las Vegas 2009 is an example. After the pictures are saved, you can use your own software to edit the photos and print them.

Using Photos:

Once the photos are on your computer you can send them to friends, use a printing service (Walmart, Ritz or Walgreens) and add them to your web sites (Face Book).

When working with your photos, always work on a copy and leave the original alone. Every time you change size or edit the photo, it degrades the quality.

Scanning Photos into Your computer:

If you have old prints you want to put into your computer, you must use a scanner. A scanner works like a copier and makes the photo into a digital format that can be stored on your computer or saved to a disk. If you have your own scanner attached to your computer follow the instructions for the scanner and save the photos to your My Documents/My Pictures/???, Always choose the highest quality scanning available with your scanner. Most of the newer “All in One” printers can be used to scan prints to your computer.

If you don't have a scanner, most photo printing services like Ritz and Walgreens will scan your prints to a disk for a charge. They will name the photos with any name you select. The disk images can then be transferred to your computer just like the digital camera images.

We can not show editing and scanning as each program or scanner has its own software and menu choices. Usually the default choices for the software will work well until you have become used to the using the program.