Free Technical Advice

These pages are the start of a series of articles offering free technical advice on digital photography and computer associated procedures.

 How to download photos to a computer using a card reader

                        by Alan Goddard www.omniimaging.com.au 

Plug Card reader into computer’s USB port which is usually located at the back of the hard drive or sometimes on the front.

Open MY COMPUTER on desktop and check that a new Removable Disk e.g. Drive E has been created. If using Windows XP no driver is necessary to install, otherwise install software disk from CD provided.

Open Windows Explorer (usually a shortcut icon of a yellow magnifying glass on desktop.) If not Right Click on Start Menu, highlight Explore and left click to open.

Create a New Folder to store your photos in. Highlight My Documents. Left Click on File on top left hand corner. Left Click on NEW, Left Click on Folder. A NEW FOLDER appears on right hand side and is asking to be named. Type in PHOTOS (over new folder) and press ENTER.

Now locate the newly created PHOTOS folder on Left Hand Side list of MY DOCUMENTS and highlight it.

Now that you have prepared the destination folder and first subfolder for the photos we simply cut and paste the files in from the card reader (Removable Disk)

Put card in card reader.

On LHS list of what’s on your computer scroll down to you find My Computer (still in Windows Explorer) and Left Click.

Left Click on either the removable disk or the brand of your camera. A DCIM folder appears on right hand side. Left Click once to highlight it. Now Right Click to bring up options list. Highlight COPY and left Click.

Now on Left Hand Side go back to My Documents and locate Photos Folder you created and Left Click on it to expand it and then highlight the subfolder you named eg: Gold Coast 2005

Right Click to bring up options list. Highlight Paste and Left Click.

Now your photos are being copied onto your Hard Drive.

To view them easily Left Click on DCIM s a few times till a list of file numbers comes up. Then go to View on top and Left Click on Thumbnails. Thumbs of your photos will appear. Double Left Click on the first one and Windows Picture and Fax Viewer will open it to full size. Then use the right arrow Left Click to advance through your pictures. You can also delete the photos you don’t want by Left Clicking on the X.

All done! Remember to create a new subfolder of Photos every time you transfer your pictures onto your computer with a different name. If you wish to rename it to something more descriptive of the subject matter just Left Click on it and highlight Rename, Left Click, type in new name and press Enter.