About 15 years ago, the first digital camera was available to consumers. During this time, and especially in the last 5-10 years, many people rely solely on their digital camera to take pictures and record precious memories. But where have all your photos gone? How do you get them off your digital camera so that you can print, archive and share?
Camera Memory Cards
Has anyone ever shown you where your digital camera stores the photos? Depending on the brand of camera, the memory card can be located near the battery compartment or underneath a flip-up door located on one side of the camera. The different types of memory cards for use in digital cameras are:
Secure Digital (SD), CompactFlash (CF), Memory Stick (MS), MultiMediaCard (MMC) xD-Picture Card (xD) and SmartMedia (SM).The type of memory card you use is dictated by which digital camera you buy. These cards are physically different and are not interchangeable.
When purchasing a memory card for your camera, take notice of the capacity. Cards usually come with room to store from 2 GB (gigabytes), 4 GB, 8 GB and up. So how many photos will that hold? This depends on the quality of your camera and how many megapixels it is able to capture. A rough estimate for a 4GB memory card is that it will hold approximately 800 photos for an 8 megapixel camera.
From Camera to Computer
So, you return home from your family vacation, birthday party or reunion, and you want to get your photos from your digital camera to your computer. You will need either the camera's USB cord or a card reader (available at most Staples, Best Buy or online at Amazon). It is recommended that you use a card reader so that you're not using the camera's battery power while you transfer the photos from the camera to the computer. The card reader plugs into your computer's USB port. The photos are files on your memory card and are called JPEG (or JPG) files. I recommend that you copy the files from the memory card to either your My Pictures folder on your computer (using Picasa for Windows PC) or to iPhoto (using a MAC).
Printing Your Photos
The benefit of using a digital camera is that you don't have to develop or print all 800 or so photos at once. You can be selective and just print the photos you need for projects, scrapbooking, gifts or for the fridge or even your wallet! If you have a quality photo printer, you can print at home. Make sure you have photo paper on hand and that you set the printer to print at its highest dots per inch (dpi) setting to get the best printing.
You can also take your camera and memory card to the nearest digital photo kiosk. Many photo stores, pharmacies or grocery stores have these. Make sure your camera is off when you go to remove the memory card and take good care not to get fingerprints on the gold contacts located on the back or tip of the card.
As mentioned above, if you use
Google's Picasa you can edit, print, share, organize and archive right from your home computer. If you have a MAC, you can do the same with iPhoto. Finally, you can choose to upload your photos to one of the following top online printing services (see below) where you can print and share.
Using an Online Photo Service
There are quite a few digital photo printing services around. The main difference and exceptional quality of online photo printing services comes from the printing supplies and materials available. A professional photo developer can create a more complete and accurate photo than your home photo printer
and do so in greater quantities.
Digital photo printing services allow you to upload your digital photos directly to the service website, choose from several print sizes and select a print finish or paper type. A quality digital photo printing service will offer a wide variety of print sizes, ranging from the wallet sized photo all the way to a wall-sized 32 inch x 90 inch print.
The best online services provide a money-back guarantee or will replace prints that you are not satisfied with so you're sure to get your money's worth.
In the growing world of social networking, album sharing has become an important feature offered by online digital photo developers. Album sharing allows you to post your digital photos online, "share" them with family and friends and those you allow access so they can order copies of your digital photo prints.
You can also find some creative, photo-based gift ideas through digital photo printing services like photo books, t-shirts, throws, mugs and calendars. Whether you're looking for a gift that's fun, classic or unique, digital photo printing services have just what you need.
Click here for a review of the top ten: Snapfish, SmugMug, Kodak, Shutterfly, York, Clark, Photoworks, Walgreens, Winkflash, and MyPhotoPipe.
Archiving Your Photos
Do you have a backup copy of your digital photos? It is recommended that you print your favorite and most precious photos to archival safe photo paper. If the only copy of your digital photos exist on the camera's memory card then you are at risk of losing them if that card decides one day that it will not work (very common in the world of electronic media). Consider purchasing an external hard drive available at most Staples, Best Buy and online at Amazon.com. A hard drive capacity of approximately 500 GB (gigabytes) will cost about $80. Many people are deciding to purchase USB flash drives (also known as thumb or jump drives). A USB flash drive capacity of approximately 4GB will cost about $15. Look for sales or manufacturer rebates to save dollars on these types of drives. Another option is to copy your photos to CD. Purchase a supply of CD-R disks. These allow you to put photos on them but you can't take them off or erase them. You can also copy your photos to DVD-R disks. DVDs hold about 4 times as much as a CD but check with your computer's capability and compatibility before you decide to use a DVD. (not all computers have this ability)
For more information and further instruction on how to manage your digital photos, contact The PC Teacher at 201-327-0830 or email Betsy at bcoyne@thepcteacher.com.
If you are in the NY/NJ area,
check out my website for class schedules and sign up today to learn more about your digital camera and your computer. As always, The PC Teacher
helps you click with technology.
Betsy Sabatini Coyne
The PC Teacher
bcoyne@thepcteacher.com
www.thepcteacher.com
