I am going to dip into the pool of digital imaging here.
True story. Someone I know bought a digital camera. After a few months I asked "how's the digital camera?"
He answered "I don't use it anymore - it's full."
I received a voicemail from my Dad yesterday asking how best to view the images on his camera. He is still setting up that Dell. I also got a question just this evening from someone who said "I bought a new Canon printer and stuck in the card and it doesn't work." I assumed he had a printer with a memory card slot but no - he said he put the card in his PC. Huh?
The whole logistics of transferring files from your camera into your PC and organizing them is a chronic issue that has been attacked by a number of vendors - Kodak with their EasyShare system, Adobe with Photoshop Album, Apple with iPhoto, and a variety of failed attempts by Microsoft and others.
There are two ways to get pictures off your camera. One is by removing the memory card and sticking it into the slot on your PC or a "card reader" attached to your computer (usually through a cable called a USB cable). The other way is to connect the camera with a cable right to the computer.
Both methods result in the same thing. The card or camera can now be accessed by your computer as a new "drive", usually represented bya drive letter. That means you should just read from that card or camera and copy it onto your computer - but that's where it gets difficult. If you're computer savvy then you can access "My Computer" or similarly through the Mac, select all the files and copy or move them to wherever you store your pictures. But if you're not . . .
You need to have some software that, when a camera or card is connected to your computer, automatically copies the pictures onto your computer into a directory and then displays them on your screen in "thumbnails" so they can be organized. If you are considering a digital camera for a loved one - please keep this in mind!
On a Mac you can use iPhoto this way. On a PC you can use Adobe Photoshop Album this way. In either case this type of software is crucial if the camera is going to be useful.
Software is important. More to come.
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