In my last post, I talked about sharing photos with your family and friends. That is fine if you know how to upload photos, and if you already have the pictures on your computer. But how do you get the pictures from your camera and onto the computer?
Depending on the camera that you have, there are several options. If you have a standard 35 mm, you can scan your photos or slides into your computer. With a digital camera it is a lot quicker. Just plug in your camera to your computer via a USB cord, or put your camera’s card into a card reader and plug that into your computer.
If you have Windows XP, the computer will automatically recognize the hardware you are using. If not, you will have to load the camera software from CD, or try to find the appropriate software online, at the manufacturer’s website. Either way, it is a relatively simple process.
With a traditional 35 mm camera, you can use a scanner to import your photos. There are many types of scanners, of course, so go with whatever brand you like. Prices for scanners are pretty reasonable, and you can get one for around $100 or less, depending on your particular needs. Photos that are scanned into your computer at 300 dpi (dots per inch) can be printed at photo quality, up to an 8×10 size, on your standard inkjet printer.
If you are importing photos for use on a web site or for other online use (such as email), 72 dpi should suffice. 72 dpi is okay for displaying a photo online, but not high enough resolution for a decent print. That will discourage any would be photo thieves from attempting to steal your photo (hopefully).
When importing photos, remember that pictures take up a lot of disk space due to the amount of information needed to render colors properly in the finished photo. A typical photo from a digital camera is the physical size of a bulletin board (28 inches by 21 inches)! This translates to a 1 MB file size. That may help you to visualize how much space these pictures take up on your hard drive.
Because of this, you may want to regularly transfer photo files to CD. Just make sure to name the files something that you will remember years from now, and organize file folders so that you know where your pictures are, and what they are of.
If you need further information on downloading or scanning photo files to your computer, please contact me at help@aquariuswebsites.com.