| Perhaps the simplest and most straightforward way to move pictures from your camera to your computer is to treat them like any other computer file. In other words, you simply use your standard file-handling utilities to copy, move, and delete the image files. This is the technique you use with most forms of removable media, and you can often use it with direct camera connections via USB or FireWire as well. The biggest advantage of this approach is that you don't need to deal with a specialized program to access your pictures. For this technique to work, your computer's operating system must be able to access your camera or card reader adapter as an external hard drive. Fortunately, that's exactly how most memory card readers and many cameras (most cameras that connect via USB or FireWire) work. They appear to your computer as virtual disk drives, and you can read, write, and erase the files on those devices just like you can files on your hard drive or floppy disk. Transferring photo files To transfer pictures from your camera to your computer, you can use any of the same techniques you would use to move files from one disk drive to another. The only exception is the extra steps needed to connect a virtual disk (your camera or card reader) to the computer. The following steps summarize the process: 1. Connect the camera (or card reader) to your computer and turn it on. After a moment or so, Windows displays a message box saying that it has found new hardware and is installing the necessary software drivers. An icon appears in the system tray portion of the taskbar, next to the clock. 2. If prompted to do so, insert the manufacturer's disc containing drivers for your camera or memory card reader. You only need to do this the first time you attach your camera or card reader to the computer. 3. Open Windows Explorer or a Mac OS Finder window and navigate to the virtual disk drive representing your camera or card reader. Look for a new drive letter that doesn't correspond to one of the standard disk drives installed in your system. The name of the drive may be the brand name of your computer or card reader. (For Macintosh users, the drive should automatically appear on your Desktop. If you're using Mac OS X Panther, you'll see the drive listed in the sidebar on the left side of the Finder window.) 4. Open another Windows Explorer or Mac OS Finder window and navigate to the folder where you want to store the picture files from your camera. Be sure to position the two windows on your desktop so that you can drag and drop between them. 5. Drag and drop one or more files from the first window onto the second window. In Windows, the default action for dragging and dropping is to copy the files to their new location. However, if you click and drag with the right mouse button rather than the left mouse button, Windows displays a context menu that gives you the option to move the files rather than copy them. The Move command lets you copy the files to their new location and erase them from the old location all in one step.  | You can even copy files from your computer to your camera's memory so that you can view the images in the camera. You're not likely to do that very often, but it's possible. |
Disconnecting the camera  | After you finish transferring pictures from the camera to your computer, don't forget to disconnect the camera properly. To do so, follow these steps: |
1. Right-click the device icon in the system tray and choose the Unplug or Eject Hardware icon from the context menu that appears. 2. In the dialog box that appears, select the camera from the list and click the Stop button to tell Windows that you want to disconnect the device. Windows displays a confirmation message, after which you can physically disconnect the camera and its cable from the computer. With a Mac, you should drag the camera's icon to the Trash before disconnecting your camera. |