Working with digital pictures
Photo editing and printing once required a darkroom or a professional photo lab—not to mention advanced training. But in the last decade, digital cameras and computers have revolutionized the field of photography, making it possible for anyone to edit and print photos at home. In this article, you’ll learn how the tools in Windows can help you view, organize, edit, share, and print your digital pictures.
Getting pictures from your camera into your computer
Most digital cameras store pictures on a flash memory card, such as a CompactFlash or Secure Digital (SD) card. When you’ve filled a memory card to capacity with pictures, you’ll need to import the pictures to your computer. Then you can erase the memory card and use it to take a new batch of pictures.
There are two main ways to import pictures:
•Connect the camera directly. You can import pictures by connecting the camera directly to your computer using a universal serial bus (USB) cable. With this method, your camera must be turned on, so importing pictures will use up some battery power. You’ll also need to keep the cable handy if you import pictures regularly.
USB cable
•Use a memory card reader. The fastest way to import pictures is to use a memory card reader that you purchase separately. Remove the memory card from your camera, slide it into the card reader, and then plug the card reader into your computer’s USB port. Many computers have built-in card readers, allowing you to slide memory cards directly into the computer.
Memory card reader
Whichever method you choose, Windows should automatically recognize your camera or card reader when you plug it into your computer (if it doesn’t, see Troubleshoot camera connection problems or Tips for solving problems with USB devices). Then, follow these steps:
1.In the Autoplay dialog box, click Import pictures using Windows. Windows will locate the pictures on your memory card.
This dialog box appears when you plug a camera or card reader into your computer
2.After Windows locates your pictures, you’re asked if you want to create a tag (a word or a short phrase that describes the group) for the pictures you’re importing. If you do, type the tag name in the Tag these pictures (optional) box. If the pictures being imported don’t have any single characteristic in common, skip this step. You can always add tags to individual pictures later (see “Organizing and finding your pictures” in this article).
You can add a tag to pictures when you import them
3.As Windows begins importing your pictures, select the Erase after importing check box if you want to delete the pictures from your memory card after importing is finished. That clears space on the card so that you can take a new batch of pictures.
Select the check box to erase the imported pictures from your memory card
After your pictures are imported, they’ll appear in Windows Photo Gallery.
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