Patrick Hook - What to Do With Your Digital Photos (Collins Need to Know?)

If you have owned a digital camera for some time, you have probably taken lots of photos with it. If all has gone well, you will doubtless have been impressed with the results. of your artistic efforts, but you may still feel, somehow, that something is lacking. Perhaps, having gone to the effort of getting the camera and then learning how to use it, just having several memory cards worth of digital image files seems a bit of an anticlimax. You need to liberate your images and get more out of them. To begin this process, you must get your images properly organized.

The first thing to do in terms of organizing your photographs properly is to get them off your digital camera and safely stored elsewhere. In order to do this you will need memory cards or a portable storage unit as an interim back-up measure prior to downloading your images onto your computer.

Cards and portable storage units

When you take a digital photograph, the image is stored as a series of data bits on the memory card. The memory card is just like a computer hard drive, in that it needs to be formatted before you can use it. The process of formatting sets up a digital storage structure that is recognized by the camera. In doing so, it blanks out any information that was already on the card, and bypasses any damaged memory sectors. Consequently, it is good practice to re-format a card rather than simply deleting any images that are already stored on it. To re-format your memory card, you simply go to the main menu on your camera, select Format, and select OK. The camera will then display a message or symbol that indicates that it is in the process of formatting. It usually takes a few seconds to complete.

Most memory cards will do the job they were designed for very well. However, if you need extra fast image storage, then you will need professional quality items, such as these Extreme III cards.

No matter what kind of digital camera you have, it is a very good idea to obtain several memory cards the bigger their capacities, the better. After all, if you have plenty of card space, you will be able to try taking lots of experimental shots without having to worry about running out of storage room. When digital cameras first came out, memory cards were very expensive. These days, however, they are much more affordable. An alternative is to buy some form of portable storage device such as a battery-powered CD writer or a dedicated photo archive unit like the Nikon Coolwalker. The latter offers 30GB of storage, which means it can store as many as 10,000 2MB photos.

Card readers and memory sticks

While it is possible to download images directly from your cameras memory card to a computer (while it is still in the camera), it is something that should only be done if there is no other option available to you. This is because the process is very slow, and if the card is full, it could take hours to complete. Instead, you will find that a good card reader a device that plugs into your computer and that you insert your card into will save a lot of time and effort.

One handy solution to the problem of how to transfer large numbers of image files in a quick and easy manner is the memory stick. This useful device is also known as the data pen because it stores data and is designed to be carried in the pocket. However, use a memory stick as a temporary storage device only; think of it as a convenient way in which to transfer images rather than to store them.

A card reader is a device that is used to transfer digital images quickly and easily from a memory card to some other piece of equipment, such as a computer.