Before printing your pictures you should upload them to your computer from your camera or the digital media. If you are going to use an online printing service you will need to do this so you can then upload them to the printing service. Even if you are not using an online printing service you should make copies of your pictures on your computer in case something bad happens after you hand off your digital media to a kiosk or photo desk clerk.
The term “digital media” is usually used in reference to the flash memory cards that most modern digital cameras use to store pictures. The most common memory formats are:
- Secure Digital or SD/SDHC
- Sony Memory Stick
Secure Digital or SD is by far the most widely used format by most modern digital cameras with the exception of Sony cameras that use Sony Memory Stick. SDHC refers to SD cards that are 4 to 32 Gigabytes. Most new digital cameras that accept SD cards will also accept SDHC cards. If you run into SDXC, it is a new specification for SD cards that can hold up to 2 Terabytes.
There are also mini and micro SD cards which are often used in higher end cellular phones. If your card reader doesn’t take these formats directly you can usually get an adapter that you can plug them into that will fit into a standard SD slot.
Most digital cameras come with a USB cable or dock that connects to your computer’s USB port. Often, cameras come with software that enables you to offload your pictures to your PC. If this is the case you should refer to your cameras manual for further instruction. If you are not happy with your camera’s transfer software, or you don’t like tethering the camera to your PC to download your pictures, you can use a card reader.
Card readers plug into a free USB port on your computer and will typically accept the most common flash memory cards. To use a card reader to download your pictures, you take the flash card out of your camera and plug it into the appropriate slot on the card reader for the type of card you are using.
Windows XP asks you what you want to do when you plug in a media device.
If everything goes well, Windows, or whichever operating system you are using, will ask you what you want to do with the files on your media card. You can select the option to view your files in your operating system’s file manager. (I.e. Windows Explorer). In addition, if you open up “My Computer” on Windows, you will see your flash card as a new drive letter. Double clicking on the drive will allow you to see your pictures.
Once you have your pictures open in your operating system’s file manager you can create a folder for them on your desktop and drag and drop your image files over. With your images on your hard drive you can upload them to a photo printing service or take your media device to your local retailer for printing.
SD cards tend to be a bit on the small side and can easily get lost. As an alternative, you can purchase a USB thumb drive with a key ring adapter for under $15 that will hold 4 Gigabytes of photos (about 800 high resolution JPEG photos). To use a USB thumb drive you plug it into a free USB port on your computer and then drag and drop your photo files to the folder/drive that appears. Most photo kiosks accept USB thumb drives in addition to regular flash memory cards.
Now that your digital pictures are on your hard drive, make sure you back them up to some type of new media every few years. Most forms of media suffer degradation of some kind over time. Even flash memory devices only have a life expectancy of 10 years or so. Depend on the media quality, recordable CD and DVD media only have a lifespan of 2-5 years although more expensive archival media is available. Last but not least, hard drives are mechanical devices (at the moment) so they may fail at any second.
To be safe, always have your digital photos on two different types of media. A good strategy would be to keep your photos on your computer’s hard drive so you can quickly get at them but also write them to optical media or an external USB hard drive and store those at another location. There are now online backup services such as Carbonite or Mozy and others where you can upload your files (assuming you have a fast internet connection). If, heaven forbid, your house burns down or is destroyed in some other natural disaster you will at least have your memories in the form of digital photos.