Photography - How to Import Photographs From a Camera Onto Windows Vista and Organize Into Folders
Once you have taken some great photographs using your DSLR digital camera the next logical stage would be for you to import and organize your pictures onto your computer for easy access and viewing.
This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of how to complete this task simply and easily.
Imagine this scenario if you will.
You go out for a walk at the weekend taking your camera with you.
You manage to take a few pictures of an animal, a flower, and some beautiful scenery.
When you get home you import these pictures to your computer and they get mixed in with all the other pictures you have that are already stored there.
Two weeks down the road you are chatting with someone about the particular animal that you managed to get some photos of.
They show a real interest and you ask if they would like you to print them off for them.
The first thing you have got to do is find them amongst all the others that are loaded on your computer.
If you have a couple of year's worth of pictures it could be like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
So, if you take pictures on a regular basis and do not organize them and only import them to the computer, in a very short period you will end up with a very big mess, especially if you use your camera on a frequent basis and photograph a variety of subjects.
This short step-by-step guide will show you how to save yourself from having a massive bulk of digital pictures all just uploaded onto your computer with no real organization.
There are a big selection of digital cameras and computers so therefore there is no universal means of transferring the images from the camera to the computer.
The two main forms tend to be either a USB cable from the camera to the computer or removing the memory card from the camera and plugging it straight into one of the media slots on the computer.
Either way once you have placed the card into the slot or plugged in the USB cable a small window should open in the middle of your computer screen titled, AutoPlay.
There should be about seven selections available from the AutoPlay menu.
In most cases with digital photography there is an excess of pictures that can be taken at any given time.
For example, in some cases on an eight gigabyte memory card in a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera you can take at least a couple thousand photographs.
Most people would not get anywhere near that even if they took their digital camera on vacation with them for a fortnight, but most digital cameras do tend to have a good capacity for your images.
This means that you can take several pictures of the same subject using different settings in order to try and get the best looking picture.
Visible management should be the first port of call and for that you will need to manage which images are actually imported from your camera.
For this purpose you should click on, View pictures using Windows.
This will automatically open your Windows picture viewer with the first picture that you took being displayed.
With this viewer you can edit your picture using several basic functions such as.
These can all be accessed by clicking Fix on the menu bar at the top of the page.
If you make a mistake and want to revert back simply click on Undo or Redo found at the bottom right hand side of the page when the Fix menu is activated.
The bottom center toolbar is for standard picture activity such as (from left to right)
Go through all of your images editing as you wish and deleting those that are duplicates or not of the quality that you had wished for.
In some cases this may take time, but is necessary if you are to become 100% organized with your photos.
Once you have completed this process you will see up in the top left hand corner the words Import To Gallery, click on these words (but only once you have completed editing).
This will open a small window in the bottom right of your screen with the title, Importing Pictures and Videos.
At this point there are two things you can do.
Firstly if these pictures are all of the same topic such as a holiday that you have just been on or similar you can at this stage simply type in the type box the name of the holiday title that you wish to give these pictures and the date that you took them, then just click on the Import button to import, or secondly if the pictures are of various subjects type in the type box the date you took them and click on the Import button.
This will create two actions, the first of which is create the images in the Windows Photo Gallery under Recently Imported, which has now been automatically opened, the second being that a folder with the title that you gave it has now automatically been created in Pictures on your computer.
If the pictures you have imported were of the same event such as a holiday and you titled it as you wanted then there is nothing else you need to do at this time (you can now view these pictures by going to Pictures, double clicking the folder and see all your images, simply click on any one of them to open it up in the Windows Picture Viewer again) unless you wish to segregate the pictures within that folder into other titles.
Open your Pictures file from the Start Menu this should now display all your lose images and picture folders in the larger right hand column and all of your Folders for the Desktop on the left hand side.
Let us say that your recent photograph session was taking pictures of various items in your garden over a twenty four hour period and you have quite a selection of images that you took in your folder that simply has the date on it.
On the toolbar at the top of the page click on Organize then New Folder, this will produce a new folder awaiting you to type something into the bottom space.
As we continue with this example type in Garden Events, then go back to the smaller left hand column and click on the Garden Events folder, this will give you a blank page on the right hand column.
Go to Organize at the toolbar, click to activate drop down menu and again click on New Folder.
Call this new folder Flowers and Trees, and then click on organize again and create another new folder, call this one Insects, then create another folder called Birds and Wildlife, another called Lunar Events, and finally one called Miscellaneous.
So now you should have five folders looking at you all with nothing in them.
In the left hand column you will see the folder Garden Events with a drop down triangle behind it, click on the triangle just to drop down the five sub folders that you have just created.
Now still in the left hand column click on the original folder that you have just imported, this should display all of the images in the right hand column.
So if you have a picture of a bird in the right column highlight it by hovering mouse over it and left click with the mouse, drag this picture across to the left hand column and down until the Birds and Wildlife folder is highlighted, now release and that image should have successfully been placed into that folder.
Repeat this process for all of the pictures.
When you have successfully transferred all of the images into their designated folders you will no longer need the original folder you created when you imported all of the images.
In the left hand column hold the mouse over the original folder that had all of the images in (should be the one either with just the date on it or holiday pictures if you have decided to segregate them further) and right click, from the drop down menu select Delete, you will get a window asking if you are sure you wish to send this folder to the Recycle Bin, click Yes.
Now you can use this example and knowledge to organize all of the photographs that you have already currently on your computer as well as how to organize and import any future photographs that you will be taking.
This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of how to complete this task simply and easily.
Imagine this scenario if you will.
You go out for a walk at the weekend taking your camera with you.
You manage to take a few pictures of an animal, a flower, and some beautiful scenery.
When you get home you import these pictures to your computer and they get mixed in with all the other pictures you have that are already stored there.
Two weeks down the road you are chatting with someone about the particular animal that you managed to get some photos of.
They show a real interest and you ask if they would like you to print them off for them.
The first thing you have got to do is find them amongst all the others that are loaded on your computer.
If you have a couple of year's worth of pictures it could be like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
So, if you take pictures on a regular basis and do not organize them and only import them to the computer, in a very short period you will end up with a very big mess, especially if you use your camera on a frequent basis and photograph a variety of subjects.
This short step-by-step guide will show you how to save yourself from having a massive bulk of digital pictures all just uploaded onto your computer with no real organization.
There are a big selection of digital cameras and computers so therefore there is no universal means of transferring the images from the camera to the computer.
The two main forms tend to be either a USB cable from the camera to the computer or removing the memory card from the camera and plugging it straight into one of the media slots on the computer.
Either way once you have placed the card into the slot or plugged in the USB cable a small window should open in the middle of your computer screen titled, AutoPlay.
There should be about seven selections available from the AutoPlay menu.
- Import pictures using Windows
- View pictures using Windows
- View pictures using Windows Media Center
- Create Disc or Edit Image using DVD Suite Deluxe
- Make a muvee with photos using muvee Reveal
- Plus a couple of General options at the very bottom.
In most cases with digital photography there is an excess of pictures that can be taken at any given time.
For example, in some cases on an eight gigabyte memory card in a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera you can take at least a couple thousand photographs.
Most people would not get anywhere near that even if they took their digital camera on vacation with them for a fortnight, but most digital cameras do tend to have a good capacity for your images.
This means that you can take several pictures of the same subject using different settings in order to try and get the best looking picture.
Visible management should be the first port of call and for that you will need to manage which images are actually imported from your camera.
For this purpose you should click on, View pictures using Windows.
This will automatically open your Windows picture viewer with the first picture that you took being displayed.
With this viewer you can edit your picture using several basic functions such as.
- Adjust Exposure
- Adjust Colour
- Auto Adjust
- Crop Image
- Remove Red Eye
These can all be accessed by clicking Fix on the menu bar at the top of the page.
If you make a mistake and want to revert back simply click on Undo or Redo found at the bottom right hand side of the page when the Fix menu is activated.
The bottom center toolbar is for standard picture activity such as (from left to right)
- Zoom In
- Quick zoom
- Back one
- Play Slide Show
- Forward One
- Left Turn
- Right Turn
- Delete
Go through all of your images editing as you wish and deleting those that are duplicates or not of the quality that you had wished for.
In some cases this may take time, but is necessary if you are to become 100% organized with your photos.
Once you have completed this process you will see up in the top left hand corner the words Import To Gallery, click on these words (but only once you have completed editing).
This will open a small window in the bottom right of your screen with the title, Importing Pictures and Videos.
At this point there are two things you can do.
Firstly if these pictures are all of the same topic such as a holiday that you have just been on or similar you can at this stage simply type in the type box the name of the holiday title that you wish to give these pictures and the date that you took them, then just click on the Import button to import, or secondly if the pictures are of various subjects type in the type box the date you took them and click on the Import button.
This will create two actions, the first of which is create the images in the Windows Photo Gallery under Recently Imported, which has now been automatically opened, the second being that a folder with the title that you gave it has now automatically been created in Pictures on your computer.
If the pictures you have imported were of the same event such as a holiday and you titled it as you wanted then there is nothing else you need to do at this time (you can now view these pictures by going to Pictures, double clicking the folder and see all your images, simply click on any one of them to open it up in the Windows Picture Viewer again) unless you wish to segregate the pictures within that folder into other titles.
Open your Pictures file from the Start Menu this should now display all your lose images and picture folders in the larger right hand column and all of your Folders for the Desktop on the left hand side.
Let us say that your recent photograph session was taking pictures of various items in your garden over a twenty four hour period and you have quite a selection of images that you took in your folder that simply has the date on it.
On the toolbar at the top of the page click on Organize then New Folder, this will produce a new folder awaiting you to type something into the bottom space.
As we continue with this example type in Garden Events, then go back to the smaller left hand column and click on the Garden Events folder, this will give you a blank page on the right hand column.
Go to Organize at the toolbar, click to activate drop down menu and again click on New Folder.
Call this new folder Flowers and Trees, and then click on organize again and create another new folder, call this one Insects, then create another folder called Birds and Wildlife, another called Lunar Events, and finally one called Miscellaneous.
So now you should have five folders looking at you all with nothing in them.
In the left hand column you will see the folder Garden Events with a drop down triangle behind it, click on the triangle just to drop down the five sub folders that you have just created.
Now still in the left hand column click on the original folder that you have just imported, this should display all of the images in the right hand column.
So if you have a picture of a bird in the right column highlight it by hovering mouse over it and left click with the mouse, drag this picture across to the left hand column and down until the Birds and Wildlife folder is highlighted, now release and that image should have successfully been placed into that folder.
Repeat this process for all of the pictures.
When you have successfully transferred all of the images into their designated folders you will no longer need the original folder you created when you imported all of the images.
In the left hand column hold the mouse over the original folder that had all of the images in (should be the one either with just the date on it or holiday pictures if you have decided to segregate them further) and right click, from the drop down menu select Delete, you will get a window asking if you are sure you wish to send this folder to the Recycle Bin, click Yes.
Now you can use this example and knowledge to organize all of the photographs that you have already currently on your computer as well as how to organize and import any future photographs that you will be taking.
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