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Importing Photos

Overview

Both Mac OS X and Windows XP will assist you with the task of importing photographs from your digital camera. OS X will import your photos through Image Capture. XP provides a "Scanner and Camera" wizard; in addition, you can browse the contents of your camera directly from My Computer as if it were just another folder on your system.

Mac OS X

Apple's iPhoto ships with all new Macs as part of their iLife suite of digital media applications; iLife, however, is not part of the actual operating system.

The first time you connect a digital camera to your Mac, Image Capture will launch. Image Capture lets you specify where the contents of your media will be downloaded.

Image Capture's main window

In addition, you can enable extra options, such as the option to delete items from your camera's memory after they have been copied to your computer.

Additional options for downloading images

Clicking the "Download Some" button will let you preview the images on your camera and rotate them prior to download. You can download all images at once, or you can select specific ones to download, leaving the others as they are on your camera's memory.

If you would prefer to use an application other than Image Capture to import your camera's contents, you can set that in Image Capture's Preferences. This alters the default behavior of your computer whenever you plug in a camera. You can also choose to have no application run, so that you can copy the files manually from the camera.

Image Capture also has an "Automatic Task" menu, where you can choose from multiple post-processing tasks to apply to your images (see Photo Management).

Windows XP

Windows XP provides a Scanner and Camera wizard to import images from your digital camera. After you connect the camera to your USB port, this dialog will appear:

This wizard walks you through the process of importing images from your camera

Click "Next," and you can choose the specific images you want to import:

Select the images you want to import; in addition, you can rotate them and view information

After choosing the images to import, you can specify a name for the group, as well as choose where in the filesystem you would like to copy them to:

Specify a name and location for your images

Windows can also automatically delete the images from your camera after importing them.

As the Scanner and Camera wizard does its work, it shows you its progress:

Thumbnail previews are shown as the images are being imported

Finally, you can choose from a few post-processing tasks (publish to a website, order prints), or opt to perform no post-processing functions:

Click "Next" to dismiss the wizard

As an advanced option, users can select automated events to occur when they plug in their camera by editing its properties:

Specify camera-related events and associated actions

Alternatively, you can work with the images on your camera directy in the filesystem, bypassing the wizard. When you connect your camera, an icon for it will appear in My Computer:

My Computer lists your camera as an attached device

From there, you can view the pictures directly on the camera. This window behaves just like a regular folder in Windows Explorer, meaning you can work with the images on your camera just like any other files on your system.

Browse the images on your camera directly in Windows Explorer

Conclusion

Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 8

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