Getting photos from camera to hdd?

[CitizenM]

I downloaded 150 imgs from my new D40 to a fresh Power Book G4 using iPhoto that came w/the laptop, only to find umpteen hurdles to organizing and coping to cd w/o iPhoto proprietary restrictions for viewing from any system. It took forever moving and tagging ea. img.
I get the photos into my winXP box using Photoshop Elements and trying to organize just those 150 images took forever.
I was reading a tutorial on Work Flow you can view here: http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com/a-tut...icle_425.shtml
I am totally confused. 1) Does iPhoto, Photo Shop Elements or PSP9 have download managers or are these strictly image editing programs. 2) Do I need a download manager to get my pics from memory card into the folders I want to save to? Will a download manager help organization simpler, quicker? 3) Should I be using a card reader instead of the direct camera usb cable? Nikon D40 instructions recommend not using a card reader? If I need a download manager to help download photographs in a more orderly way as to save time, please suggest one.
The point is I need to create a work flow that will save time better spent actually editing. lol Problem is getting thru the 1st step of howto get photos from the camera to hdd.
Thanks from a Digital Camera Newbie:mad2:

[mn shutterbug]

I can't help you with organizing, because I don't take that many photos. However, to move the photos from the card to the hard drive, here is what I do on my XP. This should work with either a card reader or cable. I create a new folder on my desktop and call it "new photos". I then put my reader in my usb port and open the folder of all the photos on my card. I then select all the photos and then drag them to the "new folder". No software program is necessary for copying to your hdd.

[masdog]

Citizen,

There are a lot of options available to you covering any price category/range that you might be looking to shop in. Photo-John and Smart Wombat both have solutions you might want to ask about.

My solution is to use Windows XP Explorer in Filmstrip mode. This gives me a quick preview of all my JPEG files, and then it is a simple copy-paste into the correct folder. Then I use my editing software to prepare the best images for presentation.

If you're looking for a photo-library and RAW program, I would recommend Adobe Lightroom.

[SmartWombat]

I would, but he's using a Mac - I'm a PC user !
So I can't give specific advice on how to do it with the software he has.

[Medley]

iPhoto should handle the process just fine. Just open it up, and click on the "import" tab. I'm actually kind of surprised that it doesn't launch automatically when you plug the camera in.

- Joe U.

[KenB]

I can't understand why the Nikon instructions would say to not use a card reader. There really shouldn't be any difference in performance assuming everything is USB 2.0 but, if you have a built in SD card reader, it may be faster to use that interface. The downside of using the camera, aside from the fact that it's tethered to your laptop and susceptible to being accidentally pulled off a table or something like that, is the battery drain.

I'm not sure about what else is out there for MacOS but Photoshop Elements is pretty great all around, from importing to management to editing to printing.

[masdog]

I would, but he's using a Mac - I'm a PC user !
So I can't give specific advice on how to do it with the software he has.

He mentioned using both a Mac G4 w/ iPhoto and a Windows XP box.

[CitizenM]

Hi and thanks, masdog is correct, I do hav a mac laptop, winxp box, and an old win98se box. I like the wnxp explorer, filmstrip functionality for simplicity and ease of use. iPhoto and Photoshop Elements have so many menus and options to just put 1 img. into a category and/or group...digital photography is new to me and all the software for organizing and editing is new too. iPhoto duplicates images too much for me to store anything on the laptop and it is hard to export img out of iphoto so that they are universally usable...Photo Shop Elements doesn't duplicate original images but I am not sure how its' file system works, I run Photo Shop Elements on win XP. Plan is to use winXP just to work on and see if I could setup the old dualboot win98/slack box as a file server...Yet another project and I hope SmartWombat provides easy to follow instructions to setup the network.
Tried to use a USB2.0 card reader on w/winxp but it didn't work. Connected camera to usb port and used filmstrip and put everything where I wanted it to go.

[SmartWombat]

I missed that, sorry. I saw Mac and iPhoto and my eyes glazed over...

setup the old dualboot win98/slack box as a file server

I'm using a dedicated NAS for storage, runs Linux and is just a power-on appliance.

I would have thought that a Linux box running Samba for the PC and CIFS or NFS for the Mac would work well as a file server. I definitely wouldn't use Win98 as its networking to other O/S is a bit tricky.
Mind you, if you're not experienced in networking, getting the Linux system to talk to the Windows systems is quite challenging, at least doing it securely is tricky.

Photo Shop Elements ... I am not sure how its' file system works

I don't trust photoshop or anything else to get in the way of copying my images. I hate it when I put in a memory card and some window pops up and tries to help me. I've been fighting one by one to turn off Adobe's image loading tolls that some with PS CS2 and Lightroom.

Before Lightroom, I used to use Thumbs+ for organisation. I still use it for quickly looking at photos, because Lightroom is slow even on my 3.4Ghz dual core system.

Tried to use a USB2.0 card reader on w/winxp but it didn't work.

I copy the files direct off the card using a card reader, I do not use the camera.
I had to go buy a new card reader, because some SD cards don't work in my old one.
I don't know why, I suspect it's a speed/voltage issue.

I put the images in folders by year and subject, so I can find them again (I have a fairly good memory) but to keep track of them long term I'm going to use Lightroom to add keywords into the images so I can find them rather than remembering them.

To get the images in, I just drag and drop from the memory card to, for example, \\nas-01-35-39\pictures\2007\GFoS\20070622 for the first day of the goodwood festival of speed.

Then load those images into the Lightroom catalogue by loading the entire folder - selecting the option to leave the images in their original location.
That's important as I don't want multiple copies of the images.
I don't want them embedded in the Ligtroom database on the PC's D: drive (even though it is 300G) because the NAS is a 3TB RAID 5 system, so I have 2TB of protected storage on the house network.



BTW watch out for Windows XP: Recently I've been having great trouble with the USB interfaces on my desktop, strangely after installing a set of windows "security updates" that seem to have made my office computer and home computer screw up their USB.
Drives no longer appear when I plug in the card reader, drives only appear when there is media plugged in, and that isn't always working reliably.
Whatever Microsoft did, I want it undone !
It may be coincidence, but all my external hard drives plugged into the 7-post hub also have ceased to function,. The lights on the hub no longer come on when I power up a drive.
But even with the hub unplugged my desktop machine is still misbehaving.

When I get to the bottom of it, I'll share how I fixed it.

[mn shutterbug]

BTW watch out for Windows XP: Recently I've been having great trouble with the USB interfaces on my desktop, strangely after installing a set of windows "security updates" that seem to have made my office computer and home computer screw up their USB.
Drives no longer appear when I plug in the card reader, drives only appear when there is media plugged in, and that isn't always working reliably.
Whatever Microsoft did, I want it undone !
It may be coincidence, but all my external hard drives plugged into the 7-post hub also have ceased to function,. The lights on the hub no longer come on when I power up a drive.
But even with the hub unplugged my desktop machine is still misbehaving.

When I get to the bottom of it, I'll share how I fixed it.

PAul, have you tried a system restore to a date prior to installing the updates? Just an idea.

[CitizenM]

Thanks again and sorry if I wasn't clear. I can't use winXP upgrades. lol
Got USB2. Card reader to work. Needed to gently move tiny SD memory card till it was seated properly and lights lit up on card reader. Yah!

I could only afford the PhotoShop Elements and an ebay copy of PSP9 but I unselected all the file associations during install. I don't want anything associated, so I can freely work between programs, if I ever get past the setup maze.
PSE attractive feature is that it supposedly creates only an Adobe library where originals r stored and all the cataloging are links but I want my originals in catalogs not huge libraries as I download them.

Now in win XP when I created an Originals Folder in My docs\My pics it also gets written to User My docs\My pics? What is this? What have I done wrong? Is everything being duplicated or just associated in winXP file system? These are basic things that need to be address in the beginning of setting up my files system before I store larger number of pics.
I love win98se and use it for browsing and email minimizing exposure of other os to viruses.. running Fire fox and Thunderbird. Seamonkey is Netscape like which I never learned to use. There is a free keeping Win98se Alive Project: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=91

[SmartWombat]

created an Originals Folder in My docs\My pics it also gets written to User My docs\My pics

Nothing wrong, Windows is being helpful (yeah, right) by hiding from you where the images actually get stored. Windows is configured by Microsoft for the average home user.
I wish it had an I know what I'm doing leave it alone setting.

On my machine "My Documents" in windows is actually "C:\Documents and Settings\paul\My Documents" physically on the disk.

If my wife logged in, she'd see "My Documents" too, but it would be a different folder "C:\Documents and Settings\angie\My Documents"
She can't see my my documents, only her my documents.

I love win98se and use it for browsing and email minimizing exposure of other os to viruses

For security, I use a the firewall in my network router, backed up by the Microsoft firewall on the PC, and AVG Free anti-virus.
I use Firefox with add-ins to prevent software getting in:
Ad Block Plus for the 1 pixel web bugs for tracking
No Script to stop cross-site scripting and disable java unless I trust a site
Yes, of course I trust photographyreview.com

So far, nothing has got through that I can find. I use both AdAware and SpyBot to check for spy software and they found no software - only tracking cookies that are easily dealt with.