Create a digital photo album

You must create a digital photo album before you even consider importing a photograph on your computer hard disk. You must have a plan for how you will store your photographs. Just as you keep your "normal" photos in some sort of order in a photo album, you must arrange your digital photos and images into a folders on your computer's hard disc.
You can arrange your photos by subject, eg. baby photos, Christmas photos, family photos and so on. I find it far better to arrange my photos according to date or event, eg. 2007 photos, trip to Spain 2007, school tour 2007. Arranged like this it will be easier to locate a photo in future based on when it was taken.

Set up your digital photo albums

So you are ready to set up your digital photo albums.
 You can click on the video and you will see a visual demonstration of how to set up your files for storing your digital photos (ie your digital photo albums).




Download digital photos into your pre-set up folders

It's time to download digital photos and see what kind of a photographer you are, now that your folders are set up and ready! So we have come to the exciting bit.

You can follow the tutorial in text form by scrolling down the page or you can just click on the video and watch it that way.



First you need to connect your camera to the computer so that it can read the memory card. This is where the photos are stored, quite like the film in the "old style" camera. A cable came with your camera to download digital photos.
Alternatively, you can remove the digital camera memory card from the camera and insert it into a card reader. Digital memory card readers are available quite cheaply and most laptops come with one built in. The advantage to using a digital memory card reader is that the computer powers it and so it is not running down the batteries of your camera while importing digital photos.
The picture here shows one of the many types of card on the market today.

Don't worry if your memory card doesn't look like this. They come in all shapes and sizes, but do the same thing. They are all designed to store photographs taken by your digital camera. Here are a few more examples of memory cards.
        
So, if you are using a digital memory card reader, put the card into your card reader, as shown below to start to download digital photos.

Perhaps, you are putting the digital memory card into the card reader slot on your laptop. Or maybe you are just connecting your camera directly to your computer by means of the USB cable. This is the symbol to look for when locating any port or cable using USB connectivity.

Once you plug in the cable, your computer will recognise that a camera or memory card reader has been connected and will display this window, assuming you wish to start to download digital photos.

Creating Desktop Shortcuts

Everybody needs desktop shortcuts. How many you have will depend on how many different programs you use on a regular basis. Some programs make a shortcut for you when you install the program. For others you must create it yourself.
This is a fairly simple operation and although it only needs to be done once for each program you regularly use, you will need to use it each time you install a program you intend to use regularly.
Click on the video to view the tutorial