Dave, how do I move my pictures from my new digital camera to my hard drive to make a copy of them on a CD-R? My OS is Windows XP home.
For this question, I decided to do a bit of experimentation of my own. After all, I’m a professional photographer on the side (you can see some of my portfolio online at Colorado Portraits, actually) so I should know this stuff, even if I primarily use a Macintosh for my photography work.
Rather than plug my camera in directly, however, I used a compact flash card reader instead, a cheap card reader to use instead (the $25 SanDisk 8-in-1 reader). Why bother getting one of these? Because it’s at least 5x faster than transferring the files directly from the camera.
Anyway, I plugged in the SanDisk unit to my Windows XP system and was pleased to see it appear as a “generic USB drive” without having to install any drivers. Even more impressively, Windows automatically pointed out that the unit could perform faster if it were hooked up to one of the USB 2.0 ports on the computer, rather than the default USB 1.1 drive.
Unlike my main Mac OS X system, however, Windows XP doesn’t launch an image capture program for transferring photographs from the digital camera memory unit, it just shows the drive with two folders, DCIM and .Trashes. Open DCIM and you see a folder that’s named after your camera (mine is “D100”), open that folder and you finally see all the photographs on the camera.
To save them to your desktop, just drag and drop the desired pictures or the top-level folder to your desktop and everything’ll be copied as desired. I’d actually recommend that you create a new folder (I name mine after the current date), drag everything into that folder, then move that folder into your “My Pictures” folder, so that you’re using the preferred Windows organization.
That’s half the challenge.
To burn a CDROM of the images, you need to insert a writable CDROM disk into your burner drive, then select all the images or folders you want to copy onto the disk.
Right click on them and choose Copy this File, Copy This Folder or Copy These Selected Items (depending on what you’ve chosen). In the Copy Items dialog window, choose the writable drive, then click “Copy”.
Now — yeah, this is a hassle — go back to My Computer, then double click on the writable drive again. Check that everything you want to copy shows up under the “Files Ready to be Written to the Disk” section. Ready? Everything looks good? Click on “Write these files to CD” under CD Writing Tasks, and your system should start burning the disk.
That should get you going. If you find that you still can’t get files from your camera, or can’t successfully burn to CDROM, please come back and we’ll see if we can find some easier solutions.
hi jusst wondering if anyone knows how i can get the oics off my smart phone (palm pre ) and onto my desktop computer my cell phone has been shut off so is there still a way i can do this without service ?? i have a usb cord that i can use plz email me @ luvleelisa2211@yaoo.com
I ran into trouble at “Write these files to CD” under CD Writing Tasks, and your system should start burning the disk.”
The folder and files show up on the CD, the message says “Files ready to be written to CD”, all file icons have down-arrow style checkmarks, and all show the picture kind of hazed out.
However, I cannot find CD Writing Tasks to click on to conitinue…help?
Thanks!
After downloading photos from my camera to my laptop, I renamed them. I then tried to put them in this order onto a CD but they went onto the CD alphabetically, which meant that they were out of date of being taken. How can I stop this from happening?
Thanks Irene
Hi Dave,
I have been looking for a place to ask questions because my computer and camera has a lot of operator error. I will be back to you.
Thanks
Ray
I try to download onto a CD pictures from a Canon camera and use a card reader. Works perfect, except when I have too many pictures downloaded and it will not go on to a CD 702mb. Can you help how I split this up and get the pictures on more then one CD? Thank you Dave.
Dave, I can’t figure out how to copy photos to a CD; using XP Prof; followed the steps but stuff doesn’t match. Should the CDR be in the D (CD) or the E (DVD) drive when I am trying to copy?
Thanks.
Hi, I am trying to make a copy of my pictures from my camera memory card onto a cd-r disc. I’m having problems & am not sure what to do, I thought it would be as simple as copying them into a folder on my desktop, then burn, but doesn’t work. I have a brand new HP Pavillion laptop. Please help!
i just bought a insignia digital camera from wal-mart and i used to beable to just plug it in and the screen pops up asking what u want to do with it. well i didnt use it for awhile bcuz i lost my cord to it and now that i found it i plugged it back in and absolutely NOTHING happens now. i do not have a cd-rom to put it just the cord and i dont understand what to do to fix it. i went to control panel and scanner and camera and my camera is NOT on the list. somebody help me pleeeeeeeeeeeease!! please email me at baby_gurl4484@yahoo.com bcuz i may not remember how to get back to this website! thanks!
Do I have to format my cd to allow me to burn the photos I have on my hard drive. If I do how do I do it.
I just got a new digital camera Canon p0wershot A470. I tried to put the solution disk in , but it would not do anything . then I put the connecter to camera and Usb cable in , but the computer will not bring up my pictures , what am I doing wrong, I am just a new computer person and don’t know a whole lot about it .
I have burnt many pictures successfully from my computer from the picasa photo program now.But now my computer tells me that the disc is “incompatible” and will not burn photos?? They are the same disc I have been using??? Why does this happen?
Look forward to your reply thanks,
Margaret
HELP – I’M am running Microsoft XP and would like to know how I Could burn my photo’s to E:\ drive on a dvd. I opened Start / My Computer / D:\ highlighted folders / then selected Start again / My Computer / E:/ drive / minimized this screen to position smaller screen over the Pictures files, then I dragged my photo’s to the E drive…………..it wouldn’t let me copy. It said E:\ is not accessible .. incorrect function.
I feel that my pictures should copy over to the E drive with these steps. For some reason it is not allowing me to copy. Please Help Susan
i have photos saved on my computer, and know how to copy them onto a cd, but i want music on as well so that the song plays while you watch a slideshow of the photos on a dvd player. pleqase help.
hi there can u help, i can burn cd’s and dvd’s no problems with kodak easyshare but i want to add music to the slideshow how do i do it mr expert lol x
beginner…need to buy software ,would like to put family photos onto disc ,then add music ..thousands of pics..what do you suggest?
I have a dvd writer on my dell laptop. I’ve been told that I can burn my pictures onto a dvd using this. I can’t get it to work though. any suggestions. Or is this not possible.
I too have followed the steps to burning my photos onto cd however once they are copied they do not appear in the writable drive! please help!
Great help, thanks!
However, I have followed your steps to burn my photos onto a cd-r, but when I get to the last stage (files ready to be written to the cd) and I select all and click “write these files to cd”, nothing happens. Hope you can give some tips.
Great and helpful site but I wonder if you can assist further. On my PC the program chooser “what do you want windows to do” doesn’t pop up anymore whenever I insert a CD. Is there a way to get this option back?
Regards
Bill
yes i need help on figuring out how i put pictures from my digital camera (a kodak) yo put on my myspace profile please help?!~
I am having trouble. I want to put my photos from kodak easy share into my hp digital imaging please help.
I Can see the photos on my computer from kodak easy share but when I want too make the bigger it says the file or folder cannot be found. please they are photos from along time ago.
Well, “Macs are worthless”, that’s an interesting perspective. I encourage you to talk with professional photographers and graphic professionals to find out what platform they prefer. You might be surprised at just what a wealth of solutions are available and what system they prefer having on their desks…
Quote:
Unlike my main Mac OS X system, however, Windows XP doesn’t launch an image capture program for transferring photographs from the digital camera memory unit, it just shows the drive with two folders, DCIM and .Trashes.
That’s because if MicroSoft tried to launch a program to do this automatically, it would last about 5 minutes before someone sues them for monopolistic practices. Apple, on the other hand, can’t get anyone to write software on their platform, so they HAVE to include everything built-in or you’d be able to even less on a Mac than you can right now (which in my opinion is very little).
Hi,
I love your site. simple like I can understand.. ; )
I have a sony handycam dcr-trv530. My software (premiere or avid) don’t want to recognise it. When I plug the Firewire cable, windows ask me what I want to do with it.. but I cant control it. The same camera, plug to an mac or an other pc will work fine.. i can transfer my vdo. I’ve look into Sony website, but I don’t see any drivers for my camera.. is there anything to try?
Thanks for your time, realy appreciated.
Dominic
Hmmm… don’t have too much experience with Easyshare, but Kodak does have what looks like a pretty important upgrade available on its Web site. But I’d start with their FAQ page at http://faqs.kodak.com/EasyShare_Software_English/ One of the FAQs talks about how to uninstall this upgrade too, so you’re not alone.
Also, does it work if you just plug in the camera then use Windows Explorer to find the associated drive and transfer the pictures without using the Kodak software in the first place?
Am in a long running problem with Kodak Easyshare. Used Kodak floppy to erase all old material and installed Version4 from CD. All well except that getting pictures from DX3600 Camera and Dock is extremely difficult although camera is installed OK. Should I uninstall V4 and return to earlier V1.4 which was fine.
Splendid data, Joe. I kinda wondered when the much vaunted Windows XP didn’t do anything special upon insertion of a digital camera flash card device. Very interesting ….
While I realize you are the expert, I would like to offer a different opinion on the issue of “How do I get my digital camera photos onto my XP system then burn them to CDROM?”
For me and my XP system, it is fairly simple. I EITHER hook up the camera via USB (too slow) or put the USB card in the card reader. A few seconds later the light flashes and up ‘pops’ the XP ‘chooser’which asks “What do you want Windows to do?” The first choice being “Copy pictures to a folder on my computer using Microsoft Scanner and Camera Wizard”, which I select.
On the next frame all the pictures are already selected and I can de-select the ones I DONT want to copy. On the next screen. I choose what folder and what ‘prefix’ for these pictures and then copy.
It works GREAT!!!
So you ask why don’t some people see this? The blame is placed on some programs screwing up the USB (The CHIEF culprit is REAL PLAYER 10.5) The fix? If RealPlayer 10.5 is installed, REMOVE IT. Then download from Microsoft’s http://download.microsoft.com/ site a program called autofix.exe (You find it by searching on AUTOPLAY) and run it. You need to ‘go through the insertion of a card’. It will run some checks then hopefully says everything is fine.
Reboot, and everything WILL be fine… Scanner and Camera wizard will WORK…
Supposedly a corrected version of RealPlayer is in the works… I have been follwing in the Microsoft newsgroup.
microsoft.public.windowsxp.photos
Hope this helps
How Do I Get My Digital Camera Photos Onto My XP System, Then Burn Them To CDROM?
Dave, how do I move my pictures from my new digital camera to my hard drive to make a copy of them on a CD-R? My OS is Windows XP home. For this question, I decided to do a bit…