Working with digital camera & scanner images in windows (Personal Computer)

In This Chapter

Using a digital camera
Getting images from your digital camera
Setting up a scanner
Creating images with a scanner
Working with images in Windows
Converting picture file formats
Understanding resolution
Setting the right resolution
Back up! Move left! Move right! Roger, you’re not smiling! Okay, everyone, say “Cheese!” Such is the ritual of taking the traditional photograph. Captured on film and developed using a chimerical process, the picture would take a while to return to you from “the developer.” Only then would you discover that, once more, Grandma had cut off the top of Uncle Ed’s head in the picture. But never mind: It was a memory.
Today’s images are captured digitally. After the shutter clicks, a quick check of the camera confirms whether the image looks okay. If not, you can delete that image and instantly snap another one. The outfit known as “the developer” has been replaced by the personal computer, which stores, organizes, and prints your photos and lets you fling them far and wide by using e-mail or a social networking Web site. Welcome to the 21st century version of photography.

The Digital Camera

Snapping digital pictures is easy. A digital camera is as simple to operate as the Brownie cameras of a century ago. No, the problem with a digital camera is how to move those images from the camera into the PC. After they’re in the computer, you can store the pictures, edit, print, or send them off hither and thither on the Internet. But before all that happens, the images must get inside the PC. This section explains how that’s done.


Connecting a digital camera

The pictures you take with a digital camera are stored on a mass storage device, exactly the same way as information is stored on your computer. To move those images from the camera into the computer, you have to make both the camera and the computer talk with each other. You have two ways to do that:
Connect the camera to the PC with a cable. The cable came with your digital camera.
Remove the media card from the camera and plug it into the PC’s console.
Either way, the result is that the storage media in the camera, where the digital images are stored, becomes part of the PC’s storage system. That makes it easy for you to copy the pictures from the camera’s media to the PC’s media.
You don’t have to use the PC to print digital images. Many photo printers can read memory cards from digital cameras and print the images directly. See Chapter 12 for more information on printers.
Another non-PC option is to drop off the digital camera’s memory card at “the developer.” These days, the developer prints the pictures for you “in about an hour” and probably gives you an optical disc copy of the images to sweeten the deal.
See Chapter 9 for more information on the media cards used by digital cameras.

Importing images

When you connect a digital camera, or insert its media card into your PC console, you might see an AutoPlay dialog box, similar to the one shown in Figure 25-1. The AutoPlay dialog box is designed to assist you with importing the images from the camera into the PC.
Importing images from a memory card.
Figure 25-1:
Importing images from a memory card.
If you don’t see the AutoPlay dialog box, follow these steps:
1. Open the Computer window.
Choose the Computer command from the Start button menu. (It’s My Computer in Windows XP.)
2. Right-click the icon representing the digital camera’s media card.
3. Choose the Open AutoPlay command from the pop-up menu.
The AutoPlay dialog box lists several options for dealing with the digital camera’s images. My advice is to choose the option Import Pictures and Videos. Follow these steps:
1. From the AutoPlay dialog box, choose the option Import Pictures and Videos.
A dialog box appears in the lower right corner of the screen, monitoring the input progress.
2. Type a tag to identify the images.
The tag can be a name, an event, a place, or the subject matter of the images. Tags help you organize your images.
3. Click the Import button.
When the import is complete, a window appears and shows you the pictures, which are now saved on your PC’s mass storage system. You can now view, edit, print, or share the images.
For older versions of Windows, choose the command Import Pictures Using Windows. The pictures are imported using the Windows Photo Gallery program, which is a handy tool for managing digital images.
If you’ve installed a photo management program on your PC, choose that program’s option from the AutoPlay dialog box rather than the Import Pictures and Videos option.
The imported images are stored on the main hard drive, in the Pictures or My Pictures folder. See the section “Storing pictures in Windows” for information on the Pictures folder.
After you import the images, feel free to remove the originals from the digital camera’s media card. Erase or reformat the media card using the digital camera’s control panel. That way, you have plenty of room to store a new batch of pictures.

The Scanner

Your prehistoric, paper photographs and slides aren’t barred from entering the digital realm. You can use a gizmo called a scanner to take those flat pictures and transform them into digital images, stored right inside your PC. This section explains how it works.

Introducing the scanner

A scanner works like a combination photocopier and digital camera. You place something flat, like a photograph or transparency, in the scanner — just like it’s a photocopier. Press a button or run a program and the image is scanned and then beamed into the computer, ready for you to save, edit, print, or store.
Figure 25-2 illustrates the typical computer scanner, not because you may be unfamiliar with what it looks like, but more because I really like the illustration.
Most scanners are thin (like the model in the picture), use the USB interface, and have handy function buttons that let you immediately scan, copy, fax, e-mail, or read text from whatever item is placed on the scanner glass.
‘ The scanner must have something called a transparency adapter to be able to scan slides and film negatives.
‘ The scanner appears in the Devices and Printers window in Windows 7, along with other gizmos attached to your PC. Choose Devices and Printers from the Start button menu to see the scanner’s icon.
Those buttons on the scanner can be handy. For instance, I use the Copy button all the time to make quick copies. (My office doesn’t have a photocopier.) The only reservation I have about the buttons is that the tiny icons by the buttons are confusing; if need be, use a Sharpie and write down the button’s function in English.
A typical scanner.
Figure 25-2:
A typical scanner.

Scanning an image

Scanners come with special software that helps you scan an image and transfer it into the PC. The scanner might also come with some primitive form of image editing software as well. My advice is to use the software that came with the scanner, which is often your best choice.
If you don’t have any scanner software, you can use Windows to scan an image. Follow these steps:
1. Turn the scanner on, if necessary.
2. Choose Devices and Printers from the Start button menu to display the Devices and Printers window.
3. Open the scanner’s icon in the Devices and Printers window.
Double-click the scanner’s icon to open it. A New Scan dialog box appears, looking similar to the one shown in Figure 25-3.
4. Place the material to be scanned into the scanner, just as though you were using a photocopier.
Making a real picture digital.
Figure 25-3:
Making a real picture digital.
5. Click the Preview button.
The scanner warms up and shows you a preview of the pictures in the scanner, as shown in Figure 25-3.
6. Adjust the scanning rectangle so that it encloses only the part of the image you want scanned.
Drag the corners of the rectangle by using the mouse to resize it. Only the portion of the preview inside the rectangle is scanned as an image and stored on the computer.
7. Click the Scan button.
The scanner reads the image, turning it into digital information to be stored in your PC.
8. Type a tag for the images.
The tag is a general description for all the images. Use short, descriptive text, such as Summer 2010 Vacation, Meteorite Hit, or Chiam’s Bris.
9. Click the Import button.
The image is saved to the PC’s storage system and displayed in a folder window.
10. Close the folder window.
11. Repeat steps 4 through 10 to scan additional images.

Scanners that read documents

One of the software packages that came with the scanner is probably OCR software, where OCR stands for optical character recognition. This type of program scans a text document (printed material) and turns the scanned image into editable text.
The OCR scan procedure works just like scanning an image: You place the document in the scanner and then run the OCR software to start a new scan. The OCR software “reads” the document being scanned and saves the information as a text file. You can then edit the text file, print it, and so on. It’s not perfect, but using OCR software is better than having to sit and type text.
After you become comfortable with scanning, you can add some extra steps. For example, you can set the image resolution, brightness, and contrast options, and even choose another source for scanning, such as the scanner’s transparency adapter.
When you have lots of images to scan, such as a lifetime of vacation slides, consider sending the slides to a scanning service. No, this option isn’t cheap, but consider what your time is worth and how much you need to digitize your pictures.
Information about graphics file types and image resolution is found elsewhere in this chapter. Bone up on that stuff to help you make the best scans possible.
See Chapter 21 for more information on folders.

Picture Files

After an image makes the journey from your digital camera to the computer, it becomes a file on your PC’s mass storage system. Specifically, it becomes a picture file. Windows allows you to do quite a few things with picture files, and you should know a few picture-file concepts if you plan to get the most from your PC as the center of your digital photography universe. This section explains that stuff.
To work with picture files, you need an image editing program, something like Photoshop Elements or another program whose name I can’t think of now. Those programs let you perform image editing, tasks such as cropping, resizing, rotating, removing red-eye, and other fancy tricks.
A good photo management program to start with is Windows Photo Gallery. It comes prepackaged with Windows Vista. To download a free copy for other versions of Windows, visit this Web page:
http://download.live.com/photogallery
‘ See Chapter 20 for more information on the topic of computer files.

Storing pictures in Windows

Windows organizes your pictures into the Pictures folder. Any images you import or scan into the PC using Windows eventually end up in that location.
To view the Pictures folder, choose the Pictures command from the Start button menu. The Pictures folder window appears, shown in Figure 25-4. You see icons there representing images stored on your PC, including folder icons that are used to organize the pictures by date.
Images stored in the Pictures folder.
Figure 25-4:
Images stored in the Pictures folder.
See the next section for what you can do with pictures in the Pictures folder or any other folder window.
The Pictures folder is also referred to as My Pictures in some versions of Windows.
Also see Chapter 21 for more information on how folders are used to organize your stuff in Windows.

Picture file formats

Just as there are different flavors of ice cream, there are different flavors of picture files on your PC. Not that you should care: Your computer can open, display, and even edit just about any old picture file format. The problem comes when you deal with someone who isn’t as PC-flexible as you. In that case, it helps to know a modicum of information about the PC picture file formats.
A file format is known by its filename extension, which is the very last part of a filename. The filename extension doesn’t show up in Windows unless you recajigger Windows to make it show up. See Chapter 20. (I recommend that you configure Windows to display the extensions.)

Here are the popular picture file formats:

JPG: Pronounced “jay peg,” this common image file format is used by just about every digital camera and all over the Internet. JPG is also written as JPEG.
PNG: Pronounced “ping,” this picture format is also quite common, but not as popular as JPG.
TIFF: This picture file format is good for keeping detailed images, such as photos you want to edit or enlarge, or images you want to put in documents. It isn’t a good format for e-mail or the Internet because, unlike JPG and PNG, the TIFF picture files are very large. TIFF can also be written TIF.
BMP: The Windows Bitmap file format is used primarily in Windows — specifically, in the Paint program. BMP files are too large for e-mail or the Internet and, honestly, aren’t good for storing digital photographs.
CRW: Camera Raw format is used in an uncompressed, unmodified image taken at high resolutions in certain high-end digital cameras. It’s preferred for professional photographers and people who need the purest, rawest images possible. Unless you’re doing professional work, you can avoid this format.
GIF: Pronounced “jif,” this older, simple format is for storing simple color images. It was (and still is) popular on the Internet because the file size is small, but the files don’t contain enough information to make them worthy of modern digital imaging.
Many, many other graphics file formats are out there, including those specific to various photo editing programs. If I were to give you a bottom line bit of advice, it would be to keep and save all your digital images in either the JPG or PNG file format.

Viewing pictures in Windows

Images are viewed automatically in Windows simply by setting the proper icon size. In a folder window, use the View menu to choose Large Icons or Extra Large Icons. Refer to Figure 25-4 to see where to find the View menu. In that Figure, icons are shown using Large Icons view.
A second way to view a picture icon is to preview it: Click once to select the icon, and then click the Preview button that appears on the toolbar.
In Windows Vista, the View menu is titled Views and found on the left side of the menu bar.
You can select more than one image icon to preview several icons at a time in a special preview window. Click the left- or right-arrow buttons in that window to page through your images.
To view all files in a folder, click the Slide Show button on the toolbar. That runs the Slideshow program and displays the images one after another.
You can also select a specific picture folder to use as a screen saver. The image files in that folder appear on the display whenever the screen saver is activated. See Chapter 10 for more information on screen savers. The name of the Picture Folder screen saver is Photos.
Windows XP doesn’t have an icon preview function: Double-click a picture icon to open and view it.

Changing picture file formats

Occasionally, you need to convert an image from one picture file type to another. For example, you may have been silly and saved your digital camera images as TIFF files. Although that file format has its purposes, and TIFF images are by no means shoddy, they’re just too freakin’huge to send as e-mail attachments. Instead, you’re better off converting the TIFF image to JPG. Here’s how I do it:
1. Open the folder window containing the image file icon.
See Chapter 21 for information on folders.
2. Click to select the image icon.
3. Click the menu button to the right of the Preview button on the toolbar.
The menu button looks like a downward-pointing triangle.
4. Choose Paint from the Preview button’s menu.
The image opens in the Paint program. That’s where you use the Save As command to save the image using a new file type.
The Paint program in Windows 7 is different from previous versions of Windows, so accessing the menus is done differently. Rather than struggle to describe the things you see on the screen, I have you use keyboard shortcuts.
5. Press the F10 key to activate the menu shortcuts.
6. Press F and then V to access the file types submenu.
7. Press P to save the image as a PNG file or J to save it as a JPG.
A Save As dialog box appears, where you can give the file a new name or save it in a new location on the PC’s storage system.
8. Type a new filename (optional).
9. Click the Save button.
The image is now saved with a new picture file format. 10. Close the Paint program’s window.
If you have a more sophisticated graphics program, like Photoshop Elements, you can use it, rather than Paint, to make the conversion. Or, you can use any popular image conversion program, none of which I can name off the top of my head.
In older versions of Windows Paint, choose the File Save As command to summon the Save As dialog box. Then use the Save as Type drop-down list to choose the picture file type.

Image Resolution

When you deal with digital images, the topic of resolution rears its ugly head. It isn’t an area you need to know about, but by understanding it, you can better deal with issues such as big images on the screen or images that look ugly when they’re enlarged.
Resolution deals with dots — specifically, the number of dots per inch, or dpi. Each dot represents the smallest part of an image, a teeny splotch of color. It comes into play in two areas: when an image is created and when an image is reproduced.

Setting resolution

An image’s resolution is set when that image is created. You set resolution when you set up your digital camera, when you scan an image, or when you create an image from scratch using a painting program.
Resolution determines how much detail, or visual information, the image contains. So, an image set at 400 dpi has four times the detail of an image created at 100 dpi. More dots per inch means greater resolution, more information, more detail.
Though it might seem that setting the highest possible resolution is always best, that’s not always the case. Keep reading in the next section.

Choosing the best resolution

Resolution plays its most important role when an image is output. Images can end up on the computer monitor or on a printer or simply stored for future use. To set the proper resolution, it helps to know where the image ends up.
For example, a PC monitor has a resolution of 96 dpi. If you scan a 4 x 6 photograph at 100 dpi and then display that image on the PC’s monitor, it appears at nearly exactly its original size and detail. That’s because the input and output resolutions are nearly identical.
If you were to scan the same photograph (4 x 6) at 200 dpi, it would contain twice the information and detail as the same image scanned at 100 dpi. When displayed on a computer monitor, the image would appear twice as large. That’s because the image’s 200 dpi is more than twice the 96 dpi of the monitor.
A printer’s resolution can often be 300 dpi or 600 dpi. An image created at 100 dpi prints at one-third its original size when the printer uses 300 dpi output resolution. To properly render an image at its “real” size on a printer, it helps to create that image at the printer’s output resolution, 300 dpi or 600 dpi — or even higher.
Bottom line: Low resolutions are fine for the Internet. For printing your digital photographs, choose a higher resolution. For enlarging photographs, choose the highest resolution possible.
To produce the best results, you must set an image’s original resolution based on its eventual output.
Though you can resize an image to make its resolution higher, the result isn’t as good as setting it when the image is created; the image becomes jagged and boxy looking. Bottom line: You cannot create more detail where none exists.
The 100 dpi resolution is also known as Web resolution in many graphics applications and as a setting on various digital cameras.

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