How Do I Download or Upload Pictures or Videos from my Camera

This question comes up a lot. A new or used camera owner may run into camera software issues. Theyll plug in their camera, but for some reason their computer fails to see or recognize the camera. Another problem is they may lose or may never have had the USB cable or needed software that came with the camera. Is there any other way to get the photos or videos off the camera and onto their computer?

First of all keep in mind IMO the only reason that the camera companies include a capability for cable download is to get you accustomed to using their bundled software that came with the camera. In most cases this software is rather pitiful, again IMO. If you absolutely must use photo organizing or editing software, there are much better freeware options available than what came with your camera (a future blog post is brewing).

But as a solution to downloading your photos, I highly recommend that you instead consider using a card reader to move the photos or videos to your computer. Card readers do not require software (although Windows 98 and earlier may require drivers), are very inexpensive, are much faster downloading files from the camera, do not use the cameras batteries during the download, and are much less prone to file corruption of the photos during the download. Really, it would be better for the camera user if one of these was included with the camera instead of the cable and bundled software.

Portable SD Card Reader/Writer

"All in One" Multi-Card Reader/Writer

You place the cameras card in the reader, plug the reader into the USB port, and your computer sees it as a hard drive. You simply copy/paste or drag/drop your photos onto your hard drive. For this simplicity, most professional photographers utilize card readers exclusively. Youll save yourself a lot of heartache if you convert to using one of these.

Here are examples from Amazon. Dont be fooled by the cost. Some of the most inexpensive ones work just fine. But make sure that you do read the reviews first before purchasing. Also make sure that you get a reader that is clearly stated capable of reading your card, particularly if you use SDHC, XD, CF, or MS cards.

For international readers of this blog, and even those in the US, heres another source for card readers (free international shipping too :-). I use the $1.95 portable SD/SDHC card model (SKU7230), and it works great. Note that the free shipping can take up to three weeks though as theyre located in Hong Kong.

Now go throw away that cable and go download your photos.

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Upload images and get the URL of the image

As each day there are lots of new users joining the world of blogging, is necessary to discuss about some basic topics that bring up some recurring questions such as how we could get the URL of an image?

On the Internet there are many both free as well as paid web hosting where we can host images, but since we use Blogger then there is nothing better than using the same hosting service that Google gives us and that is Picasa.

The fastest way to upload an image is by going to the Blogger post editor. From your Blogger Dashboard, go to your blog, then click on the New post button. And preferably from the Edit HTML tab, click on the image icon.

A pop-up window will open, then click on the Choose files button, browse for your image(s), double click or click on Open and then hit Add selected.

When you have uploaded you will see that in the post editor shows the code of the image.

That code is the URL of the image. Youll see two URLs (Web addresses):

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhPOjPHpZImwdVZp1un8IWHzEN7i6mFv_A2LjuETMWrJDbzJjLF7pC_hD8d7Np4wNc8dJF1RXzhyi5DLSFvgMwV3xtXbnDmlm_Zvh6P9DNQLB7GcAkDmWbLL4NFMBFJy5erbboLkjJSnM/s1600/Bliss-Windows-XP.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhPOjPHpZImwdVZp1un8IWHzEN7i6mFv_A2LjuETMWrJDbzJjLF7pC_hD8d7Np4wNc8dJF1RXzhyi5DLSFvgMwV3xtXbnDmlm_Zvh6P9DNQLB7GcAkDmWbLL4NFMBFJy5erbboLkjJSnM/s320/Bliss-Windows-XP.png" /></a>

The first is the URL of the image that you need to take. It is not necessary to publish this entry where you uploaded the picture, you could as well not publish it, leave it as a draft or delete it, the image will be saved anyway on PicasaWeb (unless when you removed the draft, you have also selected the image to remove). You could also upload image directly from Picasa. Just login to PicasaWeb, select the album where you want to host the image, and click on Add photos.

Select the image from your computer and upload it.

After we have uploaded, click on OK.

There you will see the thumbnail, along with other photos, if there are more.

If you want to get the URL of the image from Picasa then click on the image to open in full size.
With the right mouse button click on the picture and select option depending on the browser you use...

If using Google Chrome, then select Copy Image URL:

If you are using Mozilla Firefox select Copy Image Location:

If you are using Opera select Copy Image URL:

If you are using Safari select Copy Image Address:

If you are using Internet Explorer (I hope not), first select Properties, a window will open, there you will find the Address section from where you can select the URL of the image and copy it:

Having selected any of these options youll have in the clipboard the URL of the image. Simple isnt it?

Remember that all images you upload on Blogger are stored in your Picasa account, so if you find an image previously uploaded to your blog, go to your Picasa account, select the album containing the name of your blog and there find the picture you need. The procedure to obtain the URL of the image is the same as explained above.

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