Need desperate help in how to download and get my pics onto a PC in India!?

Hi everyone.. please bare with me! I bought my 1st EVER digital camera last week. A lovely Canon A85 4megapixels.

I am going back to India for 6 months in October and to be honest havent a CLUE how I am going to get any of my pictures onto any PC in India as I`d like to be able to email them or some to firends / family.

Can you please tell me in SIMPLE SIMPLE language how the heck you go about doing this?... I need a step by step explanation as i`m not into the technical language but am really keen to find out when I enter a cafe in India and want to email a pic how do I get it from my camera to the PC?...

I keep hearing about a CF reader?... what is this?...

Anyway I hope you can all be kind to me and help me out! cool

Thanks!

Good advice 2cents can I just add that you unless want to make large printouts of your photos shoot at a medium file size!!
This will save you having to do any major editing before sending a photo! On slow dial up connections the smaller your file size the easier it is to send!!

i guess its possible to made cds of the pics that u keep taking (possible in cyber cafes in india).. this way u will take back the cds with the pics and then load the cd on to ur computer

In order of things to take, don't forget to take

a) camera (obviously)
b) USB cable; that's the cable which connects your camrea to the PC
c) CF card(s); that's the plastic tab like thingy which stores the images. The more MB it says it says on the card, the more images it can store.
d) the battery charger or batteries(get rechargable); Don't know whether the battery unit is builtin or you plug in batteries into the camera body.

& it might help to read the manual to see what else you can fiddle with, in the camera. :-)

You know, you just might press some buttons & whoopsie.....you'd be traipsing around with a electronic paperweight till you finally overcome your embarassment and ASK someone what to do.

Oh well, never mind.

I apologise if this sounds patronising.

I know the feelling. So far I've nerver stopped it working, but I'm always getting symbols and stuff on my camcorder that mean nothing to me. The manual is in London!

<THINKS> Oh! Why don't I dowload it from Sony onto my PC! Thanks, DD

You actually 'think'? Miracles never cease! :-)

Get one of these portable hard drives with card readers.

http://www.xs-drive.com/ (there are many other manufacturers)

Whenever your card memory is full, you can put the card into the reader and press one button and all the images will be copied in the hard drive. You can later connect the hard drive by a USB cable to any computer. These things are extremely easy to use - they come with simple manuals. When transferring images from the hard drive to your own PC (at the end of the trip) - use software that comes with the camera - that way again you will be able to follow the camera manual.

This will set you free, literally. You won't have to carry around a laptop - at the same time you won't have to worry about compromising Picture quality. I have a 30 GB portable drive (Size of a bar of soap) that can read 6 different kinds of cards and I regularly take pictures in 6.5 - 11 MB sizes with a DSLR.

In some of the big cities, photo processing shops will be able to take your card (or the hard disk) and copy the images on a CD/DVD for you, if you want.

Yes most cafes have the capacity to burn a CD of your pics. This will make filing and making folders easier.
From the CD you can pick which couple of photos you want to email. The thing is, your original pics will generally have a large file size in the 100s of kb range. For email you probably want to make your photos 600x400 pixles and under 100kb at the most.
Most cafe's in larger areas will have at least one that has a photo editing program on it, say photoshop, or a simple photo editing software that can perform resizing and photo optimizing in .jpeg format. This photo software will make your photo email ready and functional.
If you don't know how to work a photo editing program you could ask the cafe owner to help you?

I would suggest you practice taking photos and then use a photo editing program to resize and optimize then, then send them to yourself by email. This way you can see and practice how it all works. Practice makes perfect !!!

The A85 comes with software to compress your images - but installing software on somebody else´s computer is always a touchy subject.

If you connect via USB cable to the computer , a new icon should appear on the desktop. If connecting from the camera it comes with a cryptic label, telling the camera model, if connecting from a card reader it will be labeled "untitled".

Clicking on this will open the image folder.

If you are going to print pictures , make some test prints and decide what compression level you are comfortable with. A good print shop will have ready test prints to view.

512 mb cards are the greatest memory card size that will fit on a CD ; bigger cards suggests to me the risk of making mistakes when dividing the card to more than one CD.

Bring the cable.
Bring the device driver CD for the camera.
Install the CD on the computer.
Plug the cable into your camera.
Transfer photos to the computer.
Get them put onto a CD, upload them to a photo hosting website (like fotki or something).
Uninstall the software.
Remove all of your phots.
Carry on with your life.

This is what I'm doing, computers in India are sloowww, so, I'm just uploading them when I get home. Bringing an extra memory card is a good idea, too.

Be EXTREMELY careful about compressing photos. If you're on windows and you .Zip them, the compression will actually take up more space than just bundling the files into a folder. You trade off quality and detail with compression. Installing files onto cyber lounge's computer isn't a touchy subject. You're paying them to use their computer. Just uninstall when you're done, don't install crap you don't need (like quicktime, FREE OFFERS FROM AOL!!!, etcetc), although asking is always polite.

As shown in in the provided link : I was talking of compression (downsizing) , not zipping.

As for installing : everyone feels that what they use is essential and can´t possibly harm the system - consequentially nothing harmful ever gets downloaded or installed. Glad it worked out so fine ...