Digital Photography - Tiscali Technology

Using and moving photos
Once you've taken your images, there's plenty you can do with them. Many cameras let you edit the images in playback mode, cropping and rotating them, organising them into themed Albums and viewing slideshows on the screen or (with a video cable) on your TV. For serious changes, you'll want to download your photos to a computer and use dedicated editing software.

There are many ways to move photos and video clips around, but bear in mind that your choice may depend on what kind of camera or camera phone you have. Read on for a simple guide to transferring your photos.

Memory cards
Most digital cameras can store images on removable memory cards. There are many different kinds of cards available, with more being introduced all the time. As the technology develops, cards are getting physically smaller but are capable of storing more and more information.

Two of the most common memory card formats are Secure Digital (SD) and CompactFlash (CF). Both are available in sizes from 128Mb (enough for dozens to images) up to 2GB and even more (storing hundreds, even thousands, of high resolution photos).

A memory card reader won't cost you much more than £20 and should be able to read all the main types of card. It's a great investment as it lets you read cards from your friends' cameras and you won't have to worry about sticking with the same card type when you upgrade your camera.

Cables and CDs
Another way to transfer images is via a USB cable from your camera. Modern USB 2.0 connectors are much faster at transferring data than older USB 1.1 ports.

Finally, you don't have to use a computer at all if you don't want to. Simply take a full memory card to virtually any High Street photo lab and they'll be able to download your images onto a CD-ROM while you wait. It'll cost just a few pounds and gives you a permanent record of your photos. Some home DVD players can even playback such CDs, giving you an instant TV slideshow.