Jpeg Inports

[davehodge]

Hi, im pretty new to the macs but have been using pc's, windows for approx 25 years.
Im hoping some of you guys may be able to help me here. I want to import the jpegs off my canon a640 and put them onto an ext hard drive. My imac sees the hard drive and the folders contained on it but doesnt see my camera. If i go into iphoto i can import the pics there. But i would just like to be able to see the camera as just another usb storage device. i have 3 different accounts set up on the mac for myself , my wife and our business. the idea of the ext hard drive is that each account can access it and take out whichever pics need working with. i dont particularly like the way iphoto just assumes all responsibility for how they are organised. i just want a folder with jpegs in it .

Hope someone can help, its driving me nuts.

Dave

 

[MisterMe]

... I want to import the jpegs off my canon a640 and put them onto an ext hard drive. My imac sees the hard drive and the folders contained on it but doesnt see my camera. If i go into iphoto i can import the pics there. But i would just like to be able to see the camera as just another usb storage device. ...

Hope someone can help, its driving me nuts.

Dave

The problem is not with your Mac. Neither is it with iPhoto. iPhoto allows you to manage your photographs as you want--either automatically or manually where ever you stored them. Any camera that fully implements the USB Automount standard will mount as a storage volume on your Desktop. I have $20 keychain cameras that work just fine in this regard. For reasons known only to Canon, it chose not to fully implement the USB Automount standard. I love Canon as a brand, but I will not buy its digital still cameras for this reason.

A simple workaround is to get a USB card reader. Pop your memory card out of your camera. Pop it into the card reader. It mounts on your Desktop. Get on with life.

 

[davehodge]

brilliant , thanks for that. quick easy workaround.

Cheers
Dave

 

[ChrisA]

A simple workaround is to get a USB card reader. Pop your memory card out of your camera. Pop it into the card reader. It mounts on your Desktop. Get on with life.

Most camera can be switched to use this same USB protocol. It's called "Mass Storage". The Other is "Pict Bridge". If you camera is one that can be set to "mass storage" then it will look and act just like a card reader. Most camera have a menu option to switch the mode.

But really you need to learn how to use a photo library. It seems that many new "switchers" from the PC want to use just plain folders for their photos. maybe because that s what they understand and people tend not to trust what they don't understand, but try the library method.

With folders you always have the old problem of having a photo of Mary in San Francisco taken on Nov 08. How do you file this? Under "Mary" or "Nov 08" or "San Francisco"? so you pick one. Many PC users pick "by date". But then 5 or 10 years later you want some photos of Mary and you have 20,000 images in 500 folders that you need to look at one at a time. Your hard drive becomes the digital version of that shoebox of un-filed negatives in the closet.