I'm taking a digital camera, 2 memory cards, and my laptop (to email pics home) to Spain with me. My question is, if I save my pictures to my hard drive, can I burn them onto a cd and then take the cd to a photo shop when I return home, if I would like actual prints of any of my pictures? I'm new to the whole digital camera thing...! Thanks!

Sure. If you don't want to have the hassle of taking the laptop you could just get some more memory cards. E-mailing them from Spain may be problematic--the time it takes may make it not economical.

Hi Sara,

If you have a 3 Mpxl camera, your pictures will be about 3 Mpxl in size, which will take a loooooooong time to transmit if you don't have a DSL connection in Spain.

I sugget that you leave the laptop home and bring 2 or 3 128 Mb cards.

You can edit the pictures you take each evening and only store the keepers.

Send the folks back home post cards.

Editing the pictures definitely sounds like a must. I will have a DSL connection (so I've been told) for my laptop, which I'm taking for my classes at the University (I'll be on an exchange program for a semester). It's a 2mpxl camera, so I'm hoping emailing the pics won't be too painfully slow... we shall see! Thanks for your help

You don't have to send the pix at full resolution, if they're just for the online entertainment of family and friends.

Sure, you can take them in on CD or diskette or even email them. I don't know about all cameras, but our digital Elph makes the picture size dimensions different than a 4x6 print. This is fine with me for emailing purposes, but for prints if I, say, reduce the width to 6", the height will be 4 1/2". To avoid having the photo lab crop out parts I'd prefer to keep (or have them leave white edges), I crop it down 4" high (or a suitable multiple) myself so that I have control of what is being cropped. Otherwise you take your chances. Maybe you'd rather not have the top of the Eiffel Tower chopped off when there is some foreground you can do without.

If I don't have many photos to be made into prints, sometimes I edit them (resize, sharpen, lighten) and put only those onto diskettes or a CD. That way I can tell the lab to print them all rather than have to go picking through a pile of images at the lab.

A 2 mega-pixel camera will NOT necessarily produce a 2 megabyte file -- there is no direct relation.

Typical digital cameras in this category produce JPEG format files, which is a compressed format. Depending on the level of file compression selected in the camera, final file sizes may range from as little as 100 kilobytes to maybe 800 kilobytes. Read the manual, often the different settings go by the name of "medium", "fine", "super-fine", or something similar.

For permanent pciture archiving it's recommended to take pictures with the least compression = largest file size = best picture detail. That would correspond to a camera setting of "super-fine".

You can always make copies of the "super-fine" file with lower resolution (smaller file size), but you cannot go the other way.

So keep original picture files at highest resolution (biggest file size), and when desired to email, just make a copy of the file and resave the copy at low resolution, using whatever image editor is bundled with your PC.

If you want to email home, make sure you have some zipping software on your computer, like Winzip. You can compress your files and send them at a fraction of the time.

Also, most internet accounts come with some free web space. You can simply upload your shots to your space for others to see...or you can ftp your zipped files to be safely stored on your ISPs server for when you get home.

Most Costcos and Sam's Clubs now have the equipment to make prints from your cds. Make sure you save them at a high enough resolution in the jpeg format. I agree with the above poster to save at the highest resolution your camera will allow. Get a few more cards if you have to.

Have a great trip.

topping

Since you are so new to the world of digital cameras (I'm very much an amateur myself), here are a few things I've learned...

1) When you are actually taking the pics, the higher resolution they are taken at, the fewer pics you get on your memory card. On mine, I have the choice of 1-3 stars (low to high resolution) and then there's the extra high resolution option. I only choose the extra high option when I am taking very special photographs that I know I will want larger prints of. Otherwise, I don't choose the highest res because it eats up lots of room on the memory card.

2) When you save the pics on your hard drive, ALWAYS keep the original pic in its original file size, without alteration, and then make COPIES if you want to make any alterations or size changes. Every single time you re-save a digital image, there is a slight quality degradation. You might not be able to see that in the first few saves, but at some point, the more often you save the same image, you will notice a reduction in quality.

3) When you are emailing pics, you should strongly consider reducing the size of the pic before you attach it to your email. When the other person gets it, believe me, unless they have eye problems and they need a larger image (my MIL does, so we always have to send the larger file to her so she can see it clearly), they will be grateful you didn't send the original HUGE pic! 324 kb might not sound like a huge file, but if you're gonna email it, make it something like 70-100 kb instead.

4) You might want to leave the editing and altering of the pics for when you get back home. While you are on your trip, just take the pics, download them onto your laptop, email them and/or burn them on CD if you really need to, but don't worry about editing, cropping, etc, until you get back home and have some REAL time to sit down and do it properly. Then send them off to have prints made!

5) Hopefully you have some good size memory cards to take with you....128 Mb for each card would be the smallest I'd take. I always end up taking wayyyy more pics than I thought I would, and I suspect you might too.

Have an awesome time in Spain!

Oh sheesh, I didn't see the part where you'll be in Spain for a whole semester.

LOL....then I guess you could edit them whenever you feel like it! I was thinking you were going on holiday and you could wait to edit your pics until after you got back home.

Silly me!

Another option to share your photos with friends is to upload them to one of the free photo sites (Yahoo, Ofoto, HP, etc). That way you don't clog up anyone's mailbox with large files.

HTH!
Amapola

Thanks everyone! Great ideas- this should help me get into the swing of things. Uploading the pics online sounds like a plan. I'll let you know if I get any particularly interesting shots

I'm taking 2 =256 MB cards along with a 64 I have, plus internal memory. Costco sells the 256 for less than $50.00, best price I've found anywhere..and the same brand that I have been using.