Level 1 Plus

Lesson 3

Installing the Card Reader

Memory Card Readers are a necessary, inexpensive accessory that will streamline your digital workflow.

They allow you to continue to use your camera while downloading images.

The card reader you buy must match the type of memory card used by your camera

Introduction

In this lesson we will install your Memory Card Reader. We will also use Album Starter to set up a directory on your hard drive to hold your pictures. This process will ensure that Album knows where to store your pictures. Album will then be able to organize your pictures and show them to you as desired.

When you plug your Memory Card Reader into one of the USB ports in your computer, Windows will flash this message in a little balloon in the lower right corner of your screen.

“New hardware found”

Windows will flash a number of small information balloons until the following message appears.

“New hardware Is installed and ready to use”

Now you can plug a memory card into your new card reader. When you do this, the following screen will appear.

To get rid of this dialog screen,

Click on: [ Cancel ]

Open the Adobe Album program .

On the Main menu across the top, click on: [ Get Photos ]

From the drop down menu, click on:

[ From Camera or Card Reader]

Now you have to confirm which drive represents your card reader. The program will make its’ best guess. You can see below that drive “M” is the drive that holds my card reader with the memory card in it. The reason there is more than one drive for the card reader is that this card reader can read various types of cards. However, for the card that is inserted, drive “M” is the correct drive.

Once you have indicated this drive, it will become the default location that Album looks for images on your card reader.

Check the box beside:

[ Create Subfolder Using Date/Time of Import ]

This is done so you can have an organized method of backing up your images onto either CD or DVD at a later point.

Leave unchecked the box that reads:

“Delete the photos on … after import.”

You should never delete pictures in the computer. You should use the Reformat command in your camera.

Now you must indicate where you want your images to be stored on your hard drive. If you do nothing, the program will place them in a default directory as shown:

My Documents > My Pictures > Adobe > Digital Camera Photos

We feel that this directory is too deeply buried.

We recommend that you select another place on your hard drive to store your photos.

Therefore, click on:

[ Browse ]

Click on:

[ My Computer ]

Click on:

[ Scsi3(E:) ]

Then click on:

[ Make New Folder ]

Note:
Normally one would choose Drive C: to store your pictures on.

I have chosen E: in this case because it is a very fast drive.

You will now see a new folder on the screen in reverse blue called:

“New Folder”

Just type in the following:

[ Digital Photos ]

Then click on:

[ OK ]

Click on:

[ OK ]

Your photos will now be read from the memory card and stored on your hard drive in the directory that you have selected:

“M:\ Digital Photos”

The photos that you have just downloaded onto your hard drive will appear in your “Photo Well”.

You can now unplug your memory card from the card reader.

The memory card can now be reformatted in your camera.

We recommend that you do not unplug the card reader itself.

If you want to unplug the card reader, you must click on the little green arrow icon on the right bottom corner of your screen to ask Windows permission to do so.

Summary

In this lesson we installed your Memory Card Reader. We also used Album Starter to set up a better directory to hold your pictures on your hard drive. This process ensures that Album knows where to store your pictures. Album will then be able to organize your pictures and show them to you as desired.

We recommend that you remove the card from the card reader when you are finished, but leave the card reader itself plugged into the computer.

Further, we recommend that you do not delete pictures from your memory card reader in the Album Program. Instead, we recommend that you reformat your memory card in your camera.