How to Download Your Dog Photos to Your Computer

By Kim Rodgers and Sarah Sypniewski from Dog Photography For Dummies

One of the most anxiety-ridden parts of a photo session is the time between your last shot and the downloading that takes place back at the home office. This period is a little tense because you’re stuck with your photos in one and only one place — on your memory card.

There’s so much room for human error, especially if you fill up multiple memory cards. Sometimes, focusing on anything else is tough until you can successfully transfer your photos from your memory card to the computer.

Transferring your photos as soon as you can is always best so you avoid inadvertently reformatting your card or forgetting about it in the shuffle of everyday life. You should have a standardized routine for making transfers to minimize the risk of human error. If you do something one way and you do it that way every time, you’re less likely to make a mistake.

Some people refer to the process of transferring photos from memory card to computer as uploading instead of downloading or transferring. Try not to get too caught up in semantics. The only thing that matters is getting those photos safely from your memory card to your computer.

To transfer photos from your memory card to your computer using a USB card reader, do the following:

With your computer turned on, connect your card reader to a USB port on your computer.
Remove the memory card from your camera and insert it into the card reader.

Note that your card reader probably has multiple slots. Your memory card only fits snugly into the correct one!
After the card mounts, you should see a new drive listed under My Computer (Windows) or Devices (Mac). Navigate through the folders on your memory card until you reach your photo files.
Open a second window and navigate to the location you’d like to copy your photo files to.

You should now have two windows side by side — one containing the photos that are still on your memory card and another opened to the folder you want to save your photos to on your computer.
While in the memory card window, choose Edit→Select All to highlight all your photos, and then click and drag the highlighted photo files from your memory card window to your second window, where you ultimately want your photo files saved.

You’ll see a pop-up box that indicates the amount of time it takes to copy your photos from the memory card to your computer.
When your photos are done copying, demount the memory card from the card reader by right-clicking (Control + clicking for Mac users) the drive and selecting Eject.

After your memory card is demounted from your computer, you’ll no longer see it as an option on your computer screen. You can now safely remove the card from the card reader and return it to your camera.