It’s great to know a lot about Photoshop, and if you’ve read the previous sections in this chapter,
you have already gained knowledge that, believe it or not, many Photoshop users have not taken
the time to learn. But to apply that knowledge, you need to know how to get images from their
sources onto your computer and ready to open in Photoshop. Next are some tips that will help you
get your images from point A to B.
Digital cameras
Digital cameras come with some type of memory card that holds your digital photos, and they usually
come with a cable that can connect the camera to your computer, often a USB-type cable.
There are different types of memory cards for digital cameras. Some computers come with memory
card slots that may or may not accept your camera’s type of memory card. Some desktop printers
also come with memory card slots that you can use to transfer photos from the memory card to your
computer, assuming that your printer is connected to the computer. If it’s not obvious that your
type of memory card will fit in your device’s memory card slot, check the device’s documentation
or contact the manufacturer of the device.
If you don’t have the device’s documentation, you may be able to find a downloadable operation
manual on the manufacturer’s Web site that will give you the memory card slot information.
Inexpensive card readers that accept virtually all types of memory cards, such as a 35-in-1 card
reader, can also be purchased and connected to your computer via a USB- or FireWire-type connection.
Check to see which type of connection your computer has before you purchase a card reader.
Transferring images from a memory card slot to your computer doesn’t use the camera’s battery
and can be faster than a USB connection.
Figure 1.19 shows what USB-type connectors look like. Figure 1.20 shows what FireWire connectors
look like.
If you want to use a cable connection to transfer images from your camera to your computer, the
memory card must be inside the camera. You can purchase a cable that connects your camera to
your computer if you don’t have one.
One end of the cable will need a smaller USB connector for the camera and the other end will need
a larger USB connector for your computer. Look at the ports on your camera and computer to see
what type of connector ends the cable needs.
USB connectors
You can also contact the manufacturer to find out what kind of cable you need for your camera
model. The major manufacturers, like Canon and Nikon, have Web sites with lots of information,
including downloadable camera operation manuals. You can also take the camera to an electronics
store, such as Circuit City, for help finding the right cable.
When you either put your camera’s memory card into an appropriate card slot or connect your
camera to your computer with a cable, an additional drive that represents the memory card should
show up on your computer. Figure 1.21 shows a memory card called “NO NAME,” listed with the
other drives on the computer: Macintosh HD, iDisk, and My Book. The path to the images inside
the NO NAME memory card is shown as DCIM ➪ 101CANON ➪ images.
You can use your computer’s operating system to copy the images from their location on the memory
card to your hard drive, then use Bridge or choose File ➪ Open from within Photoshop to open
the files on your hard drive (not directly from the memory card drive) into Photoshop.
An example of a file path from a camera’s memory card to the images: NO NAME ➪ DCIM ➪
101CANON ➪ images
After you connect your camera or memory card to your computer, you can use Adobe Bridge’s
Photo Downloader by following these steps:
1. In Photoshop: Choose File ➪ Browse (opens Bridge).
2. In Bridge: Choose File ➪ Get Photos from Camera.
Bridge’s Photo Downloader (see Figure 1.22) automatically finds the camera’s images and allows
you to choose a location on your computer to copy the images to and create a new subfolder to put
them in. Using Photo Downloader, you can also rename the images with text and a serial number
as they are being copied to your computer, preserve the old filename inside the image’s file information,
and automatically display the images in Adobe Bridge.
Film cameras
A quick, convenient, and inexpensive way to get images from a film camera into digital form is to
purchase a photo CD along with your prints when you get your film developed. Simply put the CD
into your computer, copy the folder of images to your hard drive, and use Bridge or choose
File ➪ Open from within Photoshop to open the files on your hard drive (not directly from the CD)
into Photoshop.
If you have already developed the film without getting a photo CD, you can still purchase a photo
CD from many developers if you provide them with your negatives to scan. It is usually more
expensive than getting the CD at the time of developing, but still inexpensive at discount developers
such as Wal-Mart.
The Adobe Bridge Photo Downloader
Scanners
You can scan negatives, slides, and other transparencies with a film scanner, or you can scan prints
with a flatbed scanner. Some film scanners will do batch scans, which can save loads of scanning
time. If you have a lot of slides or negatives, you may also find reasonably priced services on the
Web that offer mass film scanning.
Keep in mind that the quality of the scanner, as well as the resolution at which you scan, makes a
difference in the quality of the scanned image. Of course, the larger the print, the better. Also keep
in mind that a print is a step removed from the original. If your prints are 4 x 6 and you have a
good-quality film scanner, you can probably get a better result by scanning the negatives.
Check scanner reviews on the Web to get an idea of scanner quality, or if you have a scanner, do
some scans of your own and compare them with scans from other scanners and/or photo CDs to
get an idea of the scanner’s quality. Pay special attention to shadow and highlight detail. Check the
image quality with prints from a good printer rather than on-screen if your scanned images are
destined for print.You can be confident that images for print will have enough resolution if they are scanned at
300ppi resolution or larger than their final printed size in inches. Images for on-screen display
need to have 72ppi resolution at their final size in pixels. Web pages are often constrained to an
800 wide x 600 tall pixel area, so that should give you some idea of the pixel dimensions your
images for the Web need to be. If in doubt, scan at a larger size. In Photoshop, enlarging image size
comes with a much greater risk of loss of detail than reducing it.
If you scan images from printed publications, an undesirable moiré pattern will likely be included
in the image because images printed in publications are made up of dots rather than continuous
tone. You can attempt to avoid or reduce moiré patterns by using a blur option in your scanner
software or by raising the image off the scanner bed slightly before you scan it (by mounting it on
a firm substrate and placing it on top of coins, for example).
Images that are mostly gray can benefit from being scanned in RGB color mode. You have more
initial information to work with in Photoshop, which can be useful even if you plan to convert the
image to Grayscale mode. Many scanners also let you choose the color profile. Adobe RGB is a
good color profile to use for scanning because it contains a relatively large amount of colors. You
can convert the image to another color mode in Photoshop, if necessary.
Be sure to make a note of where you’ve told your scanner to save the scanned image on your computer.
Then use Bridge or choose File ➪ Open from within Photoshop to open the files on your
hard drive into Photoshop.You can be confident that images for print will have enough resolution if they are scanned at
300ppi resolution or larger than their final printed size in inches. Images for on-screen display
need to have 72ppi resolution at their final size in pixels. Web pages are often constrained to an
800 wide x 600 tall pixel area, so that should give you some idea of the pixel dimensions your
images for the Web need to be. If in doubt, scan at a larger size. In Photoshop, enlarging image size
comes with a much greater risk of loss of detail than reducing it.
If you scan images from printed publications, an undesirable moiré pattern will likely be included
in the image because images printed in publications are made up of dots rather than continuous
tone. You can attempt to avoid or reduce moiré patterns by using a blur option in your scanner
software or by raising the image off the scanner bed slightly before you scan it (by mounting it on
a firm substrate and placing it on top of coins, for example).
Images that are mostly gray can benefit from being scanned in RGB color mode. You have more
initial information to work with in Photoshop, which can be useful even if you plan to convert the
image to Grayscale mode. Many scanners also let you choose the color profile. Adobe RGB is a
good color profile to use for scanning because it contains a relatively large amount of colors. You
can convert the image to another color mode in Photoshop, if necessary.
Be sure to make a note of where you’ve told your scanner to save the scanned image on your computer.
Then use Bridge or choose File ➪ Open from within Photoshop to open the files on your
hard drive into Photoshop.
The Internet
You can save images from Web pages to your computer by right-clicking on the image or image
link and choosing Save Image As or Save Linked File As. If you don’t have a mouse with a rightclick
or you are using a Mac, Ctrl+click to get the same context menu.
Images on the Web are low resolution, usually 72 ppi, so keep in mind resolution requirements for
the purpose of your image.
If you are using Stock Art services, such as iStockPhoto, or photo collection sites, such as Flickr,
there may be different sizes and resolutions available.
Like images from Web pages, you can save many images or image attachments in e-mails to your
computer by right-clicking on the image or image link and choosing Save Image As or Save Linked
File As. If you don’t have a mouse with a right-click or you are using a Mac, Ctrl+click to get the
same context menu.There may also be a download button in the e-mail program, which may not give you an opportunity
to choose a location on your computer. If you can’t choose a location, you will need to know
where your computer auto-saves downloaded files or make a note of the image name and search
your computer for it after it is downloaded.
JPEG is usually a fail-safe format for easy downloading through e-mail, but if a JPEG doesn’t meet
your needs, good formats for retrieval from e-mail are those that can be compressed and saved
with ZipIt or Stuffit software. Common file extensions are ZIP and SIT files. ZipIt and Stuffit are
inexpensive and can create self-extracting files at a reduced size. Once downloaded, either the files
automatically decompress when they are saved to your computer, or you can double-click the
downloaded files to decompress them. A decompressed version of the file will be saved in the same
directory as the compressed version.
Many e-mail servers are set to limit the file size that can be received through e-mail. Often, the
limit is 1MB. If the attached files are too large, the e-mail may not reach the recipient. E-mail providers
should be able to tell you the file attachment size limitations.
Video
Common types of digital camcorders record to MiniDV tapes, MiniDVDs, or camcorder hard
drives. Most use FireWire cables to connect to your computer so you can copy video files to your
computer. See Figure 1.20 for FireWire connector types.
If you are shopping for a camcorder and want to edit your video in the video-editing software that
comes with your operating system or in Photoshop, be sure to research which camcorder models
can be used to transfer video files to your computer.
Transferring video files to your computer is generally easiest from camcorders that use MiniDV
tapes. Video-editing software that comes with Windows (Windows Movie Maker) and the Mac OS
(iMovie) can import MiniDV video and, if necessary, save it to a format that Photoshop can import.
Still frames from videos can also be captured and saved to your computer from Windows Movie
Maker and iMovie and opened in Photoshop. Figure 1.23 shows still frames in iMovie on a Mac.
Photoshop can open these Quicktime video file formats: MPEG-1 and -4, MOV, AVI, FLV (if Flash
8 is installed), and MPEG-2 (if an MPEG-2 encoder is installed).
Photoshop can open these image sequence formats: BMP, DICOM, JPEG, OpenEXR, PNG, PSD,
Targa, TIFF, Cineon, and JPEG 2000 if the plug-ins are installed.
iMovie lets you capture and save a still frame by navigating to the frame within the movie clip and choosing
Edit ➪ Create Still Frame, then File ➪ Save Frame.
Typical steps to get video from a digital camcorder onto your computer include:
1. Make sure any recording media (MiniDV tape, MiniDVD disk) is in the camcorder.
2. Open Windows Movie Maker or iMovie.
3. Turn on the camcorder and make sure it is set to the video mode rather than the
camera mode. If the camcorder has a camera mode, this means it can also take still
photos and save to a memory card.
4. Connect the camcorder to your computer with an appropriate cable.
5. Import the video with Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, then save to a format that
Photoshop supports. For supported video formats, import directly into Photoshop by
choosing File ➪ Open or File ➪ Import ➪ Video Frames to Layers. Figure 1.24 shows how
you can use iMovie to import video onto a Mac.
iMovie detects a connected video camera and lets you import the video by clicking the
Import button.
If these steps don’t work for your camcorder and media, keep the following tips in mind:
n MiniDVD disks cannot be put into slot-loading DVD drives and require tray-loading DVD
drives (which can be purchased inexpensively).
n More advanced video-editing software or video conversion software can be used if other
video file conversions are needed to convert the video to a format that Photoshop supports.
Quicktime Pro is an inexpensive video-editing software program for Windows and
Mac and can be used to convert video formats.
n Some Web sites offer free video conversion for smaller files.
n Video-ripping software, such as MacTheRipper and Alcohol 120%, can extract video from
copy-protected DVDs and save it to your computer. This process is subject to copyright laws.
n You may be able to convert VHS tapes to digital video and transfer those files to your
computer. Typically, you would need the old camcorder (with the VHS tape inside) connected
to a digital camcorder that has an AV to DV chip. An RCA cable may be needed to
connect the VHS camcorder to the digital camcorder. The digital camcorder would then
need to be connected to the computer, typically with a FireWire cable.
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