Transfer images from a memory card

A memory card is a removable storage device used by a digital camera to store recorded images. A memory card reader is a small device that allows your computer to  read the images stored on the memory card. By placing the memory card from the camera into the memory card reader, this memory card will become available in Windows as a new drive, just like any hard drive or CD player. Memory card readers are relatively cheap and using such a device is the fastest way to transfer images from camera to computer. Some computers may even have a memory card reader built in.

To transfer images from a memory card, first connect the memory card reader to the computer. Then insert the memory card from the camera into the reader. If IDimager is already running, IDimager will ask you if the Downloader should be started, and you should say yes. If IDimager was not already running at the time you inserted the memory card into the memory card reader, then start IDimager and click the button “Download” in the main toolbar; or press [Ctrl]+[I]. Once the Downloader starts, select import type “From folder or attached memory card”.

Step 1: Select location

This is the first step, and it requires you to specify the location of the images on the memory card. If IDimager started the Downloader at the time you inserted the memory card, then this folder will be pre-filled with the correct location. Otherwise, select the folder where your images are stored in by clicking the folder button to the right of the field. It is the easiest to select a root folder (like “F:\”) and then check the option that you want to read all sub folders.

Once you have selected the source folder of your images you click “Continue >>” to go to the next step.

Step 2: Select your photos

This is where you can select the images that should or should not be transferred to the computer. The Downloader displays thumbnails of all images that are found in the source folder. If these are new images, then IDimager will select them all. You can see whether or not an image has been selected by the check mark on the top of each thumbnail. Above the thumbnails display you see how many images are available, as well as the number of marked images. The marked images are the ones that you want to transfer to the computer.

If you download your images in different batches, then IDimager will only mark the images that were not downloaded before. This is to prevent yourself from downloading the same image multiple times. However, if you want to download these images again, then feel free to mark them again. You can mark or unmark an image by clicking the check box on each thumbnail. Apart from manual selections, you can also use the options as displayed below the thumbnails.

While you are marking the images to download you may find the preview too small to make an accurate selection. You can get a larger preview by either double clicking on a thumbnail or by clicking the magnifying icon on each thumb (or press [F3]).

When the preview is opened, the left side shows a small preview of the image (360px) and the right side displays a full 100% preview of the image. By hovering the mouse over the left preview, the 100% display will show the area of the image that is hovered over.You can further zoom the 100% preview by using the mouse scroll wheel. Mouse-Scroll up to zoom in and Mouse-scroll down to zoom out. A double click on the right side display will reset the zoom percentage to 100%.

Once you have marked all the images that you want to transfer, click “Continue >>” to go to the next step.

Step 3: Select target location

The first thing you can specify during this step is a project name. This name is optional but if specified, it will be used to identify the download session. You can also use this project name to name your photos or to name the (sub)folder that needs to receive the marked images.

Then specify the target location; this is typically a folder on your hard drive where the images should be transferred to. Select a folder by clicking the folder button to the  right of the field.

You can optionally specify a sub folder name within the specified target folder. Either leave this field empty or enter a sub folder name.  You can also open the drop down box to choose from some predefined entries, including today’s date, the date of the first image on the memory card and all other existing sub folders within the specified folder.

It is possible to construct any sub folder name for your use. If the sub folder does not exist yet when the images are being transferred, then IDimager will create it on-the-fly. You can also specify multiple levels of folders like “2007-12-19\Velo”.

The best part, however, is that you can use macro commands (%-commands) to define a dynamic sub folder. Macro commands are basically variables which will be replaced with real values once it is needed. For instance if you want to transfer your files to a folder structure which is based on the image's photo date, then you can use % commands to build the structure you desire (like %yyyy-%mm-%dd for year-month-day). The arrow key at the right of this sub folder field allows you to select any of the many available macro commands from a list. Either use that rule directly, or edit it to construct the rule of your preference.

Once you have selected a target folder and optionally a sub folder, you can enter the naming rule. The naming rule also supports macro commands. By clicking the button to the right of this field you can enter a renaming rule that best fits your needs. If you require IDimager to transfer files and keep the original filenames, then use the naming rule %FileName.%FileExtension. The last used naming rule will be remembered for the next session.

There are a few pre-defined rename rules available. You can select them by opening the Stored Rules drop down.

After you have created your rename rule, then click OK to confirm it and return to the Downloader.

IDimager is able to optionally mirror the transferred files to another folder. Mirroring allows you to create safety backups of your original images during the download process. If you would like to use the mirror feature, activate the tab "Mirror Folder".

Leave the field “Mirror to folder” empty to ignore the mirror feature. Mirroring downloaded photos is commonly done by photographers who want to keep an additional copy of the original photo in an archive folder. Here you can specify the archive folder where the images should be mirrored to. When a mirror folder is specified, then you can optionally also specify a sub folder structure for the mirrored files. If you leave this field empty, then IDimager will use the exact same folder structure as it creates in the main target folder. However, you can also specify that a different folder structure should be used for mirroring.

For example, let's say an image is transferred to a target folder Y:\ with the folder structure Y:\2006\12\2006-12-06\hvz_img0001.jpg and it should be mirrored to folder P:\Archive. IDimager will then create the same folder structure in the mirrored folder, so in this case the mirrored image will be P:\Archive\2006\12\2006-12-06\hvz_img0001.jpg.

There are a number of options on the folder naming page that you can select:

By selecting “Verify and remove the images from source after import is done”, IDimager will erase every transferred image from the memory card once it is copied to the target folder/sub folder and then verified (using binary verification). Unmarked images will not be removed from the memory card.

By selecting “Auto rotate the images if my camera stores this info in the Exif”, IDimager will rotate the image after transferring it to your target folder/sub folder. This rotation will take place based upon the existing Exif information inside the image. Not all cameras store the orientation information in Exif; images without such orientation information will not be rotated. The rotation will be lossless, meaning no information is lost. This rotation will not take place for RAW images. Note that if your camera stores an orientation tag in the image, you do not need to use this option.

By selecting “Mark downloaded images are read-only”, you are guaranteed that all images that are transferred to the hard drive are marked as “read-only”. This can help you protect your images. But keep in mind that IDimager will not be able to write metadata to read-only images. So for a normal workflow, leave this option switched off.

By selecting “Set the downloaded file’s date/time to the Exif date/Time”, you instruct the Downloader to adjust the downloaded images’ operation system Creation date/time to the Exif Date/Time Original (as stored inside your images).

By selecting "Bookmark downloaded images", the downloaded images will be marked with a bookmark. This will allow you to search for the last downloaded images afterwards by selecting the option "Search bookmarked images" from the search button's menu.

Then click “Continue >>” to skip to the next step.

Step 4: Organizing on transfer

This fourth step enables you to instantly organize the transferred images into your portfolios (galleries/collections). The options are:

Version combi detection:

Many cameras these days (especially DSLRs) allow images to be recorded in RAW as well as JPG format. In that case the camera records the RAW image and also stores a JPG version of the same image on the memory card. Since IDimager supports multi-version control, one handy feature is to store the RAW and JPG versions together in a single version set. Here you can specify how you prefer this to be done. Choices are:

If you select either RAW/JPG or JPG/RAW then you can also specify in what version place holder you want to keep the version. Placeholders are banks in a version set that are intended for you to identify certain versions (e.g. a print version, an email version, etc). The Album Display place holder is used by IDimager to represent the version set.

Then click “Continue >>” to skip to the next step.

Step 5: Describe on transfer

This step allows you to describe your images as you download them to your computer. This ensures that your default information (e.g. Copyright or Creator information) is stored in your images as soon as they are copied to your hard drive.

Enter your default information. It is recommended that you enter only information that is common for all images being downloaded. Every field that you leave empty here will not be written to the downloaded images.

It is not recommended to use Keywords on download. It is much easier to do that with Catalog Labels (see next step).

Step 6: Catalog on transfer

This would typically be the step where you assign catalog labels to to your transferred images. Select the labels from the Catalog Tree. If you need a new catalog label then use [Ins] to create a new label.

Select the labels to assign to your images by clicking on the selection box before that label.

Now click “Finish” to start the transfer using the configuration you just built using the Downloader Wizard.  A progress window will then be displayed to show youwhat is happening.