Photo © Jim Doty Jr.

There are times when you might want to move photos from your computer back to your camera, as is the case with the person who sent me the question below. The catch is, you need to do the right things when you download the photos to insure that you can get them back into your camera later on, and it does mean more work than with the usual digital workflow.

The person who sent the question is using a Canon digital camera. Canon cameras create DCIM folders on the memory card, along with sub-folders, and files names which can vary from one model to the next, and between RAW and jpeg files.  You will need to substitute the folder and file naming conventions for your brand and model of camera as you read the answer below.

Disclaimer: Due to proprietary folder and naming conventions from one camera brand to the next (and even from one camera model to the next within the same brand), transferring individual photos back to your camera doesn’t always work. Transferring whole DCIM folders back to the camera usually works. Try the procedures below with non-critical files. You should never put at risk your original photos by trying something new before your original photos are backed up somewhere in an archive.

QUESTION

When you download photos from the camera to the computer, does all of the data available in the camera go to the computer?  What software do you use to see the photos?

Can you upload photos from the computer to the camera?  When the photos are on a camera memory card, the camera can be use to show the photos on a TV.  That is the only way I can show photos to my mother.  I have a 4 gig card full and now I don’t want to erase it even though they are in my computer and backed up on disk.

ANSWER

First of all, don’t erase or do anything else to the photos on your 4 gig card until you buy another memory card, take some non-critical “test” photos, and experiment with the procedures I describe below. In other words, never put any valuable photos at risk until you have tested a procedure with photos that you won’t miss if things go wrong and something happens to the photos.

You can upload photos from you computer to the camera, but it can be an iffy proposition depending on a variety of circumstances.

It is trickier to get photos back into your camera than the other way around. This means you will need to go to extra work in terms of how you get the photos into your computer, and more extra work when you archive them.

To answer your first question:

If you COPY (not MOVE) the entire DCIM folder from your memory card to your computer (using a memory card reader), all of the data is transferred to your computer. The process is the same as the CONTROL CLICK  DRAG process on a PC (ALT CLICK DRAG on a Mac) that you would use to COPY a folder from one place on your computer to another place, but leave the original folder in its original location.

When I download photos, I COPY the DCIM folder from the memory card to my computer using a memory card reader. I don’t use any special software to do this. I don’t use the camera to computer cable to copy photos to my computer.

If you use some kind of software program to move photos from the card to your computer, all the data on the card MIGHT not transfer.  This doesn’t matter to most people, but it will matter to you because you want to go the other direction, computer back to camera.

To answer your second question:

Once the photos are on my computer’s hard drive, I use WINDOWS PICTURE AND FAX VIEWER to get a quick look at the photos on a PC. On a Mac, I use Canon’s ImageBrowser (the software that comes with Canon cameras) to get a quick look at the photos.  These programs don’t always show hidden files.

To get a better look at photos, I use the “BRIDGE” feature that is part of the recent versions of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Elements. BRIDGE is a souped up photo viewer with a lot of options added.

Moving photos from your computer to your memory card to your camera can be a tricky operation. The best way is to COPY the entire original DCIM folder from your computer back to an empty memory card with nothing on it. You can also move individual photos. Detailed instructions follow to make it possible to do this.

Procedural Warning:

When you have a memory card in a USB card reader that is plugged into the computer, don’t physically remove the card or unplug the card reader until you have “ejected” the card reader (on a Mac) or “dismounted” the card reader via the software commands of your particular operating system. Check your operating system and card reader manuals for the correct procedure for your operating system. With some operating systems (but not a Mac) you can simply unplug the card reader without fear of corrupting the data.

The procedure for removing a USB memory card reader is often the same as the procedure you would follow before unplugging a USB thumb drive.

MOVING PHOTOS TO THE COMPUTER AND ARCHIVING THEM

1. You should always COPY the entire DCIM folder to your computer, using a memory card reader.  Turn off your camera, remove the memory card and plug it into a memory card reader. COPY the DCIM folder to your computer.

Don’t copy photos from the camera directly to the computer using the camera to computer cable and don’t use any downloading software or you might lose data that is important when you want to go the other direction.

2. NEVER make changes to the original DCIM folder or to its contents. Don’t rename the folder or the file names of the photos. Don’t change any sub-folders inside the DCIM folder. Don’t delete any photos. Don’t change any photos in the folder and resave them inside the folder (more about this later since you will want to change photos and save them elsewhere). In other words, you want to keep the DCIM folder in it original, pristine condition.

3. Your computer won’t allow you to have a bunch of identically named DCIM folders in the same location, so you will need to put each DCIM folder inside another folder with a different name that indicates the contents of the DCIM folder.

Some photographers use dates (2008 Oct 1-22), or photo numbers (2234-2467), or a combination (2008_Oct_2234-2467), or location (2008 Oct Colorado folder 1) or contents (2008 Johnson-Riley wedding 1) or a combination (like travel photos by location and people photos by name).

Many photographers group these folders into collections by year.  So you might have an external hard drive with folders named 2008, 2007, 2006. Inside these folders are the individually named folders, each one with an original DCIM folder inside.

4. Archive your photos in two locations, i.e., two DVDs, or two external hard drives, or a DVD and an external hard drive. Keep one set at home and one set somewhere away from your home. Some people keep their “away from home archive” at their office, or in a safe deposit box, or in the home of another family member or a close friend.

5. Like most people, you will probably want to do things on the computer with the photos in your archive. Open an original photo from its original DCIM folder. Do whatever you want to the photo (color correct, crop, resize for sending as an email, or whatever). Give the photo a new name and save it somewhere other than the original DCIM folder. That way, the original DCIM folder and the photos inside are unchanged.

When you rename a photo, you might want to keep the 4 digit number at the end of the file name.  An original photo:  _IMG_2234 might be renamed 2008_Oct_2234 or 2008_Oct_Colorado_2234 or Johnson-Wiley-wedding_2234

This means you are going to end up with two archives: original photos and changed/edited photos. That is actually a good thing. You always have the original file if you want to go back and try a new way of changing the photo.

MOVING PHOTOS BACK TO THE CAMERA

OPTION A – MOVING A WHOLE DCIM FOLDER

1A. Take a memory card whose contents have already been downloaded and archived (so it is safe to reformat without losing anything).  Turn off your camera. Put the memory card in your camera, turn the camera on  and reformat the memory card inside the camera.  NEVER reformat the card on the computer.

2A. Turn off the camera, remove the memory card and plug the memory card into your card reader. Look at the contents of the memory card. You should see an empty DCIM folder.

3A. Delete the empty DCIM folder.

4A. Navigate through your archive and find the DCIM folder that you want to move back to your camera. COPY the whole DCIM folder to the memory card. Use CONTROL CLICK DRAG on a PC, or ALT CLICK DRAG on a Mac.

5A. Turn the camera off, insert the memory card, and turn the camera on. All the photos should be viewable.

OPTION B – MOVING INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS

There are times that you won’t want to look at every photo in a DCIM folder and would prefer to select some of your favorite photos, or favorites from several DCIM folders.

1B. Navigate through the DCIM folder/s in your archive and make a list of the photos you want to move back to the camera.

If you are picking photos from several DCIM folders, be careful that you don’t have two different photos with identical file names. Once your camera hits 9999, it starts over at 0001. You are now creating a second set of photos with the same file names as your first 9999 photos. Once your camera hits 9999 again, it will start on your third set of photos with the same file name and so on.

2B. Create a temporary folder on your desk top. You could name it TRANSFER since you are transfering photos back to your camera.

3B. COPY the photos on your favorites list from your DCIM archives to the TRANSFER folder on your desktop. Be sure you are COPYING files (the originals stay in place) and not MOVING files. You don’t want to move anything out of your original archive.

You can change the four digit numbers of the file names in your TRANSFER folder provided you stick to 4 digit numbers. Don’t change any other part of the file name. For example, let’s say you have two different photos you want to put in your TRANSFER folder but they both have the file name: _IMG_2238.

COPY the first photo from the DCIM archive to your TRANSFER folder.  COPY the second _IMG_2238 photo to your desktop, but not to the TRANSFER folder. Rename the photo to _IMG_2388 or whatever (so long as it doesn’t duplicate some other photo’s file name). (Don’t rename the second photo while it is in its original DCIM folder.) Then move the renamed/renumbered photo to the TRANSFER folder.

4B. Take a memory card whose contents have already been downloaded and archived (so it is safe to reformat without losing anything).  Turn off your camera. Put the memory card in your camera, turn the camera on  and reformat the memory card inside the camera.  NEVER reformat the card on the computer.

5B. Turn off the camera, remove the memory card and plug the memory card into your card reader. Look at the contents of the memory card. You should see an empty DCIM folder.

6B.  Open the empty DCIM folder on your memory card. There might be a sub-folder inside the DCIM folder with a name like 132CANON or 100EOS5D.

COPY the photos from the TRANSFER folder on your desktop to the DCIM folder on your memory card. If there is a sub-folder inside the DCIM folder, COPY the files from the TRANSFER folder to the sub-folder inside the DCIM folder.

7B. Turn the camera off, insert the memory card, and turn the camera on. All the photos should be viewable.

So what do you do if you’ve already changed the file names and folder structures?  Or what if I am going from one camera model or brand to another?

First of all, you need to do this with jpeg files, not RAW files.

To upload photos to the camera, you will need to duplicate exactly the folder and file name structure of the camera you are uploading to.

1. Put a memory card in the camera, reformat it, and take a few “throw away” photos with the camera model you want to upload to.

2. Using a card reader, COPY the folder and files to your computer.

3. Look carefully at the folder structure and file names. You will need to duplicate this exactly. You can’t substitute caps for lower case (IMG for img) or hyphens for undescores  (IMG-3333 for IMG_3333) or even the presence of absence of an underscore (MG_3333 for _MG_3333), or the number of digits in the number (_MG_0333 for _MG_333), or the extension (.jpg for .JPG or even .jpg. for .jpeg).

4. Move the jpeg files you want to upload from your photo archive to a TRANSFER folder on your desktop. Change the file names to the same exact structure (file naming convention) as the camera you want to upload to.

If the camera creates files like this:  _xeg_0234.jpg

and you have an original file like this:  _IMG_437.JPEG

change your original file to: _xeg_0437.jpg

5. Delete the “throw away” files from the folder you downloaded.

6. Copy the renamed transfer files to the folder where you just deleted the “throw away” files.

7. Put the memory card in the camera and turn the camera on. If you are lucky, you will be able to see the photos.