Transferring photos to a digital frame: Part 2

Photo: niallkennedy/Flickr

As we mentioned in part one of this blog post, a digital picture frame is a great way to show off your photos without needing to print them all. However, it isn't always clear how to get your photos into the frame.

We listed several ways to do this in our first post. Here are three additional ways:

• Use a USB card reader: Some computers and digital picture frames don't have memory card slots. In this case, consider buying a USB card reader—something like this from Lexar, SanDisk, or Kensington. SD card readers sell for around $15 to $20; you'll need a reader that works with the card format your camera uses, although some readers include several slots for different card types. Insert a blank card into the reader, then plug the reader into the computer and transfer pictures from your computer to the card. Remove the card from the card reader and insert it into the frame's card slot. If your frame doesn't have a slot, plug the reader (with card in it) into the frame's USB slot.

• Use a USB flash drive: You can also transfer images from a computer to a USB flash drive, then insert the drive into a frame with internal memory and copy them from the flash drive to the frame's drive.

• Go wireless: More digital picture frames have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technology for transferring photos without connecting any cables. In some cases, you can download images from a photo-sharing site, like Snapfish or Flickr. This can be tricky, since you generally have to set various settings and choose security features.

Just as a reminder, be sure to back up your photos on to a computer before reformatting your memory card. —Terry Sullivan

Comments

[Randy Moore]

These devices could be adapted to another application (read "market" or "$$$ for the manufacturers/marketeers") with minor upgrades to their "O/S". I am an ESL teacher and the application for which I'd like to use the device is what I call "e-flashcards". We are constantly printing new flashcards and I'd like to eliminate that chore. Instead of printing them, why not show them with a $100 device like these digital photo frames (we don't all have PCs in the classroom). The problem is I have 12 different classes I teach each week and so, I'd need to be able to have 12(or more) separate slide shows per memory card; but as I have seen to date, the software on these devices display all .jpg files as a single slide show. I could buy 12 different memory cards or USB Memory cards, but that gets too cost prohibitive. I'd recommend the software be changed to support a directory hierarchy similar to PC-DOS (maybe limit how deep sub-directories can be nested), and a file selection program that would allow the user to scan the directory tree and pick the particular slide show (or MP3 / MPEG, etc files) to be played. If any of you know of a device (short of buying a PC) that will do this, let me know by replying to this comment.