Import pictures from your camera into Windows Vista

In addition to working with existing images, Windows Photo Gallery can transfer and organise the pictures on your digital camera or memory card. You can do this by connecting the camera directly to your PC, usually via a USB cable, or by using a USB card reader. We've gone for the latter option - we've got a number of digital cameras and cameraphones and we lost the cables a long time ago - but both methods work in the same way.

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Instance Access

As soon as you connect your camera or card reader, Windows Vista will ask what you want to do - so you can import the pictures or just view them. We'll go for the first option because we want our pics on our PC.

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Tag time

You'll now be asked whether you want to tag your pictures. You don't have to give them tags but we'd recommend it.

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One or many

We've just used one tag here but you can use as many as you like. When you've got a digital camera it won't take long to build a library containing thousands of images, so tagging will make finding specific photos much easier.

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Progress Report

The progress bar will now show the import progress. If you check the "Erase after importing" button then Windows Vista will clear your camera's memory or memory card. If this is the first time you've tried to import pictures, it's sensible to leave the box unchecked for now.

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Instant album

When the final photo has been transferred the Windows Photo Gallery will appear. Your pictures will be in a new, dedicated album and you can also view them by clicking the Recently Imported link at the top left.

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Easy edits

As with other images, double-clicking on a picture opens it so you can view it, add tags, print it or edit it. We've just got one problem: our photo's sideways. To rotate an image use the two rotate buttons in the toolbar at the bottom of the window.

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This way up

That's much better. If you click on Back To Gallery at the top of the screen, Windows Photo Gallery will automatically save the changes to your image.