The author of this software cannot be held for responsible for any damage done to the PC or the digital camera of the user nor he can be held for responsible for any data loss resulting in the usage of cam2pc - An Image Downloader.
cam2pc - An Image Downloader is freely available for any non-commercial usage. You are strongly encouraged to give it to your family, friends, colleagues... If you are a camera manufacturer and would like to bundle cam2pc - An Image Downloader with your cameras then I would be more than pleased to talk to you by mail :-)
The source code is not available so do not bother asking.
cam2pc - An Image Downloader is a small program that helps one transfer his digital pictures to his PC (running Windows). It is targeted for digital cameras that appear as removable devices in Windows so that you can directly browse the content of the memory card in Explorer.
This is a really nice feature but the problem is that you always have to browse to the same directory of your memory card to pick-up your files and then to the directory on your PC where you store your pictures. And if you're like me and that you store each set of images in separate directories, you have to manually create the new directory before moving the files. Sometimes you might even want to rename your files...
With cam2pc - An Image Downloader, all of this is done automatically : just plug your camera and the software will autodetect it, copy or move the files to the directory of your choice and open your favorite image viewer. That's it : you really have nothing to do!!
cam2pc - An Image Downloader only works with cameras that appear as removable devices on Windows. This should be the case of most USB enabled cameras although I am not sure of that at all. Users have also reported using cam2pc - An Image Downloader with parallel port card readers.
It has been tested on Windows Millenium, Windows 2000 and Windows XP (Beta 1) but I expect it to work on any version of Windows (starting at 95 and NT). Do not forget that Windows 95 and NT do not support USB.
As far as digital cameras are concerned, cam2pc - An Image Downloader was tested with a Fuji FinePix 2400 Zoom and an Olympus C-200Z (european version of the D-510Z). Both cameras have USB connection to the PC. I have no detailed report on camera compatibility but Minolta Dimage 2330 has also been reported as working.
Some users with incompatible cameras like the features of cam2pc - An Image Downloader like automatic directory creation and stuff like that and transfer their pictures to C:\TEMP or whatever with their regular software and then use cam2pc - An Image Downloader to transfer from C:\TEMP to the location of their choice.
Once you have downloaded cam2pc-setup.exe for cam2pc simply launch the installer. If you are upgrading cam2pc please take care of closing the tray icon by right-clicking on it and select Quit before running the installation. You are reminded to do that at the beginning of the installation.
Launch the installer and choose an installation directory (by default your Program Files directory). Click the Next button. The installer copies the necessary files to your hard drive and install the cam2pc tray icon in your startup folder. Click the Close button.
Answer Yes to the next window if you want to start using cam2pc - An Image Downloader immediatly or No if you want to wait for the next reboot.
That's all you're ready to use cam2pc - An Image Downloader!!
If you plug your camera and the cam2pc tray icon is running, the main cam2pc windows will pop-up :
The main window is splitted in three parts : What, How and Then.
The What part lets you specify if you want to copy or move (default action) the files from which directory of your memory card to a directory on your PC. If you plugged your camera and it appeared as the F: drive for instance, you should read F:\DCIM in the From field. The To field should be filled with your 'My Pictures' folder or your 'My Documents' folder. Of course you can change the source and destination folders by typing in a new location or by clicking the buttons with a folder icon on them allowing you to browse your PC for a location.
The How part lets you tell wether cam2pc - An Image Downloader should keep the directory structure of the memory card or not. This is only useful for some cameras that allow you to create folders on the memory card and store pictures in those folders. All the other users should keep the default option, Flatten.
The Then part lets you tell what cam2pc - An Image Downloader should do having transfered the files. The first checkbox lets you access to an internal image browser allowing you for instance to losslessly rotate jpeg files which comes in very handy if you took some pictures in portrait mode. The second allows you to see your image with the internal full-screen image viewer. Then you can open the folder to which you transfered the files in Explorer and/or open the first image with your favorite image viewer/editor. If your viewer is ACDSee (or any other image browser) you will be able to browse all the transfered files.
Once you have setup all these options, just click on the OK button and wait until cam2pc - An Image Downloader completes its task.
You can then click the Quit button. This will only make the main window disappear, leaving the tray icon running, ready for your next transfer!!
Okay, that's great but show me what I can do with the Advanced Options.