Getting Pictures onto Your PC

Before you can undertake any image editing or improving, you need to transfer your digital images to your PC. Depending on the source of the pictures, there are a variety of ways of doing this. We have already looked at transferring images to your PC in Chapter 8, but let's briefly recap the procedure here.

Most modern cameras use memory cards to store the pictures. If you have a model like this, when you plug the camera into your PC's USB port, you should find that it's recognized instantly. A message should appear telling you in which folder the memory card contents have been mounted (see Chapter 15 for an explanation of mounting).

If your camera doesn't appear to be recognized by SUSE Linux, then you should consider buying a USB card reader. Usually, these devices are inexpensive and can read a wide variety of card types, making them a useful investment for the future. Some new PCs come with card readers as part of the deal.

You can check the online SUSE hardware database (http://hardwaredb.suse.de/?LANG=en_UK) to see if your camera and/or card reader is compatible with SUSE Linux. If you cannot find your make and model in the list, that does not necessarily mean it won't work; most generic card readers should work fine under Linux, as will most new digital cameras.

If your camera isn't recognized, however, or if it's a few years old and uses the serial port to connect to your PC, you can try using the Digikam software (select K menu ® Graphics ® Photograph), as explained in Chapter 8.

If you have pictures, negative film, or transparencies, you can use a scanner to scan them in using the Xsane program, also covered in Chapter 8. This works in a virtually identical way to the TWAIN modules supplied with Windows scanners, in that you need to set the dots per inch (DPI) figures, as well as the color depth. Generally speaking, 300 DPI and 24-bit color should lead to a true-to-life representation of most photos (although because of their smaller size, transparencies or negative film will require higher resolutions, on the order of 1,200 or 2,400 DPI).