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Transfering photos from Mac to PC

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edwardito

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 31, 2007
1
0
My wife had all her pics on her mac and i tranferred them to an external hard drive to view on my pc. Problem is that the quality is poor and I cannot really zoom or make bigger without the image looking horrible. Any ideas? Is there something I need to do when tranferring from mac to external hard drive to view on PC? PLEASE HELP! :)
 
maccompaq

maccompaq

macrumors 65816
Mar 6, 2007
1,169
24
edwardito said:
My wife had all her pics on her mac and i tranferred them to an external hard drive to view on my pc. Problem is that the quality is poor and I cannot really zoom or make bigger without the image looking horrible. Any ideas? Is there something I need to do when tranferring from mac to external hard drive to view on PC? PLEASE HELP! :)
Click to expand...

I use an external hard drive to transfer pictures back and forth from my Mac to my Compaq with very good results. If the pictures are taken with a cell phone camera or a low pixel digital camera, the picture quality will degrade as you make the picture bigger. Transferring pictures by DVD will not improve the quality.
 
Digital Skunk

Digital Skunk

macrumors G3
Dec 23, 2006
8,097
923
In my imagination
I think Tumeg is suggesting not using a formatted HDD to transfer images. If you have a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) instead of a flash drive then you will have to format the drive for the Windows format, and not the Mac format. Using a DVD or CD or flash drive or some sort won't have that problem.

The IQ (image quality) problem you are having may be caused by that formatting issue, or because the computer is only letting you view the previews instead of the actual files.
 
L

l33r0y

macrumors 6502
Aug 7, 2007
288
0
The image quality and the type of storage media being used are NOT related.

You should concentrate on WHAT you are storing, not HOW you are storing them.

If you are able to see anything on the PC, there is no problem in terms of being able to access the files - you just need to ensure you are transferring the correct full resolution files to the hard disk.

Perhaps you are transferring RAW camera images? It is possible that your PC software is only showing you the embedded JPEG contained within the RAW file, whereas the MACs software would be interpreting the full RAW image data. The solution would therefore be use better PC RAW image software, such as Adobe Lightroom.
 
Digital Skunk

Digital Skunk

macrumors G3
Dec 23, 2006
8,097
923
In my imagination
l33r0y said:
The image quality and the type of storage media being used are NOT related.

You should concentrate on WHAT you are storing, not HOW you are storing them.

If you are able to see anything on the PC, there is no problem in terms of being able to access the files - you just need to ensure you are transferring the correct full resolution files to the hard disk.

Perhaps you are transferring RAW camera images? It is possible that your PC software is only showing you the embedded JPEG contained within the RAW file, whereas the MACs software would be interpreting the full RAW image data. The solution would therefore be use better PC RAW image software, such as Adobe Lightroom.
Click to expand...

RAW files only carry full sized JPEG previews with them, not small ones. Getting Lightroom is unnecessary and expensive and overkill. Microsoft Photoviewer should do the job if they are JPEGs or they just wouldn't see a thing. RAW files aren't the problem. What program is the OP using to view their images?
 
L

l33r0y

macrumors 6502
Aug 7, 2007
288
0
Note that not all RAW files have useful JPGs for previewing purpose. D70(s) and D2X RAWs have full-size preview, but D1X and D100 have very small, heavily compressed (around 22KByte), ugly looking JPGs. Canon 1D and 1D mark II RAWs contain a good embedded JPG for previewing, but it is not full-sized.
Click to expand...


What camera does the original poster have?
 
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