Transfer Photos from Camera to PC

George asks me to "recommend the best free program to get digital pictures from my camera into my computer files."

There are numerous solutions for importing digital pictures from your camera to your hard drive. I typically just connect my digital camera to my PC and copy the files over using Windows Explorer. By doing this, I maintain complete control over where my digital images are stored on the computer. If you prefer to use an external application, Google's Picasa remains the best solution available. In addition to being a convenient way to manage your images, Picasa also includes common photo editing functions, supports some of the best photo organization I've ever seen, works with low level photo data from your camera, and assists in uploading images to the Web or creating slideshows on your local system. One of my favorite features of Picasa is a timeline that shows when images were taken in relation to all your other images (which only works if your digital camera is set to the correct date). Picasa is free for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Linux.