Table of Contents
Browsing a memory card and importing pictures
How to browse a memory card and create an archive to it so you can easily import pictures from your digital camera.
29. March 2025
Table of Contents
Browsing a memory card
When importing files from a memory card you can simply browse the card directly from FotoStation and make selections there:
After inserting the memory card in your computer's memory card reader, use the Desktop side panel to locate the memory card. Clicking on it will display all the pictures (and video files) on it.
Note: Some cameras create several subfolders on the memory cards they use. In that case, you can right-click on the memory card drive in the Desktop panel and choose Include subfolders to make sure you see all the files on the card.
Creating a shortcut to the memory card drive
For convenient access later it may be useful to have an archive that points directly to the memory card drive for one-click access.
To accomplish this, locate the memory card drive in the Desktop side panel and right-click on it. Then choose Create Archive from the context menu. To store the archive with default settings, simply click on OK in the archive properties dialog. For more information about the various archive options available, see Setting archive properties.
Selecting files
The selection carousel is very useful when deciding which shots to keep and which to discard.
Filtering files that have been tagged in the camera
Some cameras allow the photographer to tag photos by setting a read-only flag from the camera menu. When browsing a memory card where photos have been tagged in this way, the photographer can isolate and display only these files using the Tagged filter (keyboard shortcut Shift-T, read more about tagging here). Then those photos can easily be dragged to an action that copies them to the local disk.
Note: Although the Tagged filter is usually based on a metadata field (Classify State), FotoStation does not actually populate the Tagged Classify field in the metadata when browsing a memory card as described above. Instead, this is all handled in memory to make browsing the flash card as quick as possible.
If you would like to keep the classify tag when copying the file to an archive on the local disk, you can create an action that includes a metadata update or that rewrites the file before it is copied (for example using the File Format sub action).
If you choose to import files from the flash card using the Acquire function, add a metadata operation there (such as a copyright string/photographer information) to have the tag information from the camera carried over to the imported files.
What's next?
Having made a selection of files using the selection carousel, you will probably want to copy the files from your memory card to a local hard drive. This is easily done by configuring an action for the purpose.