Although it may seem strange to have cameras and PCs in the same article it is certainly the wave. The reason is that many people store pictures on their computer. They may also print these pictures, email them or cut them to a CD or DVD. Other uses may be possible.
How do you get the pictures from the camera to the computer?
There are several ways to do this. You do need a USB cable that is for your specific brand of camera. Mostly you do not need any software if you have Window XP or higher. A software program is available in the operating system that allows you to move them from the camera to the computer. Some computers now come with multimedia ports. These ports allow you to use the media card and put it directly in the computer. This allows you to insert your SD, MicroSD and other card.
What do I do after I have them on the computer?
The tricky part is what to do with the pictures after you have moved them. You can just store them and look at them when you want to. If you want to change the size or appearance of the pictures you will need photo editing software that has the ability to edit them according to your needs. There are many of these on the market and most cameras come with this type of software. Adobe Photoshop is the top of the line editing software. It is somewhat complex and expensive but is great if you want to have maximum ability to change your picture any way that you want to.
One thing you should know about keeping pictures on a computer is that there are many ways to lose them forever. You could accidentally delete one. A virus could attach the file(s) and/or make them susceptible to spreading a virus to some other computer through email. Your computer could crash. If so you may lose all of what you had on the computer. It could be very expensive to restore files after a crash. In some cases you may not be able to get them back.
In order to protect your valuable pictures you need to back them up. Put them on CDs or DVDs. I am recommending DVDs because they have a much larger storage capacity. You can also buy an external USB drive. These are getting bigger and cheaper every day.
Another valuable piece of information to know is that most picture files are big. If you have a small hard drive you could fill it up rapidly. Most drives these days are quite large. It is still possible to fill them up. This is the reason you want to put them on another media. You could store them on a second drive also. USB drives have come down in price and are really huge. You can get one Terabyte drive at this writing.
Another problem is that storms, fire or other catastrophic events can happen. You need to keep copies off site. Either you can use a bank safety deposit box or you now can use online storage. You can never tell when or if something will happen.