Digital Photos and printing

Factual Questions
#1

I’m wondering if there’s anything about digital image files that distinguishes them from other pictures (scanned pictures, for example).

I have a polaroid IR-500 printer (cool gadget - prints color digital photos on polaroid film, doesn’t need batteries, comes with film already, and costs only $25). The way it works is you take the memory card from your camera, put it into the printer, and print from there (it doesn’t connect to the camera or computer).

The only digital camera I have is the Olympus W-10, which is actually a voice recorder with a camera lens built in. I can copy the images onto my computer, play with levels in photoshop, and then copy them to the memory card for printing.

However, when someone emails me digital pictures, the IR-500 won’t recognize or even try to print them.

What’s the difference? Is there anything I can do to these pictures in photoshop to make the IR-500 recognize them?

#2

How do you get the images to the card? I assume you put in in a card reader and just push the images up? If so, they are probably not in the right format for the printer or camera. This isn’t really about the .JPG format, but the header and perhaps index information that the camera uses when it writes the picture.

Check out the message boards on http://www.dcresource.com and ask there. Someone should have some info on how to ensure that you JPGs go on the card correctly.

#3

yeah, I copy it from the computer to the card, since the W-10 doesn’t take memory cards (just has a USB wire for the computer). I’ll check the board you linked me to. Thanks.