Best way to import photos to Surface

[lancorp]

Looking for some good suggestions on how to import photos from the 1020 to a Surface (not a PRO).
My wife is leaving for a trip, armed with a 1020 as her camera, and a Surface for blogging while on her trip.

Today (as practice before she leaves) we plugged the 1020 into the Surface and was presented with the option to import the photos, which we chose.
205 pictures on her phone (half are lo-res and half are high-res) and not sure the best way to get just the lo-res to her Surface so she can have access to them for blogging and social media.
The large tile format we are presented with for each photo is lousy for having to deal with a large number of photos. There doesn't seem to be a way to sort them by size or filter them (although I could just be missing how, as I really don't find Win 8.1 intuitive).

Is there a better app that is more intuitive and flexible for working with importing photos from the 1020? Is 40 megapixel too big to deal with on a trip with limited storage devices?
I starting to worry i chose the wrong devices for her trip...we wanted to keep things small and light and not have to bring a separate camera.

Thanks for any help or suggestions. The trip is in two days so we have to find something fast and master it!

 

[unstoppablekem]

I suggest to just do cloud backups to SkyDrive. You need to enable "best quality" for photo backup, though.

 

[lancorp]

I suggest to just do cloud backups to SkyDrive. You need to enable "best quality" for photo backup, though.

Not really an option because where she is going, the only internet will be WIFI at the hotel. No data plan on the 1020. So I need her to be able to move the pictures to the Surface via USB so she can do her (blogging) thing on the Surface.

The time to upload her pictures to Skydrive and then redownload (sync) to the Surface would be too time consuming in this case.

 

[anon(8555314)]

I typically use OneDrive with auto high res backup.

If that wasn't an option, I'd probably use the 1020 to view and delete the photos that are clearly not worth keeping/editing. Then connect with usb and copy and paste everything from the lumia's cameral roll with the surface's desktop view. Then move all of the photos already copied from the camera roll to some other folder.

 

[vlad0]

Wait.. doesn't the phone show as an external storage in explorer on Windows ?

 

[unstoppablekem]

Wait.. doesn't the phone show as an external storage in explorer on Windows ?

Yes, but I think it syncs 5MP images instead of 35MP.

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[Alex Dean]

Best option is to download the Windows Phone app from the store, and when you open the app and plug in your phone, set it to automatically import. The pictures should automatically get copied to the default pictures folder (you should see some info on the top right of the screen, and it will say "Everything's finished" when complete. This will import the 5mp photos, including any reframed photos using Nokia Camera, but if you want the full res pictures you need to open the phone in File Explorer and manually drag & drop.

 

[neonspark]

clearly there has to be some app that does this no? It is just xcopy.

 

[Alex Dean]

clearly there has to be some app that does this no? It is just xcopy.

As I said, the official Windows Phone metro app does this.

 

[Ed Boland]

Best option is to download the Windows Phone app from the store, and when you open the app and plug in your phone, set it to automatically import. The pictures should automatically get copied to the default pictures folder (you should see some info on the top right of the screen, and it will say "Everything's finished" when complete. This will import the 5mp photos, including any reframed photos using Nokia Camera, but if you want the full res pictures you need to open the phone in File Explorer and manually drag & drop.

This

 

[lancorp]

I typically use OneDrive with auto high res backup.

If that wasn't an option, I'd probably use the 1020 to view and delete the photos that are clearly not worth keeping/editing. Then connect with usb and copy and paste everything from the lumia's cameral roll with the surface's desktop view. Then move all of the photos already copied from the camera roll to some other folder.

That's the route we are going. Actually (and unfortunately) we are giving up on using the Surface. Too limited (storage-wise), incompatibilites with IE and sites like blogspot.com (RT version not the same as normal version). Just too many "issues". No Chrome browser (she is used to Chrome with all her bookmarks, etc) and no Picasa for managing the photos.

In the 11th hour, after starting to freak that the Surface was just too different, she's taking my XPS 13 with Windows 8 and now has Chrome and Picasa. She can do the photo import with Picasa like she's used to.

Curious, how/where do you adjust what quality photos OneDrive backs up? On the phone or PC?

 

[lancorp]

As I said, the official Windows Phone metro app does this.

Thank you. I will download that to her XPS 13 (with Windows 8.1) and we'll give it a try. It's nice that it only copies the 5mp photos.

 

[unstoppablekem]

Thank you. I will download that to her XPS 13 (with Windows 8.1) and we'll give it a try. It's nice that it only copies the 5mp photos.

For full Windows computers, I suggest installing the WP desktop app, and not the Metro app, as the metro app is very limited. But whatever works for you, you should do. Good luck!


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[lancorp]

For full Windows computers, I suggest installing the WP desktop app, and not the Metro app, as the metro app is very limited. But whatever works for you, you should do. Good luck!

I tried both and found just the opposite to be true. I could not figure out how to make the desktop app actually show thumbnails of the pictures or really do anything. I just got a "details" view of the files.
The Metro version at least is very graphical, shows me the pictures, but best of all, I connect the phone, run the app, and AUTOMATICALLY it puts the 5mp photos in Camera Roll on the PC automatically, which then (for my wife) automatically come into Picasa when she starts it. Automatic HEAVEN! I wound up uninstalling the desktop app.

One thing I did not like was that when the Windows Phone app copies the photos, it changes the date modified to the date/time they were copied instead of keeping the date/time of the picture.
LAME. Sometimes you wonder why they don't hire real people and/or photographers to design these apps. Now, I have to sort the files by "date taken" and that is not preferable.