FROM

CAMERA

TO MLS

A DETAILED, STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTION MANUAL ON HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS TO THE MLS FROM YOUR CAMERA

Paul Combitsis, Realtor® Associate Better Homes Realty, Toms River, NJ

THE OBJECTIVE

To Put the Photographs From Your Camera Into Your Listing on the MLS. (This process is called “uploading”.)

THE CAMERA

Digital Camera

Smartphone w/ Camera

All digital cameras and

Smartphones come with a

cable that will allow you to

connect the device to a

computer.

THE CHIP

All Digital Cameras and Smartphones store their data on some kind of a memory chip. When you take pictures with your device, the pictures will be saved in a folder on this chip (similar to a folder on your computer.)

Chips in a digital camera can be removed and

inserted in a special slot on your computer (if

available) for easy upload. (It is recommended

that you do NOT remove the chip from a

Smartphone, but only from a digital camera.)

MyPics MyPics

THE USB DRIVE

A USB Drive or a “Thumb Drive” is a portable memory stick that acts as a hard drive on any computer when it is plugged into a USB port on that computer. They come in different shapes, sizes, colors and memory capacities.

The best thing to do is to transfer your photographs from your camera onto a USB Drive. This way, you always have your photos with you, whether you are at home or at the office.

THE “CLOUD”

A “cloud” is nothing more than a predefined area of memory on a server connected to the Internet. It provides a way for you to store documents, photos, music, or virtually any other file type for easy retrieval from anywhere in the world. This is an alternative to the USB drive.

Popular cloud services are:

www.skydrive.com www.dropbox.com www.drive.google.com

Set up an account with any or all of them using your e-mail address, and you will have a place to upload and save your photos. You can create folders just like on your home computer (e.g. one folder per listing) and be able to keep your photos organized. Whether you are at home or at the office, you will always have access to your photos.

THE OPTIONS

There are several ways to achieve the general objective of uploading your photos to the MLS from your camera. These options are as follows:

1)

2)

4)

Via USB Drive

Directly to BHR computer

HOME COMPUTER

Via Home Computer & Internet

3) E-mail photos

THE BOTTOM LINE…

In order to upload your photos to the MLS, they MUST be in one of three places:

On the hard drive of the

computer you are working on.

On a camera or Smartphone

connected to the computer via

a USB cable.

On a USB drive plugged into

the computer.

TRANSFERRING PHOTOS FROM A CAMERA

TO A USB DRIVE USING A COMPUTER

G H

Using the included USB cable that came with your

camera or Smartphone, connect the device to one

USB port of the computer and insert the portable USB

drive into another USB port. The computer will

recognize these devices and assign them letters.

(“G” and “H”, in the example, above.) Locate the

photos on the “G” drive using Windows Explorer, and

“drag-and-drop” the photos onto the “H” drive. Your

photos are now stored on the USB Drive and you will

have them anywhere you go.

G H

RETRIEVING PHOTOS FROM

E-MAIL OR THE “CLOUD”

If you previously e-mailed photos to yourself and you go into your e-mail account (AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) to retrieve them, OR if you uploaded them to an account with one of the cloud services (SkyDrive, DropBox or Google Drive), you have to download them either onto the hard drive of the computer on which you have logged on to the MLS, or onto a USB Drive that you previously plugged into a USB port of this computer.

OTHER TOOLS

EXTERNAL CARD READER

Chips in a digital camera can be removed and inserted in a special slot on your computer (if one is available) for easy upload. (It is recommended that you do NOT remove the chip from a Smartphone, but only from a digital camera.)

If such a slot is not available on the computer itself, an external card reader can be purchased. The chip is inserted into the reader and the reader is then inserted into a USB port on the computer. The computer will recognize it and assign it a drive letter.

UPLOADING 1. It is finally time to upload your photos to the MLS!!

From the MLS screen, put your cursor over

“Maintenance”, then left-click on “Go to

Maintenance”.

2. In Listing Maintenance dialogue box, enter MLS

number of your listing, then click the last option, “Add

Photos/Media/Fax-In” under the UPLOAD MEDIA

section.

UPLOADING (CONTINUED) 3. (If you already have photos uploaded from before,

they will all appear.) To upload new photos, go to the

“add new media” section at the bottom,

click the “Photo” radio button,

and then click the “Browse” button to search for the

photos you wish to upload. (Remember: they

MUST be either on the hard drive of the computer

you are working on, or on the USB drive plugged

into a port on the same computer.)

UPLOADING (CONTINUED) 4. When the file selection dialogue box appears, look

for your photos, select them by holding down the Ctrl

button on the keyboard and left-clicking on each

photo you wish to upload.

5. Click the “Open” button at the bottom-right. Your

photos will now appear as a list of pending uploads.

Click the “Upload All” button to upload them.

UPLOADING (CONTINUED) 6. Your photos are now uploaded to the listing on the

MLS. At this point you can re-order them (by using

the up and down green arrows, entering

descriptive data for each photo in the space

provided, or removing them by clicking the “Delete”

button for each photo.

7. IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to click the “Save

Changes” button when you’re done! If

you do not do this, your photos will NOT be

saved!

8. You are done.