View Add/Edit Patient Images screen. View Video, 1 min. 43 sec.

Digital Camera File Path
Once again, access the Default Image Settings screen. From there click the Digital Camera Settings button. This will open the Digital Camera Setting screen. Select the File/Memory Based Digital Camera choice. You will type in or browse for the path to your images. This path will vary from camera to camera so you will need to know what this path is for your particular camera in order to make this entry. In the sample screen shot the camera being referenced is a Sony Cybershot 5.0 megapixel. When you plug this camera into a computer it creates a virtual drive. In this sample, the computer already had drives from A-E making the next available drive F. The complete path to the pictures is F:\DCIM\101MSDCF. Why did Sony name these folders DCIM and 101MSDCF? Only Sony knows. All we need to know is that is where the pictures are for this camera so that is what we enter into the path field.

Digital Camera Compression Setting and Compression Quality
Like scanner setup, digital camera setup allows you to select a Compression setting of None, JPEG, or PNG. See the Scanner Setup section for a complete discussion on these file types. In the Scanner Setup section we suggested that JPEG would be the best choice because it allows compression and maintains good image quality and speed performance. Digital cameras, however, already compress their images significantly. Because of this we do not want to use the compressed formats of JPEG or PNG. Since digital cameras produce compressed images we suggest you set the Compression setting to “None” which is the uncompressed bitmap setting. The Compression Quality setting will therefore not be applicable.

Controlling Digital Camera File Size
In our example above we referenced the use of a Sony Cybershot 5.0 megapixel as a typical digital camera available today. Actually this particular Cybershot has already been discontinued. No surprise, it’s already 8 months old! A few years ago 5.0 megapixel cameras were rare. A few years before that 5.0 megapixel cameras didn’t exist. A few years from now, 5.0 megapixels will be old technology. 5 megapixels is a lot of pixels. The more pixels, the bigger the file, even if it is a space efficient JPEG file. The Sony Cybershot at 5 megapixels creates a JPEG file that is 2 megabytes in size. Now that is not particularly overburdening for the large hard drives available today, but over the years these images can add up. Another consideration is the transmissibility of larger files. NEA (National Electronic Attachment), who we integrate with for transmitting digital images to insurance carriers, have a 2 megabyte limit per attachment. You would be maxed out with one image if you were to send a 5 megapixel JPEG. If you want to control the file size of your digital camera images, you need to shoot at a lower resolution. The Sony Cybershot, as well as most higher resolution digital cameras, has the ability to select lower resolutions. This can greatly affect file size. Here are some sample resolutions along with their corresponding file sizes using the Sony Cybershot as an example: