How to Get Pictures Off a Cell Phone

Many people take a snapshot of something of interest with their cell phone. They are anxious to share this picture with their friends and family, but have no idea how to do that other than walk around with the phone and tell people to look at the screen. So lets look at the most common ways to get the picture out of the phone.We will begin by breaking it into two major categories: Wireless and Hardware.

Wireless: The options depend on the capabilities of your phone and the level of service you are willing to pay for.

1. Bluetooth. Most phones have bluetooth. If you browse around your menu (look it up in manual if you need help) you will probably find a setting to activate your bluetooth. Chances are your friends have bluetooth, too. So you can transfer the file once you have set up something called pairing. Usually, once you both have bluetooth turned on you will see the name of the other person's phone. (ie Amber's phone, or SamsungA707)It may ask you for a pin number. Typically you can make one up and tell the other person what it is. They type in that number then you are paired. Now browse to your picture and choose options (or similar). There should be a send via bluetooth option. There is no charge to bluetooth something. This is also a popular way to share ring tones. Many laptops and some desktops have bluetooth, so you can transfer them to your computer this way too.

2. MMS, or email. If you choose options, in addition to bluetooth, there should be some options like send, or send via email. These are other ways to send the file, but they usually charge your account, unless you have a data plan. MMS is basically a "text message" that contains more than text. To send an MMS message you type in the mobile phone number of the person you want to send to, like sending a text. Email is just email. Type in the address to send it to such as newcreationtech@gmail.com. Many people like to send their pictures to a place where they can be shared with an online community, rather than an individual, such as facebook, twitter, or flickr.

Hardware. This means that something will be plugged in to the phone. Many phones have a slot for a memory card. The most common type is microSD or microSDHC (HC stands for High Capacity). SD cards are commonly used a digital camera cards. The MicroSD is just a small version of the SD and usually comes with an adapter that can adapt it up to a normal SD card slot. So if you have a microSD card in your phone you can the picture to it. Pop it out and adapt it up to normal SD, then it can fit in your computers' SD camera card slot, or if you don't have one you can swing by your local photo developer (i.e. Walgreens) and they can print the picture for you or save it to cd.

USB. Usb is a common data transfer standard. Most phone manufactures make a usb cable that is compatible with your phone. You can connect this cable to your computer and transfer the picture across the wire.