Q: How can I move pics from an old mac laptop to a new desktop?

Copy them to an external drive, connect the drive to the new computer and restore them to a location of your choice.

If both computers are on your home network, then enable File Sharing so you can copy the files from the old computer to the new computer. I'm not sure if Leopard File Sharing is compatible with Mavericks on your new computer, so you may have to upgrade your old computer at least to Snow Leopard.

Upgrading to Snow Leopard

You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.

After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.

     Snow Leopard General Requirements

       1. Mac computer with an Intel processor

       2. 1GB of memory

       3. 5GB of available disk space

       4. DVD drive for installation

       5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;

           fees may apply.

       6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and

           terms apply.

Target Disk Mode (Target Disk Mode) is not possible because the new computer does not have Firewire ports and the old computer does not have a Thunderbolt port.

Move them through a network, or an external drive, or target disk mode if that's possible.

(100512)