Working with digital pictures

Windows Photo Gallery displays your pictures as thumbnails—small versions of the full-sized pictures. To display as many thumbnails as possible, make Photo Gallery window fill your screen by clicking its Maximize button .

To change the size of thumbnails, click the Zoom button , and then move the slider up or down. You can make thumbnails smaller to quickly browse a large picture collection. Or, make thumbnails larger to see more detail in each picture. Changing the thumbnail size does not affect the full-sized version of the picture.

Large thumbnails (left); small thumbnails (right)

To return to the original view of medium-sized thumbnails, click the Default Thumbnail Size button .

At small and medium thumbnail sizes, pointing to a thumbnail displays a larger-sized preview, along with some information about the picture.

Point to a thumbnail to show a larger preview

Vertical pictures might appear sideways in Photo Gallery. You can rotate these pictures to the correct orientation by clicking the Rotate counterclockwise button or Rotate clockwise button .

Thumbnail before rotation (left) and after rotation (right)

To view a picture so that it fills most of the Photo Gallery window, double-click the picture. On the right side of the window, the Info pane displays information about your picture and allows you to add tags to it (see "Add tags to pictures" below).

To see the largest possible view of the picture, maximize the Photo Gallery window. You can also close the Info pane by clicking the close button in the top corner of the pane.

To zoom in on part the picture, click the Zoom button and move the slider up. While you're zoomed in, you can drag any part of the picture with the hand pointer to move the picture around. To return to the regular view, click the Fit to Window button .

Full-sized picture (left); zoomed picture (right)

To get back to the thumbnails view, click Back To Gallery.

You can view your digital pictures as a full-screen slide show that runs automatically. You can also choose from a variety of slide show themes that include animation and other visual effects. Some themes display several pictures on the screen at once, as shown in the picture below.

Sample slide show

To start a slide show, select the pictures that you want, and then click the Slide Show button at the bottom of Photo Gallery. If you don't select any pictures, the slide show will include all of the pictures in the current view.

The Slide Show button

While a slide show is running, you can pause it, adjust the speed, go forward or backward, and choose whether pictures are shown randomly or sequentially. To display the slide show controls, move the mouse over the bottom of the screen. If the controls are not displayed, right-click the slide show to display a menu.

Slide show controls

To end a slide show, press ESC, or click Exit on the slide show controls.

Notes

• To see slide show themes, your computer must have a subscore of at least 3.0 in the Graphics category of the Windows Experience Index. For more information, see What is the Windows Experience Index?

• Certain slide show themes are included only in Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate.

Your digital camera labels pictures with the date they were taken. Photo Gallery uses this information to automatically organize your pictures by date. That way, you can browse your pictures by the year, month, or day they were taken.

To find pictures by date, click a year, month, or day under Date Taken in the Navigation pane (left pane) of Photo Gallery. You'll see all of the pictures taken in the time period that you select.

Click a year, month, or day to see pictures in that time period

For more information, see Find pictures by date.

You can use Windows Photo Gallery to add tags to your pictures—meaningful words or phrases that describe who or what is in the picture and where the picture was taken. Tagging your pictures makes them much easier to find in the future, because you can easily display all pictures that have a particular tag.

If adding tags to every picture sounds time-consuming, don't worry—you can add tags to a whole batch of pictures at once. For example, you could add a "Birthdays" tag to 20 or 30 pictures of a birthday party. To add tags to pictures, follow these steps:

You don't need to type tags if you've already created them. (You can see the tags you've created by clicking the arrow next to Tags in the Navigation pane of Photo Gallery.) To add an existing tag to a picture, drag one or more pictures to the tag, as shown in the picture below.

Drag pictures to a tag to add the tag to those pictures

Try to get in the habit of tagging your pictures immediately after you import them. That way, you won't end up with a backlog of pictures that need to be tagged. For more information, see Tag pictures so they're easier to find and Tips for organizing pictures.

Once you've tagged pictures in Photo Gallery, it's easy to find them again. Just type the tag in the search box. All of the pictures with that tag appear. For instance, in the example below, typing Animals finds all of the pictures with a tag containing the word "Animals." If any pictures have the word "animals" in their file name, they'll also appear.

Type in the Search box to find pictures you've tagged

If you can't remember which tags you've created, click any tag in the Tags list to see all of the pictures with that tag.

The Tags list

For more information, see Find a picture on your computer.

One way to share your digital pictures with others is to upload (copy) them to a photo-sharing website. Friends and family members whom you invite can visit the website and view your photo albums. Most photo-sharing sites allow you to share and store pictures for free. Note, however, that some sites will delete your pictures if you don't purchase prints or gifts from the site within a certain period of time. Be sure to check the site's policies.

Another way to share your pictures is by e‑mail. You can use Windows Photo Gallery to attach pictures to an e‑mail message. Photo Gallery can automatically compress them (reduce their file size) so that the e‑mail arrives more quickly and the pictures take up less space on the recipient's computer. The original pictures are not affected.

To send pictures by e‑mail, select the pictures in Windows Photo Gallery, and then click the E‑mail button on the toolbar. In the Attach Files dialog box, select a picture size (the default size, medium, is usually okay), and then click Attach.

Choose the e‑mail picture size

Windows opens a new e‑mail message in your e‑mail program, which is Windows Mail by default. (To change this, see Change the default e‑mail program.) The pictures you selected are attached to the message.

Picture attached to an e‑mail message

To send the picture, enter the e‑mail addresses of the recipients, type a subject, and write a brief message. Then click Send. For more information, see Getting started with e‑mail and Send pictures or videos in e‑mail.

Tip

You can also send pictures from the Pictures folder in an e‑mail message. Click the pictures that you want to send, and then, on the toolbar, click E‑mail.

If you have a printer at home, you can print your own photos. Inkjet printers and dye-sublimation printers can both produce high-quality color photographs when used with special paper. Many have built-in memory card readers and small LCD screens so that you can print pictures without using your computer.

Inkjet printer

You can print pictures from your computer in several ways. You can print a single picture, print multiple pictures on one page, or print a contact sheet (a grid of thumbnail pictures for easy reference).

To print pictures using Windows Photo Gallery, select the pictures that you want to print. On the toolbar, click Print, and then click Print. In the Print Pictures dialog box, choose your print options, and then click Print. For more information, see Picture printing: frequently asked questions.

The Print Pictures window

Home printers are convenient and allow you to make prints quickly. But if you want to save the expense and hassle of buying ink and paper, consider using an online photo printing service. These services allow you to upload (copy) your pictures to a website. From there, you can order prints in a variety of sizes and pay for them with a credit card. The completed prints are then mailed to your home or office.

One advantage of using online photo printing services is the variety of products they offer. Besides regular prints, you can order personalized T-shirts, greeting cards, calendars, mugs, posters, mouse pads, and more—all bearing pictures that you choose. In addition, these sites usually offer photo-sharing services (see "Sharing pictures" above).

You can also order prints directly from Windows Photo Gallery or the Pictures folder. For more information, see Order prints of your pictures online.

If you want prints quickly and don't have a printer, you can take your camera's memory card to a store that offers digital photo printing services. Stores that offer these services include camera stores, large retail stores, and even some grocery stores and pharmacies. Some stores offer self-serve photo kiosks that let you edit, crop, and print your pictures in just a few minutes.