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January 19, 2007
Printing Pictures with Your Wizard’s Wand
Dear Larry,
I just bought a new digital camera and photo printer. How
do I get my pictures from my camera to my computer and then print them?
R. L.
Dear R. L.,
One way would be to use Picasa, Google’s free photo editing
software, which I discussed in my column a few weeks back. Alternatively, you
can use Windows itself to accomplish these feats. Here’s how:
First, locate the cable that came with your camera. The small
end will connect to your camera, the other to a free USB port on the front or
back of your computer. Next, power on your camera; Windows should recognize that
your camera’s been connected and present you with a number of options. Select
the first choice, “Use the Windows Camera and Scanner Wizard.”
As you follow along, the wizard will display the pictures it
found on your camera. By default, each picture will have a checkmark next to it
indicating that it’s about to be copied to your computer. You can check or
uncheck various pictures if you wish to copy the pictures in discrete batches.
For example, if you have pictures of a Christmas party and a separate set of
pictures from New Year’s Eve, you might first want to copy just the Christmas
pictures to one folder and later copy the remaining pictures to a second folder.
Which leads to the next question: where to copy the selected
pictures? I suggest you indicate a folder name like “…My Pictures\2006-12-24
Christmas Party at the Smiths” or “…My Pictures\2007-01-01 First Night Partying
with the Martins.”
Lastly, if you want Windows to delete the selected pictures
after it has successfully copied them to your computer, check the appropriate
box.
Once the pictures are on your computer, it’s time to print
one. First, open the Pictures folder (click Start, My Pictures) and locate the
folder containing the picture you want to print. Select a picture and click
“Print This Picture” under the Picture Tasks heading on the left side of the
window. (If you don’t see Picture Tasks, you can right-click a picture and click
Print to open the Photo Printing Wizard.)
The Photo Printing Wizard will display the pictures it found
in the folder you selected and will already have checked the picture you chose
to print. Check the boxes adjacent to any additional photos you might want to
print.
In the next step, select your photo printer. Then click the
Printing Preferences button to configure the printer according to your needs.
For example, you may want to indicate the type and size of paper you’ve loaded,
the print quality, whether or not you want a borderless print, and other options
specific to your printer make and model.
In the last step of the Photo Printing Wizard, select the
desired print layout. Windows can print one large picture per page, a “contact
sheet” containing miniature prints of all the pictures you selected, or any of a
number of popular print sizes such as 5x7 and 4x6.
Finally, once you’ve successfully printed your pictures,
consider running the Custom Framing Wizard…perhaps coming soon to a version of
Windows near you?
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
