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You don’t have to have all these snazzy photo programs to print a decent photo on your PC.  Vista have a great tool which is easy to use and comes preinstalled on your machine.  Here’s how to use it…

1. To Start click on the Vista Start Orb and select Pictures
   
2. Click once on the photo you wish to print.  If you wish to print multiple photos hold down ‘CTRL’ on your keyboard whilst clicking on the photos you want to print.  Then click print at the top of the window.  (Click on the image to make it larger)
   
3. A window will then appear.  You will than have a few decisions to make…
   • First of all select your printer, paper size and print quality from the drop down.
   • You can also choose how you wish the photos to be laid out on your paper by browsing the options on the right hand side (please note, if the options aren’t there it is because the paper size you have selected has no options to choose from).
   • If you want to print more than one copy of each picture you can by changing the number in the box.
   • The ‘fit picture to frame’ stretches your photos so they fill up the entire space that you have given to each photo, but beware in some cases an edge of the photo maybe cut off by selecting this option.
   • If you click options you are taken to ‘print preferences’, colour management etc.
     (Click on the image to make it larger)

   

4. When you’re happy with all your choices click print!

Any questions?

This weeks Quick Tip is about resizing images, before uploading mass photos to my website or facebook I resize them. Yes I know facebook can do it for you but it is much quicker to resize them yourself and upload smaller files!

So, two quick ways:

1) VSO Image Resizer – using Windows 2000, XP & Vista

This one is as simple as select all the photos you want to resize, right click on the selection and choose VSO Image Resizer and then just select the size you want and the location of the files, then off it goes.

2) XP PowerToys Image Resizer – Windows XP Only

This one is just as simple, select the images, right click and choose Resize Images. Set your preferred options and off it goes.

One thing to note is that I would never overwrite the originals, always make copies!

Enjoy