Turn photos into a personal screen saver

Like a lot of people, after we got a digital camera, we starting taking a lot more pictures.

We found freedom from film developing is incredibly liberating. You don’t have to wait a week or even an hour to see your pictures. Load them onto your computer and there they are.

If you have a bunch of photos you really like, you also can use them as your screen saver. You don’t need any special software; all you need is Windows XP.

The process is easy. Mostly you tell Windows where the photos are and it does the rest. To set up the screen saver, follow these steps:

1. Right-click an empty spot on your desktop and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

2. In the Screen Saver tab, under Screen Saver click My Pictures Slideshow. By default, Windows looks in you’re My Pictures folder for photos, although you can change it. My computer doesn’t have any pictures stored in the My Pictures folder, so I got a little message in the display telling me so.

3. To use photos that are stored in a different folder, click the Settings button. Click Browse to find the folder that contains your photos. For example, I have a lot of photos of my dogs, so I pointed it to a folder on my system called HoundFaces.

4. Using the sliders in the My Pictures Screen Saver Options dialog box, you also can change how quickly the pictures change and how big you want them to appear on your screen. Other options let you show file names, add transition effects and scroll through the pictures yourself. You also can optionally stretch small pictures, but I’ve found that option tends to produce weird results.

5. When you’re done setting options, click OK. You see a mini-preview of your new screen saver. Note the setting next to Wait. That’s the amount of inactive time Windows waits before starting the screen saver. If everything looks good, click OK to exit the Display Properties dialog box.

As you can see, the process is simple. So the next time you are quietly sitting in your cubicle wishing you were on vacation, load up a few vacation photos as your screen saver and you might just feel better.