Windows XP for Home Users, Service Pack 2 Edition

IN THIS CHAPTER

Sounds and Pictures 263

Working with My Pictures 266

Tracking Details 267

Different Views 268

Editing Picture Files 272

Working with Picture Files 273

The Bottom Line 276

If you're like me, you have a lot of pictures on your computer. I have a digital camera, and I transfer all the pictures I shoot to my hard drive. I also have a scanner, and I'm constantly scanning in old photos that I took before I bought my digital camera. Then there are the pictures I download from the Web, and the photos that friends and family send me via e-mail.

I have a lot of pictures on my computer.

Working with those pictures editing them, storing them, sending them on to other users takes up a lot of my time. And, prior to Windows XP, it wasn't easy. I had to use a ragtag assortment of third-party programs and utilities just to do the simplest tasks, and I didn't get any help from my operating system.

That all changes with Windows XP. Building on a handful of new features first introduced in Windows Me, Windows XP is Microsoft's first operating system to take digital pictures seriously.

In Chapter 13, "Working with Digital Cameras and Scanners," I'll tell you how Windows XP works with scanners and digital cameras. This chapter focuses on the picture management capabilities of the operating system how you can use Windows XP to view, store, and print your digital pictures.