Nerd’s Words (sm)

Almost nobody knows this little tidbit.

Once you’ve gotten your pictures into the computer, the next step is to print them out and pass them around. You can print pictures using your own printer, if it’s color, if it’s photo quality, and if you have the right kind of paper. If you don’t have all of these things, you can order prints made of your pictures from right inside your computer. A company will print your pictures for you on their high quality photo printing equipment and send them back to you. Cool.

You need an Internet connection and a credit card.

Step one is to open the folder where your pictures are stored. This is very often the My Pictures folder in your My Documents folder. Click around until you find the pictures you want printed.

If you don’t see little versions of your photographs, pull down the View menu and choose “Thumbnails” to see tiny versions of the photos.

Once you’ve opened the folder with the pictures you want printed, click on the left side where it says, Order prints online.

If your photo window does not have a left-hand side to it like the one shown above, you need to tell Windows XP to display it. Pull down the Tools menu and choose “Folder Options.”

On the next window, make sure “Show common tasks in folders” is chosen and click the “OK” button. The left-hand panel will now show up.

Once you click on the “Order prints online” link, the rest is easy. You’ll be given a choice of companies to purchase your prints from. I like Shutterfly. I do not like Kodak. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

For more info, Microsoft has an excellent article on printing photos here.