Easy Computer Basics, Windows 10 Edition (2016)
Chapter 15. Viewing and Editing Digital Photos
The traditional film camera is a thing of the past. These days, everybody uses a digital camera or smartphone camera—which you can easily connect to your PC. After it’s connected, you can transfer all the photos you take to your computer’s hard disk, view them on your computer monitor, share them with friends and family via Facebook and other social media, and even edit your pictures to make them look better.
The Photos app included with Windows 10 helps you find and view all the photos stored on your PC. It even lets you touch up your photos with easy-to-use editing functions.
Viewing a Picture with the Photos App
Transferring Pictures via USB
Whether you have a digital camera or a smartphone, you can easily transfer photos from that device to your PC, simply by connecting the two with the USB cable that came with your device. After they’re connected, Windows sees your camera or smartphone as another drive on your system; it’s then a simple matter to copy files from your device to your PC.
With your camera or smartphone connected to your PC, click File Explorer on the taskbar to open File Explorer.
Click This PC in the Navigation pane, and then double-click the icon for your camera or smartphone.
Navigate to and open the folder where the photos reside (usually labeled DCIM), and then hold down the Ctrl key and click each photo you want to transfer.
Select the Home ribbon and click Copy To, and then select Pictures.
Tip: Automatic Action
Windows might recognize when you connect your camera or smartphone and ask what you want to do. You can ignore this prompt and proceed manually, or click it and tell Windows to copy the photo files.
Tip: Different Folder Names
Some cameras and smartphones might use a name other than DCIM for the main folder.
Transferring Pictures from a Memory Card
If you have a digital camera, you can also copy photos to your computer from the camera’s removable flash memory card. Just insert the memory card into your PC’s memory card reader and proceed from there.
Insert your camera’s flash memory card into your PC’s memory card reader and click File Explorer in the taskbar to open File Explorer.
Click This PC in the navigation pane and then double-click the drive for your memory card reader.
Navigate to and open the folder where the photos reside (usually labeled DCIM) and then hold down the Ctrl key and click each photo you want to transfer.
Select the Home ribbon and click Copy To, and then select Pictures.
Note: Copying Automatically
Windows might recognize that your memory card contains digital photos and start to download those photos automatically—no manual interaction necessary.
Caution: Other Opening Apps
Depending on what apps you have installed on your system, you might get multiple prompts to download photos when you connect your camera. If this happens, pick the program you prefer to work with and close the other dialog boxes.
Viewing Your Photos in Windows
When you want to view the photos stored on your PC, you can use the Photos app included with Windows 10. The Photos app organizes your photos, lets you view them one at a time or in a slideshow, and even lets you edit them. You open the Photos app from the Windows Start menu.
Open the Photos app from the Windows Start screen. By default, the Collection view is selected, and you see photos organized by date taken, wherever they happen to be stored.
To view photos by album, click Albums, and then click an album to view its contents.
Click through the folders and subfolders until you find a photo you want to view, and then click that photo to view it full-screen.
Note: OneDrive
The Photos app automatically organizes and displays photos stored on your computer (and on all connected drives and devices), as well as those stored online in your OneDrive account.
To enlarge the picture, click the + button at the lower-right corner of the screen. To make a picture smaller, click the – button.
To move to the next picture in the collection, album, or folder, click the right arrow onscreen or press the right arrow key on your keyboard. To return to the previous picture, click the left arrow onscreen or press the left arrow key on your keyboard.
To view a slide show of the pictures in this folder, click the picture to display the menu bar at the top of the screen, and then click the Slide Show (play) button.
To delete the current picture, display the menu bar and click Delete.
Tip: Lock Screen Picture
To use the current picture as the image on the Windows lock screen, open the photo, click to display the menu bar, click Options (three dots), and then click Set as Lock Screen.
Tip: Sharing Pictures
To share the current picture with your friends, click to display the menu bar, click the Share icon, and then select to share via either Facebook or Mail.
Editing Your Photos with the Photos App
Not all your pictures turn out perfectly. Maybe you need to crop a picture to highlight the important area. Maybe you need to brighten a dark picture, or darken a bright one. Or maybe you need to adjust the tint or color saturation. Fortunately, you’re in luck—you can do all these basic touch-ups within the Windows Photos app.
From within the Photos app, open the picture you want to edit, and then click it to display the options bar at the top of the screen.
The Photos app might try to automatically enhance the picture; if so, you see the Enhance tool selected. If you don’t like the results, click Enhance to deselect this tool. (Click Enhance again to automatically enhance the original picture.)
To rotate the picture clockwise 90 degrees, click Rotate.
To further edit the picture, click Edit.
Note: Non-Destructive Editing
Any changes you make are applied to a copy of the photo. The original unedited version of the photo is retained on your computer in case you ever want to revert to it.
Click Basic Fixes to access basic fixes.
Click Crop to crop the edges of the picture. When the crop screen appears, use your mouse to drag the corners of the white border until the picture appears as you like, and then click Apply.
Click Red Eye to remove the red-eye effect from the picture. The cursor changes to a blue circle. Move the circle to the eye(s) you want to fix, and then click the mouse button to remove red-eye.
Click Retouch to smooth out or remove blemishes from the photo. The cursor changes to a blue circle. Move the circle to the area you want to repair, and then click the mouse button to do so.
Tip: Aspect Ratio
By default, Windows maintains the original aspect ratio when you crop a photo. To crop to a different aspect ratio, click the Aspect Ratio button and make a new selection.
Note: Red-Eye
Red-eye is caused when a camera’s flash causes the subject’s eyes to appear a devilish red. Removing the red-eye effect involves changing the red color to black in the edited photo.
Click Filters to apply special photo filters to the picture. Click the desired filter on the right side of the window.
Click Light to edit the brightness and contrast of the photo.
Click the control you want to adjust—Brightness, Contrast, Highlights, or Shadows.
The selected control changes to a circular control. Click and drag the control clockwise to increase the effect, or counterclockwise to decrease the effect.
Note: Lighting Controls
The Brightness control makes the picture lighter or darker. The Contrast control increases or decreases the difference between the photo’s darkest and lightest areas. Use the Highlights control to bring out or hide detail in too-bright highlights; use the Shadows control to do the same in too-dark shadows.
Click Color to edit the tint and saturation of the photo.
Click the control you want to adjust—Temperature, Tint, Saturation, or Color Boost.
The selected control changes to a circular control. Click and drag the control clockwise to increase the effect, or counterclockwise to decrease the effect.
To apply vignette and selective focus effects to your picture, click Effects in the left sidebar and then click the effect you want to apply.
Note: Color Controls
The Temperature control affects the color characteristics of lighting; you can adjust a photo so that it looks warmer (reddish) or cooler (bluish). The Tint control affects the shade of the color. The Saturation control affects the amount of color in the photo; completely desaturating a photo makes it black and white. And the Color Enhance control lets you click an area of the photo to increase or decrease color saturation.