Viewing Pictures and Video in Windows 8.1

  • 11/15/2013
Contents
This chapter from Windows 8.1 Plain & Simple shows you how to use the Photos app, Video app, and Camera app that come with Windows 8.1.

In this section:

  • Displaying pictures

  • Searching for pictures

  • Creating folders for your pictures

  • Moving pictures to new folders

  • Setting a picture on the Photos tile or lock screen

  • Cropping a picture

  • Editing a picture

  • Playing a slide show

  • Exploring the Video app

  • Playing a personal video

  • Buying or renting a video

  • Using the camera

Windows 8.1 comes with three apps for working with visual media. These are the Photos app, Video app, and Camera app, all available from the Start screen. The Photos app lets you access your pictures, create folders for managing those pictures, and edit the pictures you keep. The Video app lets you access your personal videos (perhaps those you’ve taken with your digital camera), other types of video media you own, and offers access to the Xbox Video store where you can rent or buy movies and TV shows. The Camera app lets you take pictures and video directly from your device (provided that your device includes a camera). Pictures and videos you take with the camera appear in the Pictures folder, and you can view them from the Photos app.

Displaying pictures

If you have pictures saved to your computer in the Pictures library or subfolders therein, you’ll see them when you open the Photos app. If you’ve already created subfolders in the Pictures folder to organize your pictures, you’ll see those subfolders too. You might see a combination of single pictures and subfolders.

Display a picture

  1. From the Start screen, click the Photos tile. The tile might be live and show images on it.

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  2. Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen (move your cursor to see it), to scroll through what’s available.

  3. Click any single picture to view it in full-screen mode.

  4. If there are no single pictures available (but there are subfolders):

    1. Click any subfolder to open it.

    2. Click any picture to view.

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  5. Click the screen.

  6. Click the Back arrow that appears in the top-left portion of the screen to return to the previous view.

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  7. Click the Back arrow again if necessary.

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    Click to view larger image

CAUTION

If you don’t have any pictures saved to your computer, you won’t be able to view them as outlined in this section. However, you can acquire pictures in many ways; you can import them from a digital camera, take them with a built-in camera if one is included with your device, save pictures from the Internet or an email, or copy them from another computer or drive, among other things.

TIP

The pictures that you save to your computer are saved, by default, in a folder called Pictures. Generally, after you acquire so many pictures that the Pictures folder becomes unwieldy, you create subfolders. You learn about the Pictures folder and additional folders (Music, Videos, Documents, and so on) in Section 18, “Managing data.”

Save to your account

This chapter is from the book