Chapter 8 Mastering Digital Pics & Music

I've been working with digital pictures and music files for a long time. I already knew how to import pictures from my digital camera to the computer, edit, enhance, save, print or order prints online. I did this without using the applications that comes with Windows, preferring to use third party software. It was a nice change of pace to learn how to use the Windows applications to work with my digital files, I loved some of the features and the ease of use.

For example, I like how easy it is to rename a group of files, and tagging them to make files easier to find. The text book emphasizes the importance of making a backup copy of pictures you edit in case you make a mistake and can't go back to the original. I always do this anyway, but it's nice to be reminded and also learn another way to create backups without the old right click, copy, name the file, save. I loved the option to view pictures and videos with the aid of a table of contents.This allows you to see your picture and video files by location on the computer along with details of each file.

One of the differences from the text book and the latest version of Windows Live was encountered during the editing pictures segment. To correct red-eye in a picture, the text book says to click the 'Fix' button. Instead of a 'Fix' button I would select an option on the 'Adjustments' ribbon such as 'red eye'. The red eye feature is pretty straight forward. To correct red eye in your photo you trace a rectangle around the eye using the mouse pointer. The application automatically adjusts without any other interaction on my part. One thing that I noticed was a 'Fine tune' button. I clicked on this and a navigation panel opened on the right side of the screen with options to adjust exposure, color, straighten photo, adjust detail. I really liked that! This application won't replace my Microsoft Digital Image Pro for editing photos but I will use it for quick and easy touch-ups such as the red eye feature. One other feature I found very useful is when you do make changes to a file such as applying a black and white filter, you can easily revert back to the original picture later after making changes. You can also order prints online through the gallery using order prints online dialog box. I almost always use Walgreens which isn't one of the options. I go to the Walgreens website to upload photos to order prints. It's convenient for me because I live very close to a Walgreens.

Windows DVD Maker allows you to make a DVD of your files. I've not made DVD's this way but it's pretty straight forward and easy, so I can see myself using this application in the future.You can use Windows Media Player (WMP) to sync your Mp3 player with your music files, rip music from CDs to your library, play your music, and burn CDs. I did like using the Player to rip music and create a music CD. There was more flexibility (or so it seem) than when using iTunes to do this. Creating a playlist was easy enough, comparable to using iTunes.

The activity for this chapter involved using Help and Support to learn more about using WMP, answering questions on the various functionality of the Player. I learned that one of the conditions that needs to be met for WMP to default to automatic sync is the device storage capacity must be 4GB or more. Another condition is your entire Player library must also fit on the device. I have a 160GB iPod and my music library is under 12GB at this time. However my other device is only 1GB, so I would need to manually sync the files in this case.