Preview Pictures with a

Lightbox Effect in Windows How-to Geek

Bagul Odayewa

CS 101 IT Applications I Section 3

Photo previewer in Windows 7:

We can preview our pictures in a fast and snazzy way in Windows with the Picasa Photo Viewer

Lightbox effect is popular on many websites; click a picture, and the page will fade while the image zoom out larger

• If you’re using Mac OS X, you can quickly preview your pictures and more by selecting them in the Finder and pressing the space bar.

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GET STARTED: oTo get the Picasa Photo Viewer, we’ll have to install the full Picassa application as normal.  Download it from Google at the link below, and then install as normal.

These are all checked by default, so you may want to uncheck them when you’re completing your installation.You’ll need to run Picasa to setup the Photo Viewer.  On first run, select if you want Picasa to scan your computer for pictures or to only scan your Documents and Photos.

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You can now look around the Picasa program…o Now you’ll be presented with the Photo Viewer Configuration window.  Select to Use Picasa Photo Viewer as the default viewer, then select the file types you’d like to viewer with the Viewer or just click Select All.  Don’t worry; if you don’t like the new Viewer, you can always revert back to your previous settings.

You can now look around the Picasa program, or just head back to Windows and continue with your work.  Next time you want to preview a picture, simply double-click the photo or click the Preview button in Windows Explorer.

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Look careful• Your screen will dim, and the

picture will zoom out and display in a full-screen overview.  No window chrome, just your picture and your desktop behind.  The preview loads almost instantly, and looks sharp!  Press the left or right arrows on your keyboard to go to the next images in the folder, or scroll in and out of the picture by scrolling with your mouse wheel.  Close the preview by pressing the Esc key on your keyboard, or click the X in the top right corner.  The preview works beautifully, with zoom in and out animations when opening and closing a preview.

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More…

Click the small thumbnail Play button to start a slideshow

Or, of course, if you’re previewing pictures in Explorer and wish to open a picture directly for editing, click the down arrow beside Preview and select the program of your choice.

If you click the arrow button on the bottom right, you can select to open the picture in any of the installed and compatible image editors or viewers.

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Change Picasa Photo Viewer

SettingsAlternately, select Configure Picasa

Photo Viewer directly in the Start menu.

• Note that Picasa for Linux includes an option for the Photo Viewer, but it didn’t work correctly in our tests

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Disable the Picasa Photo

Viewer

If you decide you’d like to turn off the Picasa Photo Viewer, just open the viewer configuration as above.  On the first tab, click Don’t use Picasa Photo Viewer

Uncheck the Zoom with mousewheel box to turn off this feature, or have the preview open in a window by default by unchecking the Fullscreen startup box.

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Bagul Odayewa

CS 101 IT Applications I Section 3

• http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22455/preview-pictures-with-a-lightbox-effect-in-windows/

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