Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Windows® XP Media Center®

Accessing Picture Details

The fastest and easiest way to start fixing and finessing your photos is to highlight

the image you want to work with in the thumbnail view within My Pictures, and

then press the More Info button on the remote control (Details, if you have an HP

system). This works equally well if you are displaying the photo in full-screen mode

or in a slide show, or simply have it highlighted in the thumbnail view. You’ll

instantly be presented with the Picture Details screen (see Figure 19.1), which

includes the following choices:

■ Play Slide Show

■ Rotate (left)

■ Rotate (right)

■ Print

■ Touch Up

■ Next

■ Previous

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ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER

FIGURE 19.1

The Picture

Details screen is

the control center

for moving and

manipulating

images from

within the My

Pictures interface.

Using the tabs on the left side of the Picture Details screen, you can launch a slide

show, rotate the image, print it, fix it, or click to view a different image. Let’s take a

look at some of these controls individually, beginning with the most interesting and

powerful.

The Touch Up Control

When you select the Touch Up option from the Picture Details screen, Media Center

may present you with a range of options for correcting common problems associated

with digital photos (see Figure 19.2).

CHAPTER 19 PREPARING AND SHARING DIGITAL IMAGES

255

FIGURE 19.2

This screen gives

you an opportu-

nity to tweak

your digital

images.

The business end of the Touch Up menu gives you a choice of the following common

procedures for doctoring up your digital images:

■ Red Eye

■ Contrast

In addition, you’ll also have options to save or cancel these operations.

Red Eye

This is another prime example of how the ease of using Media Center’s simple push-

button features can lull you into thinking that nothing very special is going on.

With remote-control ease, you can instruct Media Center to scrutinize your image

and automatically apply the fix your photo needs.

To remove red-eye distortion, simply highlight the Red Eye tab and press OK on the

remote (see Figure 19.3).

What is red-eye, anyway? In this case, it’s not an optical disease, but a visual distor-

tion that occurs when the light from your flash hits the subject’s eyes at just the right

angle, causing a bright red reflection from the blood vessels in a person’s retinas. If

you seem to have a bigger problem with red-eye when you take pictures of kids, it’s

no accident. Children’s pupils are larger and have less coloring than adults, com-

pounding the problem. People with blue or gray eyes also tend to reflect more light

to the lens.

Luckily, the Touch Up feature does a pretty good job of repairing red-eye distortion,

but if you want to try to avoid having red-eye occur in the first place, here are a few

things to try:

■ Turn on all the room lights. This should make the subject’s pupils contract,

reducing red-eye reflections.

■ Ask the subject to look at a bright light just before they say “cheese.”

■ Ask your subject not to look directly at the lens, but slightly away from it.

■ If your flash is detachable, move it away from the camera lens.

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ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER

FIGURE 19.3

The check mark

next to Red Eye

indicates that

Media Center’s

Touch Up feature

has corrected the

red-eye in your

image.

Contrast

The Contrast tab allows you to automatically optimize the light and

dark areas of your image. If you want to compare

the image before and after the contrast fix, select

the tab to remove the check mark. If you prefer

the way the picture looks with the contrast opti-

mized, select Contrast again. The check mark will

be replaced and you can then select Save (if you

try to exit without saving, you’ll be confronted

with the warning screen shown in Figure 19.4).

After selecting the Contrast option and saving the

image, you’ll automatically be returned to the

Picture Details page.

Be sure that you want

My Pictures to make the

changes before you

select Save, because

there’s no going back!

After the changes are made, you

won’t be able to undo them.

caution