David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

The Screen Saver

Every year, thousands of people buy those little digital picture frames—small, coarse-looking, expensive LCD screens that do nothing but display a slideshow of photos. But if you stop to think about it, you've got a much nicer digital picture frame already. It's called your computer.

Set up your photos as a screen saver, and after a few minutes of inactivity, your photos fill the screen in bright, full-size glory. It's something like a slideshow, except that the pictures don't simply appear one after another and sit there on the screen; they're much more animated. They slide, zoom, and dissolve from one to the next.

The iPhoto Screen Saver

Collect the photos in an album, if they're not in one already. Click the album in the Source list, and then choose Share→Set Desktop.

iPhoto takes you straight to the Desktop & Screen Saver panel of System Preferences. Click the Screen Saver tab.

In the list at left, there's a long list of different screen saver options. But if you scroll down into the list of Pictures folders, you'll find your iPhoto albums listed. Click the one that contains your screen saver-bound photos. (While you're here, set up your screen saver options—for example, what interval of inactivity should pass before the screen saver kicks in.)

Want to see your new screen saver? If you have the patience of a Zen master, you can now sit there, motionless, staring at your Mac for the next half an hour or so—or as long as it takes for it to begin displaying your images ...