How I Made My Own Free Screensaver Slide Show
Let Your Computer be Your Digital Photo Frame

Would you like to see your favorite photos in a continuous slide show? Would you like to have a digital photo frame without the hassle and expense? You can easily turn your computer into a free digital photo frame. Your computer actually has the built-in capability to make and run a slide show of your favorite photos. It is easy to set up with only four clicks. No special skills or programming is required! Best of all, it is absolutely free.

Free Screensaver Slide Show on Your Computer

A screensaver is a single photo displayed on your computer monitor when the computer is not in use. But your computer can also run a slide show as your screensaver, displaying your favorite pictures one after another in a continuous stream of images. You can set how long you want each picture to display, and you can choose the type of transition you like between photos.

Show off the photos of your wedding, family and friends, parties, pets, holidays decorations and travel. Your printed photos are probably stored in a dusty album that no one ever sees. But everyone can enjoy a screensaver slide show on your computer with bright and clear images large enough for everyone to see comfortably. It's a great way to share photos in a casual setting.

Computer Screensavers Are Useful

In the early days of computers, if a single image was displayed on a Cathode Ray Tube computer monitor for a long time, a permanent dark shadow or "ghost" image appeared on the screen. Screensaver were first designed to prevent this "burn-in" on the monitor when the computer is not in use by making the screen black or by filling it with moving images or patterns. After Dark and Flying Toasters were early popular screensavers.

Today screensavers are used primarily for entertainment or security. A screensaver adds to your personal viewing enjoyment. A screensaver makes your computer unique. You can download ready-made animated screensavers with a variety of themes like jungle animals, holidays, waterfalls, fish, and fractals.

You can also create a screensaver for business clients, conferences, expos and demos, too. In the business world, these high-impact presentations on your screensaver can be used to promote and advertise your products. This is invaluable in sales calls, exhibits, and conferences. Your computer screensaver can build buzz and help brand your company.

Three Easy Steps to a Screensaver Slide Show on Your Computer

Here is how to make your own free computer screensaver without software or coding mumbo jumbo. Any photos or other image files on your computer will work. Every photo has a file name that ends with a special extension, like .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .bmp or .gif. To get some sample photos, you can always use the default My Pictures folder for your screensaver slide show.

• Step #1. Decide which computer folder of photographs to use for a screensaver. Remember its name.
• Step #2. In Windows XP, right click your mouse on an unused part of the desktop, where there are no icons. From the pop-up menu, choose Display Properties. In the next menu, titled "Display Properties", select the Screen Saver tab.
• Step #3 Scroll through the choices for screensavers, and choose "My Pictures Slideshow." Click on the Settings Button. Now you click Browse to select the photo folder to use for a screensaver slide show. You can set your options for the display speed. Choose full-screen picture size for the full impact. Then click OK to close each menu. You're ready for some fun.

How to Run Your Screensaver Slide Show

There are no complicated instructions to operate your slide show. Your screensaver slide show will start automatically whenever the computer is idle for the length of time you specified, say two or three minutes.

How to Make Your Screensaver Slide Show In Vista

The Vista operating system makes it easiy to organize your photos through the Windows Photo Gallery feature. Open the Photo Gallery, and from the menu click on File – Screensaver – Settings. Click on Screen Saver List and select your choice of photos. You can customize your slide show with the settings available. Click OK to close the menu. Your first screensaver slide show is ready to roll.

Adding Text to Your Screensaver Slide Show

Are you familiar with the Paint software application that comes with your computer? Using Paint, you can create simple image files with personal text messages of inspiration and motivation, and display them on your computer screen in a screensaver slide show.

Other Ways to Make a Personal Screensaver Slide Show

There are other ways to create free screensaver slide shows.

• Powerpoint allows you to convert any powerpoint presentation into a series of image files. You can then define your screensaver as above.
• Picasa is free photo management software from Google. After you download Picasa, it will create a screensaver with lots of options. Picasa will even create screensavers from photos you have collected on Flickr, Photobucket, or photo feeds.
• The photo site Flickr.com has an open source tool called Flickr.NET. It creates screensavers from photos stored on Flickr.
• If you want rich and animated content for your screensaver then Flash is the way to go. If you have Flash movies, you can make a screensaver slide show from them, with the help of software. The software is called a swf-to-scr converter. One free software package is called InstantStorm. This free software for Windows helps you to create Flash-based screensavers as executable files.

I hope life brings you much success.
I wish you a very happy day.

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