Super saver

We show you how to customise your computer with a screensaver using your own photographs

Screensavers are one of the easiest and most popular ways of personalising a computer.

They require no great technical knowledge to install or use. But why personalise your computer with someone else’s pictures when you could use your own? Both Windows XP and Vista can use photos stored on your hard disk as screensavers and in this feature we’ll show you how. Screensavers started out as an essential utility. Old monitors would suffer if the same image was left on them for too long.

Eventually the image would burn itself into the screen, leaving an irritating ghost image. In severe cases the monitor could be left unusable. In these days of LCDs and modern CRTs this is no longer necessary but screensavers have become popular. The most basic kind of screensaver simply blanks the screen. Others show pictures or snazzy animations.

All versions of Windows come with a selection of screensavers built in, but the variety that can be found on the internet is so impressive that there is sure to be something to match everybody’s interests.

Making photos into a screensaver
What better way to make a screensaver personal than to use a selection of favourite photos? Windows can do this so there is no need to download and install any extra software. First let’s take a look at the screensaver options window in XP (we’ll look at Vista later in this article). This is found in the Display Properties dialogue box.

Right-click on an empty part of the Desktop and left-click on Properties, then left-click on the Screen Saver tab to see all of the screensaver settings. The dropdown menu is used to select which screensaver you wish to use. Click one and a preview of it appears in the dialogue box’s monitor screen. There are 11 screensavers provided with Windows XP and it is easy to add more.

The Wait option is used to set how long the computer will wait before starting the screensaver. The various 3D screensavers can look impressive, but are a little impersonal for our tastes. The My Pictures Slideshow is much better. Left-click on the dropdown menu and select My Pictures Slideshow. The screen at the top of the window will change to show a preview of what the screensaver will look like.

Unless told otherwise, Windows will use all the images in the My Pictures folder, so you may decide that selecting a specific folder would be more appropriate. To do this, left-click on the Settings button. Left-click on Browse to select a different folder to use. The other options in this window are used to change the size of the images and how often they change. Click on OK and then on Apply to save the changes.

Left-click on the Preview button to check that the settings are correct. This starts the screensaver immediately. It works as normal, so moving the mouse will stop the screensaver.

Words on security and power
Screensavers can be used to keep the computer safe when it is not being used if there is a password set for the User Accounts. Click in the box labelled ‘On resume, display Welcome Screen’ and then on the Apply button. When the screensaver stops, the logon screen appears and a password must be entered to get back into the computer.

The computer is still running as normal when the screensaver is on, so there will be no benefits from any power-saving options. Many animated screensavers, especially those that use 3D graphics in Windows Vista, may use more power than the computer does showing the Windows Desktop.

With this in mind it is a good idea to check the Power options on your computer and change them so that the screensaver switches to a blank screen after a reasonable delay. There is a shortcut to the power options on the computer from the Screen Saver window; click on the Power button at the bottom. The actual options that can be changed will depend on whether the computer is a notebook or desktop.

Notebooks have more options as there is a greater need to conserve power.

Photo screensavers in Vista
The photo screensaver in Windows Vista is more powerful than that of its predecessor, as it can use photos from the internet or videos stored on the computer. Right-click on the Desktop and select Personalize. Left-click on the blue title text ‘Screen Saver’, then left-click on the dropdown menu and select Windows Live Photo Gallery. Click on the Settings button.

Make sure the button option ‘Use photos and videos from’ is selected and then click on Browse. Select the folder with the photos you want to use as the screensaver and click on OK. The theme option can be used to add pan and zoom or sepia effects to the photos, or select Random for variation or the ‘Shuffle contents’ option to display the photos out of order.

Click on the Save button to accept the options and close the window.

More versatile images
Although the Windows screensavers can show personal photos, the options for manipulating them are limited. Photocafe is a free download that is more creative with the photos on display and can take images from the internet. Photocafe can be downloaded for free here. Once the file has finished downloading, double-click on it and follow the installation wizard.

After this has finished, Photocafe will be available in the screensaver menu in Display Properties. Click on the Settings button to see all the options.

Editing photos for screensavers
Just as some images need editing before being printed, some may need to be changed to suit use as a screensaver. For these demonstrations we will use Paint.net, an improved version of the Paint software supplied with Windows. It can be downloaded here. It requires the .NET Framework software. More information on installing this can be found here.

To install Paint.net, double-click on the download and then on Next. Click on the I Agree option and then on Next again to start the installation. This may take a few minutes. Click on Finish when it is done.
To start, click on the Start button, then on All Programs and Paint.NET. Before editing the pictures, save them first with a different name. Click on the File menu and select Save As….

Enter a new name and click on Save, leaving the original file unaffected.

Cut to fit
Cropping a photo removes unwanted areas around the subject and it’s simple to do. Left-click on the top-left icon in the Tools toolbar. Position the cursor at the top left of the area you want to keep, press the left mouse button and, without letting go, drag the mouse to the bottom-right corner of the area to keep and let go.

You will find that the area selected now has a moving dotted line around it and is shaded blue.

Don’t worry, as this is just to highlight it and will not affect the image. Click on the Image menu and select Crop to Selection. If the cropping is not right, press Ctrl and Z together to undo the change and start again.
Digital cameras can often lack contrast, leaving the results a little dull and uninspiring. Fortunately, the Auto Levels tool provides a quick fix. Click on the Adjustments menu and select Auto Levels.

Small blemishes are easy to remove with the Clone Stamp tool. This takes a part of the image and copies it elsewhere on the image. This relies on there being an undamaged part of the image but it’s easy to use. The Clone Stamp tool is the eighth icon down on the left of the Tools toolbar. Find an area that you want to use to cover the damaged one, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the left mouse button.

Now release the Ctrl key, move the cursor over the blemish and draw by holding down the left mouse button and moving the mouse. The tool essentially copies the area around the original selection. Release the button and then click again to start from the first selection. Windows Vista comes with several animated screensavers that have a more modern look than those that have been in Windows XP.

Aurora simulates the Northern Lights, while Ribbons shows multicoloured ribbons across a black background. Bubbles blows bubbles over whatever is on the screen ­ – a more subtle effect, but attractive nonetheless. Windows Energy is based around the logon screen graphics.

Other uses for screensavers
Not all screensavers are simply for entertainment purposes. Because they are only active when the computer is not in use, they can be used to perform intensive tasks that would otherwise slow the computer down. A famous example of this is the SETI@home project. The screensaver software is used to analyse the signals from radio telescopes in the hope of finding extra-terrestrial life.

By using millions of computers at the same time, the work is completed much faster than even a supercomputer could manage. More information about the projects can be found here. Some anti-virus software can also be set to scan when the screensaver is active. There are other distributed computing projects with more tangible benefits than SETI.

One example is the Folding@home project from Stanford University in America. The goal is to understand how proteins work in the hope of finding cures for diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. With more than two million users, the results have been used in about 50 academic papers.
The software can be downloaded here and will work just as a screensaver or at all times.

The work can be performed completely anonymously or with a username so your efforts can be recorded.
There’s no better way to say something about yourself than with a screensaver, either at home or even in the office. They can also help keep files on the computer safe by providing a visual display that the computer is not in use and has been locked.

And it’s very easy to make them personal as most of the tools are already included in Windows, with even more available in Windows Vista. So go on, there’s no excuse for a boring screensaver.