Chapter 27. Viewing Photographs
If you’re like one of many people who own a digital camera (or a mobile phone with a digital camera), you probably already have dozens of digital photographs scattered all over your computer.
To get photographs into your iPad, you’ll need to synchronize them using iTunes (see Chapter 18) or buy Apple’s optional camera connector kit, which lets you plug a digital camera into an iPad through a USB port or through a Secure Digital (SD) card. No matter how you get your pictures into your iPad, you’ll be able to view and use them in different ways.
Remember, you aren’t just limited to storing digital photographs in your iPad. You can store any type of graphic image that’s in the JPEG, TIF, PNG, or GIF file format. That means you can store artwork that someone has created using a program such as Photoshop or Corel Painter or engineering drawings created by a computer-aided design (CAD) program.
In this chapter, you will learn how to view pictures (digital photographs, graphic images, and so on) on your iPad.
What You’ll Be Using
To view pictures on your iPad, you need to use the following:
Viewing Pictures
The Photos app provides several ways to view your pictures:
Photos Lists every picture individually for you to choose
Albums Groups pictures into categories
Events Groups pictures based on the date they were captured
Faces Organizes pictures based on the people in them
Places Organizes pictures based on where they were taken
Note
To take advantage of the Faces feature covered in this chapter, you’ll need to use iPhoto or Aperture (on a Macintosh) to tag pictures with each person’s face. If you’re using a Windows computer, you won’t be able to use the Faces feature. No matter what type of a computer you use, you’ll be able to use the other features because most digital cameras capture the date a picture was taken and some of the newest ones can even identify the location where a picture was taken.
To see all the different ways of viewing your pictures, make sure you have loaded some pictures into your iPad, and then follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Photos. The Photos screen appears.
Tap the Photos tab at the top of the screen. Thumbnail images of all your pictures appear, as shown in Figure 27-1.
Tap any picture. Your chosen picture expands to fill the screen.
Tap the screen to display controls at the top and bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 27-2. (After a few seconds, these controls automatically disappear.) Notice the thumbnail images of pictures that appear at the bottom of the screen.
Tap the screen to display the controls, and tap All Photos in the upper-left corner of the screen to return to the Photos screen.
Tap the Albums, Events, Faces, or Places tab at the top of the screen. Thumbnail images of different groups of your pictures appear.
Tap any album. All the pictures stored in your album appear on the screen. You may need to scroll up and down to see them all.
Tap Albums at the upper-left corner of the screen to return to the Photos screen.
Tap the Events tab at the top of the screen. Thumbnail images of all different dates appear, showing thumbnail images of pictures stored on each date, as shown in Figure 27-3.
Tap any event. All the pictures stored in your album appear on the screen. You may need to scroll up and down to see them all.
Tap Events at the upper-left corner of the screen to return to the Photos screen.
Tap the Faces tab at the top of the screen. Thumbnail images of all your defined faces (using iPhoto or Aperture) appear.
Tap any face. All the pictures that contain that person’s face appear on the screen. You may need to scroll up and down to see them all.
Tap Faces at the upper-left corner of the screen to return to the Photos screen.
Tap the Places tab at the top of the screen. A map with red pins appears, showing the locations where you captured pictures, as shown in Figure 27-4.
Navigating Through Pictures
Being able to find and view all the different ways your iPad has organized your pictures is the first step to looking at them, but once you’ve chosen a particular way to find a picture (Photos, Albums, Events, Faces, or Places), you need to learn how to navigate your way through multiple pictures. To view your pictures, you can choose the following commands:
Tap Selects a picture from a group of thumbnail images of multiple pictures
Swipe Displays the next or previous picture in a group
Slide Lets you scroll through multiple images quickly
To see how these three ways of navigating through groups of pictures work, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Photos. The Photos screen appears.
Tap the Photos tab at the top of the screen. Thumbnail images of all your pictures appear (shown earlier in Figure 27-1).
Tap a picture to view it. Your chosen picture appears on the screen.
Swipe your finger left or right to see the next or previous picture.
Tap the screen to make thumbnail images of all the pictures appear at the bottom of the screen.
Tap and hold any thumbnail image and slide your finger left or right to quickly scroll through your pictures.
Lift your finger off the screen when you’ve found a picture you want to view.
Creating a Slideshow
Viewing pictures by yourself can be fun, but it may be more enjoyable to show your pictures to others. With your iPad, you can create a slideshow to display pictures, one at a time, with various transitions between each picture or even background music.
You can create a slideshow in two ways. First, you can create a slideshow within the Photos app. This can be handy for showing off your latest vacation pictures or pictures of your child’s birthday party.
A second way to create a slideshow is to turn your iPad into an electronic picture frame, which can display pictures when you’re not using your iPad, such as when you’ve put your iPad in an optional recharging dock.
Making a Slideshow Within the Photos App
Creating a slideshow within the Photo app can be handy for impromptu presentations. To create a slideshow, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Photos. The Photos screen appears.
Tap a tab at the top of the screen such as Photos or Albums. If you choose the Photos tab, thumbnail images of all your pictures appears (shown earlier in Figure 27-1). Otherwise, different groups of your pictures appear, which you’ll need to tap to display all the pictures stored inside.
Tap Slideshow in the upper-right corner of the screen. A Slideshow Options window appears, as shown in Figure 27-5.
(Optional) Tap the Play Music on/off switch. If you turned the switch to read ON, tap the Music button, and a list of songs, stored in the iPod app, appears that you can choose.
Tap a transition in the Transition category, such as Cube or Ripple.
Tap Start Slideshow. Your slideshow starts playing using all the pictures stored in the group you selected earlier. The slideshow automatically ends after it has displayed all of your pictures or when you tap the screen.
Turning Your iPad into an Electronic Picture Frame
Apple sells an optional recharging dock where you can prop up your iPad in a base that holds it upright. If you have this optional dock or if you just like the idea of propping your iPad up while it’s plugged in, you can turn your iPad into an electronic picture frame and display pictures stored in the Photos app.
To turn your iPad into an electronic picture frame, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap Picture Frame. The Picture Frame screen appears, as shown in Figure 27-6.
Tap a transition in the Transition category such as Dissolve or Origami.
Tap the Zoom in on Faces on/off switch
Tap the Shuffle on/off switch.
Tap All Photos, Albums, Faces, or Events. If you choose Albums, Faces, or Events, an additional list of items appears at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 27-7. (You may need to scroll down to see all the listed items.)
If you chose Albums, Faces, or Events in the previous step, tap one or more listed items to check (or uncheck) which groups of photos you want to display as part of your electronic picture frame.
Press the Sleep/Wake button at the top of your iPad to put it to sleep.
Press the Sleep/Wake button at the top of your iPad to wake it up. The Picture Frame icon appears at the bottom-right corner of the screen, as shown in Figure 27-8.
Tap the Picture Frame icon. Your picture frame settings now display a slideshow of your chosen pictures.
Tap the screen to pause your picture frame slideshow. The slider and Picture Frame icon appears again.
Tap the Picture Frame icon again to turn off the picture frame slideshow.
Additional Ideas for Viewing Pictures
Don’t limit yourself to digital photographs. Grab copies of famous paintings, images created by your children, or clips from your favorite movies and then store them in the Photos app. If you’re an artistic type, get a painting app for your iPad, create your own art, and show it off using the iPad as your electronic portfolio presentation tool. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then your iPad can help you present your pictures to do the talking for you.