How to Scan a Picture in Windows 7

Windows 7 has a bunch of new features that tend to pop up in the oddest of places. You'll be doing some standard computing, and you'll realize that there's something improved or new in Windows 7 that can help you handle a certain task.

One such task is scanning and printing, where Windows 7 has taken a few steps to make the process easier for home computer users.

Here's a quick guide to scanning a picture using Windows 7.

1. Click on Start on the Windows 7 task bar. Navigate to All Programs, Windows Live, and click on the Windows Live Photo Gallery. Place your picture on your scanner face down.

2. In the Windows Live Photo Gallery, click File. Go down to "Import from camera or scanner" and click. Choose your scanner from the menu that pops up. Click on Import.

3. Choose your scanner's settings. Depending on what you're using the scanned image for, you might need to change something in the dialog box that pops up. A higher DPI (dots per inch) will improve the quality of your scanned images in Windows 7, but higher quality images take up more of your hard drive space. You can also change your brightness, contrast, and color settings. The default settings should get you a fairly accurate scanned image, but feel free to experiment with the options in this box, especially if your scanned images tend to come out too dark, light, or low quality to be usable.

4. Click Preview. This will give you a good idea of your scan before you actually complete it. Depending on your scanner, it may take a while for Windows 7 to pull up a preview.

5. When you're happy with the preview, hit Scan. When the scan is completed, hit import to save the file. Windows 7 also allows you to "tag" your friends and family in scanned pictures. This can be a good way to organize your photos. If you want to tag someone in a scanned picture, the process is similar to the social networking website Facebook's tag feature. Click Tag These Pictures and follow the on screen instructions to tag your scanned images in Windows 7.

Once you're finished, you can modify the images that you've scanned, save them to your desktop, or do whatever else you'd like with them.