SAVING DOWNLOADED PHOTOS
by Phil Ball

Q. I often save images I receive in emails. When I do, Windows suggest that I save them in a folder called "Pictures" and when I do that, I often find it difficult to find them later. Suggestions?

A. If you save many pictures, your "Pictures" folder will soon become cluttered and confusing. You are not locked into either the location suggested or the title they suggest. You may want to rename the images you save from the meaningless title they suggest (like tlp1840.jpg) to something more meaningful like "Happy Cat.jpg" so you can tell at a glance that this is not the image of the Empire State Building that you are looking for.

Doing this is easy because when you save something, the title is already highlighted and all you have to do is start typing a new title. Just don't forget to include the .jpg at the end or Windows won't know what to do with it and it may become hard to find and impossible to open. As long as the line below the Title says ".jpg" for the type of file, Windows will do this for you but watch out for times when Windows says "all files" in the Save As Type area.

For locations, I suggest that you create subfolders within "Pictures" by clicking "New Folder" on the menu bar of the Save As dialog box that you see when you go to save one of these images. Name it something that makes sense to you. I have folders with names like "Not Mine" or even more specifically "Jokes" or "Cartoons" or "Funny Animals" or something expressive like that.

To make it easier to find things, you might also want to click the drop-down arrow at the top right of the Save As dialog box that is called "Change Your View" when you hover your cursor over it without clicking. Choose one of the "Icon" sizes to suit your preferences and you will be presented with thumbnails of the images making it easy to see what each image is without having to actually open it.

Published: Courier 2/21/15 - Page 12A